Family Caught Red-Handed Stealing from a Bali Hotel
I thought several times before posting this. But in the end, I could not resist.
In an undated incident, a family – presumably from India – was caught red-handed in Bali. They were attempting to steal several items including a hair dryer, toiletries and what looks like a decorative pot.
#Bali Incident
Some people – either onlookers or hotel staff – recorded the incident on video. As expected, the video has become a sensation on social media. You can view the video here
This family was caught stealing hotel accessories. Such an embarrassment for India.
Each of us carrying an #IndianPassport must remember that we are ambassadors of the nation and behave accordingly.
India must start cancelling passports of people who erode our credibility. pic.twitter.com/unY7DqWoSr
— Hemanth (@hemanthpmc) July 27, 2019
Most of the conversation is in English. Although some other languages can also be heard. One of those is Hindi and hence the presumption that the family was Indian. It is another matter that a humongous number of Indian-origin people are citizens or residents of other countries.
If you were not able to understand, here is my ‘neutral’ take on the incident.
A family was staying in a hotel in Bali. Either during their stay or on checkout, they got into an argument with hotel staff and yelled at them. Some members of the family stole items from their room. This was discovered and they were asked to open their bags for inspection. Like skeletons tumbling out of a closet, stolen items started coming out one after the other. The family, initially offered to pay and then pleaded the hotel staff to let them go because they were getting late for their flight.
The staff, however, seemed in no mood to relent. It is unclear from the video what happened next. There was a uniformed person in the video but he might be part of hotel security rather than a policeman. I googled Bali police and it seems their uniform is different.
Addressing the Race Angle
There are several stereotypes associated with travelers from various countries. Indians are too demanding, Chinese have too many selfie sticks, French are rude, Americans are ignorant. The list is rather long.
It is not to stay that stereotypes are completely baseless. Neither is this a ‘one-size-fits-all’ kind of situation.
Stereotypes often play in the mind of hosts as well. By host I mean anyone that interacts with a tourist – hotel staff, immigration officers, tourist guides etc. In fact, I have only faced one such incident ever. It was during my first trip to Manhattan and I was in a cab. I was not aware of the tipping culture in US. When I paid the driver the exact fare as per the meter, he burst out and alleged ‘You Indians are so cheap!’
I was young and kind of taken aback. What did I do next? I certainly did not incriminate all the taxi drivers of New York. In a similar vein, why should the behavior of one family be a reflection of all tourists from India?
Many people commenting on this incident on social media claim that it is not an isolated incident. A businessman and a multi-millionaire from India, Harsh Goenka received this notice from a hotel in GStaad.
Reading this notice I felt angry, humiliated and wanted to protest.
But a realisation dawned that we as tourists are loud, rude, not culturally sensitive. With India becoming an international power, our tourists are our best global ambassadors. Let’s work on changing our image! pic.twitter.com/7R4ZrZIXKi— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) July 22, 2019
This is where I diverge from the general sentiment on social media. This note, singling out Indians specifically, is racist. Sure, the hotel wants to ‘educate’ its guests about its policies. However, it cannot be aimed to a specific section of people without racist connotation. And as expected, the hotel has tendered an apology.
https://twitter.com/dineshjoshi70/status/1154222974221914112
Final Thoughts
In no way am I defending what happened in Bali. It does not matter if your stay has not been worth the money you paid for. Or even if the service was not good. There is no justification in stealing hotel property.
However, does that mean every tourist from India (or looking Indian) is a potential thief and needs to be taught ‘travel etiquette’? I cannot agree.
What is your take on this incident? Comments are welcome.
What a hogwash. Politicians steal all the time. They steal by getting their buddies to write laws suitable for themselves. They steal by paying zero taxes. The dumb fyck that is president of the USA actually boasts he is good at stealing.
If this hotel was a big chain like mariott then that chain steals through resort fees. This family should not feel embarrassed if it stole from a rich corporate chain. In fact the hotel staff should be embarrassed trying to put down law as if the money is coming from their own pocket.
Common men are like crabs pulling each other down and the rich corporates are watching the fun. People are stupid.
Politicians steal, Big hotel chains steal. And we hate them don’t we?
Does that justify stealing? Don’t think.
No. It doesn’t justify it. But indians need to get a grip about what this family did (which was stupid but not criminally violent) and what assholes in n power that invariably are white do. This is similar to a black man getting shot for stealing a bag of chips in the US while a white man gets away raping underage girls for years protected by his white buddies.
Now you might say what that has that got to do with this incident. What I am saying is look at this incident in isolation and it is condemnable but compare it to despicable things that other “civilized people that follow the law” do and it’s nothing. We common people are our own worst enemy. We have a higher bar of standards for each other while giving a free pass to people in power and wealth etc because they are too well connected, too well lawyered up etc.
Interesting analysis. I agree that it is not a reflection of Indians in general and those who think otherwise are probably going overboard. Disagree with everything else though. To each his own.
Very bad logic!
Taxation is stealing in the first place so those who support less taxes are just supporting less theft. The left wants high taxes, the right wants lower taxes. But anything over zero is still wrong.
The family should have watched:
https://youtu.be/8EZ3d0VO0dM
Yeah. Ross is wise
I think what would have been appropriate would have been to address it to “Dear Guests” because it is only not tourists from India who do things like this.
I don’t think the note was racist if some people from India behaved this way, instead it was discrimination because only people from India were mentioned and people from other countries were not. The letter was discriminatory, not racist.
Like others, I have heard very loud Chinese, Indian, American, European tourists. It always annoys me and I hate it, but I understand that many are simply behaving the way they do at home and don’t realize how much their behavior bothers others.
Well said. I consider racism as a form of discrimination but I get where you are coming from.
More than likely the family has been or will be executed.
That is unlikely and would certainly have made front page news.
Stereotypes are generally true that’s why they emerge in the first place. Blacks and non white latinos are dangerous as they commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime no matter where they are in the world. The Chinese have poor manners as tourists and Indians nickel and dime the opposite way as customers instead of as merchants,
I am uncomfortable with the suggestions that passports be taken from people. People ought to have freedom of movement as tourists (of course illegal immigration and a lot of legal immigration is bad).
That’s just bad generalization not stereotypes. And no one spoke about immigration.
You mentioned Blacks, Hispanics, Indians, Chinese. Do you realize Germans, French, British and Americans have stereotypes as well?
I hope the police got called and faced the Indonesian justice system. What low life would steal from a hotel room. I get people take the soaps but not the fixtures. That fact that the hotel had to ask Indian guest not to steal says a lot about them as a whole.
And the hotel apologized upon backlash. Good or bad, Indians travel in hordes to Switzerland every summer.
I see you don’t monetize pointsofarabia.com, don’t waste your traffic, you can earn extra cash every month with new monetization method.
This is the best adsense alternative for any type of website (they approve all
sites), for more details simply search in gooogle: murgrabia’s tools
It helps to ‘narrow the issues’ in cases like this (no pun intended).
Firstly, what’s ‘okay’ to take from hotels is a common subject, though it’s generally accepted where the lines are.
Secondly, on viewing the video, it needs to just be viewed as people – not races, cultures or whatever. Clearly it’s not representational unless biased people want to take a vested interest to skew a worldview a certain way.
Thirdly, one wonders what triggered this incident – presumably the hotel had good reason to check these folk, and I wouldn’t automatically assume it was a cultural bias.
Fourthly, shame on those people for downright theft. The way they instantly offered to pay indicates they knew the value of what they were trying to nab, but – and more insultingly – the mere offer of ‘paying’ is disrepectful to say the least.
All excellent points Shaun.