Brooklyn Beckham, the eldest son of Victoria and David Beckham, has been accused of racism by Chinese netizens after posting photos of Asian tourists in Italy on Instagram.
The 19-year-old posted images of several Asian tourists sitting on a gondola and another woman walking in a supermarket aisle with the caption "No place like Italy innit" on his personal Instagram account on Friday.
Brooklyn Beckham posted an Instagram photo of several Asian women sitting on a gondola during his trip in Italy. /Screenshot of Instagram
Brooklyn Beckham posted an Instagram photo of an Asian woman walking in a supermarket aisle during his trip in Italy. /Screenshot of Instagram
The post was also liked by Romeo Beckham and Cruz Beckham, Brooklyn's brothers.
Many Chinese users found the post really offensive not only to the Chinese community but also to the whole Asian community as they believed he was trying to imply that there shouldn't be too many Asian tourists appeared in a European country.
Therefore, thousands of angry comments left by Chinese users flooded Brooklyn's Instagram post immediately.
A Chinese netizen leaves comment below Brooklyn Beckham's post. /Screenshot of Instagram
"…They [Chinese tourists] are free to go anywhere. I don't know what you mean by posting this. But Italy is fill [filled] with all sorts of tourists and I bet there are also a lot of Europeans," an Instagram user @chekejin commented below the post.
A Chinese netizen leaves comment below Brooklyn Beckham's post. /Screenshot of Instagram
"Just because people are from a different culture than you are doesn't make you superior to them and it's wrong to discriminate or degrade people who mind their own business and don't offend you. There are tons of European tourists in Italy as well as in New York and I don't see you posting specific stuff about that so this isn't a very friendly post," commented Instagram user @_zhengl.
Many Chinese netizens also took to domestic social media platform Weibo to criticize his rude behavior.
Chinese netizen criticizes Brooklyn Beckham's "racist" behavior on Chinese social media platform Weibo. /Screenshot of Weibo
"For whatever reason, it is impolite for him to take pictures of others without their knowledge. And why doesn't the place look like Italy anymore only with the presence of Chinese tourists?" commented a user @chihuoliuyouyou on Weibo.
The post had been later deleted by Brooklyn and his Instagram account was set private.
Coincidentally, the post clashed with the ongoing China's National Day holiday that kicked off on October 1, therefore many related the issue to the increasing number of Chinese tourists traveling in Europe during the week-long holiday.
In recent years, more and more Chinese people prefer to spend their holiday traveling abroad. An estimated seven million Chinese people were expected to spend their National Day holiday traveling overseas this year, according to a tourism report made by Ctrip, Chinese online travel agency.