People visit the Wenchuan Earthquake Memorial Museum in the town of Qushan, Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, May 9, 2013. The museum was officially opened to the public for free on Thursday to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake, which hit Sichuan on May 12, 2008. (Xinhua/Xue Yubin)

A video of a guide scolding tourists who laughed during a tour of the memorial for the Wenchuan Earthquake went viral on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo, with many Chinese netizens expressing approval.

An official in Wenchuan county, Southwest China's Sichuan Province called on visitors to remain solemn on Tuesday. "The site is the remains of the Xuankou Middle School in Yingxiu town, which is a sacred place. Visitors should remain solemn," said the official on Tuesday, reported The Paper.

Yingxiu was the epicenter of the Wenchuan earthquake on May 12, 2008, which killed almost 70,000 people.

In the video, which was uploaded on Monday morning by Feidian Video under Yidian Zixun, a Beijing-based news and information aggregator, a guide was talking to the tourists in front of the earthquake site. Several tourists at the side did not listen to what the guide was saying and laughed occasionally. 

The guide then rebuked the tourists for their behavior and told them, "I have just heard you laugh a few times. If I you do this again, please leave." 

He Xiaoyan, the guide in the video, said on Tuesday that most of the residents in the town were earthquake survivors who had "personal experience of the tragedy," reported The Paper.

The reaction of He got widespread applause from Chinese netizens. The topic, "guide scolding laughing tourists at memorial site of Wenchuan earthquake," was viewed more than 390 million times on Sina Weibo, with over 14,000 comments.

"The quality levels of tourists are different. For those with bad manners, criticism and education are needed," a Weibo user commented.

A poll with the question "What would you do if you encounter this kind of situation?" carried out by Feidian Video has attracted votes from 112,000 participants. Over 56,000 said that they would "scold them directly."

China's Tourism Law stipulates that tourists should abide by social public order and social ethics and observe the norms of civilized behavior in tourism activities.

"This event touched the most sensitive part of the moral concept. Maybe the tourists have no malice, but what they have shown is contempt for socially recognized moral principles," said Li.

"Civilized tourism belongs to the category of social morality, and the problem of poorly behaved tourists should be solved gradually with the evolution of civilization," Li said. "There should be some people standing up to point out the problems."

"Such places, including earthquake memorial sites, the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre and red tourist attractions serve a social educational function," Li Mingde, an academic adviser at the Tourism Research Center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"It is essential that guides in such places should dissuade tourists from such behavior. In addition, the whole of society, including schools, parents, the general public and tourists, should also shoulder the responsibility for civilized behavior," he said.

In April 2020, a man was detained for five days and fined 200 yuan for carving a message on the Badaling Great Wall in Beijing. The man and his companion were put on a "blacklist" by the scenic spot, restricting ticket purchase qualification, according to Guangming Daily.