点评:We were at the end of the 30 person group, which walked along single file, and could not hear our guides, a teenager and a 70 year old man. No big deal, it was still a fun cave! We allowed our children (9, 7, 5 and 3) to chatter happily about the cave while we walked along--reading the signs out loud, talking about the Tom Sawyer story, things like that. We were not aware that the cave acoustics meant that, even though we could not hear the guide, people at the front could still hear our children's more high-pitched voices and it made it difficult for them to hear the guide.
I genuinely feel bad about this! We don't let our children be disruptive in public; we genuinely did not realize we were being so loud. But instead of letting us know so we could do something about it during the tour (there were a few large chambers where the group was all together and there would have been an opportunity for this) the older guide waited till the end, gathered the group in a circle, and told us "You people really need to learn how to control your children. It is just common courtesy." The rest of the group stood and scowled at us. It was painfully embarrassing, which was the point; the tour guide appeared to be really enjoying our discomfort.
So, we were loud, and people could not hear the tour guide. Again, I feel bad about this. But I don't think this called for a dramatic public shaming session after it was too late to do anything about it. They probably shouldn't have such large groups that people at the back cannot hear, or should exclude children 5 and under, but that would lose revenue. You would think that at least they would say something during the spiel at the beginning of the tour -- "try to keep your kids' voices down in the back because they carry further than you realize."
We spoke with the cave owners and they just said "wow, nothing like this has ever happened before" -- which seemed like another way of saying, "wow, your kids must just really be the worst ever to come through the cave, so we are not going to do anything about it." Then they offered us *more cave tickets.* We declined.
翻译:我们排在 30 人队伍的末尾,我们排成一列行走,听不到我们的导游、一名青少年和一名 70 岁老人的讲解。没什么大不了的,这仍然是一个有趣的洞穴!我们允许我们的孩子(9 岁、7 岁、5 岁和 3 岁)在我们行走时愉快地谈论洞穴——大声朗读标志、谈论汤姆索亚的故事,诸如此类。我们没有意识到洞穴的声学效果意味着,即使我们听不到导游的声音,前面的人仍然可以听到我们孩子更高的声音,这让他们很难听到导游的声音。
我真的为此感到难过!我们不允许我们的孩子在公共场合扰乱秩序;我们真的没有意识到我们的声音这么大。但是,年长的导游并没有让我们知道,以便我们在游览期间采取措施(有几个大房间,所有人都聚集在一起,有机会这样做),而是等到最后,把大家围成一圈,告诉我们“你们这些人真的需要学会如何控制自己的孩子。这只是基本的礼貌。”其他人站着怒视着我们。这真是太尴尬了,这正是关键所在;导游似乎真的很享受我们的不适。
所以,我们大声喧哗,人们听不到导游的声音。再次,我对此感到难过。但我认为这不需要在为时已晚之后进行戏剧性的公开羞辱。他们可能不应该接待这么多人,以至于后面的人听不到,或者应该把 5 岁及以下的孩子排除在外,但这样会损失收入。你会认为他们至少会在游览开始时的演讲中说些什么——“尽量让孩子们在后面的声音小一点,因为他们的声音比你想象的要大。”
我们与洞穴主人交谈,他们只是说“哇,以前从来没有发生过这样的事”——这似乎是在说“哇,你的孩子一定是有史以来最差劲的,所以我们不会采取任何措施。”然后他们向我们提供了“更多的洞穴门票”。我们拒绝了。