Chinese Adolescent 15 Destroys 3500 Year Old Egyptian Relic

'Ding Jinhao was here': Chinese tourist, 15, defaces 3,500-year-old Egyptian relic

Newspoint

First posted: Monday, May 27, 2013 03:30 AM EDT | Updated: Monday, May 27, 2013 06:37 AM EDT

"Ding Jinhao was here" was written in Mandarin on an ancient monument at a Luxor temple on the edge of the Nile River. (Kongyouwuyi/Newspoint)

Parents of a 15-year-old boy have apologized after their son posted a photo to Chinese social media platform Weibo showing his name graffitied into the face of a 3,500-year-old temple relic he recently visited as a tourist in Egypt.
The graffiti, in crooked Mandarin script scratched the phrase "Ding Jinhao was here" into the priceless, ancient monument at a Luxor temple on the edge of the Nile River.
The incident which prompted an online "human flesh search" to determine the boy's identity in order to harass him.
A photo posted online by a Weibo user named "Kongyouwuyi" (Shen) shows several Chinese characters crookedly written on delicate sandstone on the east bank of the Nile River in Egypt, which has a history of more than 3,000 years.
Shen, the micro blogger who posted the picture of vandalized relics, visited the Egyptian temple on May 6. "I felt embarrassed. It was my most unhappy moment in Egypt."
The photo has been shared more than 90,000 times since Friday, triggering outrage in the Chinese social media sphere. Social media users engaged in what is colloquially known as a "human flesh search" - seeking information on Ding Jinhao - and quickly revealed Ding was 15-year-old middle school student in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province.
Ding's school website was hacked on Sunday. Visitors were forced to click on a message box which said "Ding has visited this place" before entering the website, according to the Beijing News. The site can no longer be accessed.
Ding's parents contacted local media Saturday, apologizing for their son, admitting that they hadn't properly educated their child and pleaded for society to give him a chance.
Li Shaofu, of Modern Express - the only journalist to have had direct contact with the boy's parents - said the boy has become increasingly distressed on realizing the impact of his crime, and his family has been forced to move from house to house because of the swarm of reporters who have descended.
Gu Xiaoming, a professor at the Tourism Management Department of Fudan University, said the 'human flesh search' had gone too far. "It's not only the boy, there are other tourists that leave graffiti on relics. But as the person is a minor, more protection and education should be given to him rather than criticism," Gu said.