Sometimes, it does pay to get angry on social media.
Travel guide Lonely Planet has announced that it will update its video which credited the Philippine landmark Banaue Rice Terraces to the Chinese after it was inundated with angry comments saying that it was actually built by the Ifugao people.
“We now recognise that our claim that they were introduced 2000 years ago by the Chinese is misleading,” Lonely Planet says in a statement published on its social media accounts.
It also said that it would update the video “The World Greenest Places,” where the error was featured.
The video posted on Facebook on Sunday said of the rice terraces: “These mud-walled terraces were first built around 2000 years ago by the Chinese.” It was immediately taken down after the social media backlash.
Netizens were up in arms about Lonely Planet’s video and took to social media to call them out.
The error couldn’t have come at a worse time, seeing as anti-China sentiments are growing in the Philippines. This is brought by President Rodrigo Duterte’s warming relations with the Asian superpower, his lackluster defense of the disputed West Philippine Sea, and the ongoing controversy about the influx of Chinese workers in the Philippines, among other issues.
The Banaue Rice Terraces is one of the most well-known landmarks in the Philippines. The terraces were carved into the mountains of the Ifugao province in northern Luzon and the landmark is seen as a symbol of bayanihan, or the spirit of coming together.
Lonely Planet has also edited the write up in the Banaue Rice Terraces’ page on their website, which originally said that that the terraces were “introduced around 2000 years ago by the Chinese.” As of this article’s posting, the page has no mention of the Chinese.
It also said that it would correctly attribute the terraces in an updated edition of their printed guide to the Philippines.
