The Things You Learn

When away from home, you learn about things that you possibly never would had you just stayed in the same place. It's inevitable in a way. Things like the intricacies (or lack thereof) of foreign transport systems, the taste of different kinds of food and some basic features of common life are all things that you can't help but learn when travelling. One can learn more than that, though.

For example, how many people can say (without looking it up first) what the third tallest building in the ancient world was? I certainly couldn't - not until the same day I went to see it recently. The first two are easy to name: at 146 and 142m in height respectively, the Pyramids of Cheops and Chefren are world-famous, and easily the most distinctive structures in Egypt. Even if people cannot remember the names of the Pharaohs interred within, most people would at least be able to point out their location. Ask people to name the third tallest structure, however, and it's a bit like asking them to name the full crew of Apollo 11: they remember that there was Neil Armstrong, Buzz Alrdin and some other guy.

Given a chance to guess, most people would throw out a few possibilities: perhaps it was a pyramid in Peru? Those knowledgeable about their Ancient Wonders might suggest the Pharos at Alexandria, which would earn them a cookie for being almost right, however even before its destruction in the early 14th century, the Pharos was eclipsed as the third tallest building in the world by a country far removed from Egypt.

Tourism in Developing Countries

Personally, I'm not hugely keen on the "tourist Meccas", such as Thailand, Bali, and so on: I've been to Thailand, and while I enjoyed myself, and my trip definitely met my requirement of "being warmer than the 1 degree average temperature with no heating that I had to deal with in China", I found the trip somewhat lacking in general, due to the large number of tourists everywhere. Now, I'm certainly not begrudging the Thai people their tourist industry, and Thailand does certainly have natural beauty and a culture that is worth exploring as a tourist, however when a country is as devoted to tourism as Thailand is, I see two problems.

First of all, when such a large amount of your cultural traditions become intertwined with the tourism industry, it's very easy for the traditions to (at least to an outside observer) appear to be mainly for show. At least in Thailand it's obvious that the people there still embrace much of their traditional culture in their daily lives - I loved seeing people pray at Buddhist shrines, and seeing Elephants walking down the street doing the shopping. Too much commercialisation of a culture, however, serves only to turn those commercialised aspects into a caricature of their former selves. The culture ends up being known and recognised not for its philosophy and literature, but rather for consumer-friendly dances and songs. Now, I was born and raised in a dominant culture, so I can only imagine how those from less dominant cultures must feel, however it seems to me that it would be in many ways demoralising to those from developing, tourist-industry oriented countries to see their remaining culture being seen as a sideshow to those from richer nations who come to visit at their leisure. It's a question that I really should ask some of the locals next time I go to a tourist resort region.