| Re: "The lying planet," by Ken Cameron, Viewpoint, February 15-21, 2007.
Mr. Cameron’s petulant tirade against the tailors of Hoi An, Vietnam is typical of what’s wrong with the global tourism industry today. It’s unfortunate that cheap and accessible air travel allows far too many of the wrong kinds of tourists to flock en masse to foreign countries with expectations, behaviours, and attitudes rooted in western bourgeois sensibilities. These tourists usually hide their cultural insensitivities and overdeveloped sense of entitlement and privilege behind the ersatz vestments of the worldly travel-adventurer — "Hey, I do have a copy of the Lonely Planet in my rucksack, y’know?"
It seems Mr. Cameron and his companions were less interested in a travel or cultural experience than a shopping mall experience, albeit a more exotic one.
Witness the weary travellers’ indignation at not getting an opportunity to satisfy their consumerist hunger pangs with cheaply-made knock-off clothing — I dare say anyone who spends five days in and out of tailor shops and changes a flight just to get the perfect leather jacket, and then complains about the whole experience, should have their passport revoked. Please wise up people — the world is not your shopping mall.
How regrettable that Mr. Cameron’s heart-rending story of frustrated consumer longing in a foreign land has done little more than reinforce the prevalent (and sadly, often true) stereotype of the boorish, culturally-ignorant and ever-complaining Western tourist.
|
Copyright ©2007 FFWD. All rights reserved.