In North Korea's case, these complaints about tourists may even be a signal of authenticity from a country that loves pumping positive stories out about itself. Servando reports:

The Chinese tourism office says 237,400 Chinese travelled to North Korea last year, 22.5 per cent more than in 2011, but a North Korean tourism official has claimed as many as 700,000 came in 2010-11.

But for country like North Korea, with the several warnings and travel restrictions it carries, you could see how they want to overlook these transgressions. And apparently, Chinese tourists may be even less beloved than Americans. "I don't see tensions, but I would think that the Chinese are even less popular as individuals than the Americans. I think because the Chinese are close by, while the Americans are abstract - they're far away and there's a lot of propaganda about them," Cockerell said. Ouch.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.