Chinese Youth Defaces Egyptian Temple, Chinese Citizens Outraged

By Gilbert Falso :: 10:58 PM

When 15-year-old Ding Jinhao from Nanjing China visited the Luxor Temple in Egypt earlier this month, he decided to leave behind a mark of his presence on the 3,500 year old monument.

Jinhao carved into a stone sculpture inside the temple, and wrote in Chinese, “Ding Jinhao was here.” A short time later, another Chinese tourist happened to walk by the same sculpture where Jinhao carved his mark, and snapped a picture of it (see above).

The unnamed tourist posted the picture to Weibo, a Twitter-like microblogging service that is popular in China. “The saddest moment in Egypt. I’m so embarrassed that I want to hide myself. I said to the Egyptian tour guide,’I’m really sorry,'” the tourist wrote in the post with the picture.

Outraged Weibo users reacted quickly to the post of the defaced sculpture, and tracked down Jinhao in his hometown. The original post to Weibo was shared nearly 90,000 times, and received over 18,000 comments.

Jinhao’s parents quickly approached the media to head off the tide of criticism across China towards their son. “We want to apologize to the Egyptian people and to people who have paid attention to this case across China,” said Jinhao’s in an interview with China Daily.

Staff at the Luxor monument have attempted to remove the graffiti from the sculpture, but due to the fragile nature of the surface, they have only been able to slightly correct the damage.