Tourist
The unmarked black car was what did it. One look at it and everything clicked. As we drove away, I looked back at the office window. Under the huge letters reading “TOURISM AUTHORITY OF THAILAND” were much smaller letters: “license no. 4678,” or something like that. It all fell into place, right out of the “Dangers and Annoyances” chapter of the Lonely Planet. What I had naively trusted to be a government office was in fact an unscrupulous private agency, hiring tuk-tuk drivers to mislead gullible tourists. The free water, the surprisingly friendly staff, the “sold out” train, the over-priced bus tickets—I felt like a complete idiot. I started to question our driver, only to remember that I didn't speak any Thai.
At this particular moment, I was not a fan of Thailand.
My girlfriend, Liz, was visiting, and $20 (plus taxes) round-trip tickets from Manila to Bangkok had seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. The initial trip had been so effortless that I had to constantly remind myself that we were going to another country—there had been times when it was more stressful to just get across Manila. The idea of simply being able to hop from one Southeast Asian nation to another was intoxicating.
This ease of transportation belied the inevitable shift that came with crossing the borders of language and culture. In the Philippines, I am a foreigner but a resident nonetheless. I am linguistically comfortable; I know enough Tagalog to get around and to surprise and amuse people, and the odds are good that they will know enough English to pick up the conversation when my Tagalog breaks down. In Thailand, I was a tourist, no matter how much I might protest the idea.
Sitting in the back of the black sedan that drove us to the bus station, I was furious. I had been duped, and I knew it. And fortuitously, that moment of realization came at the point of greatest uncertainty and vulnerability. On our way to a decidedly vague destination with a driver who spoke only Thai, there was nothing to do but trust that we were being taken to the bus that we had paid for. And judging by the agency's past record on truthfulness, that wasn't a particularly comforting thought. Would there even be a bus? What about return? As the driver got us tickets and then pocketed the receipts, my anger and paranoia mounted. Everything seemed like a conspiracy, and I wasn't about to lose the one piece of evidence that linked our travel agent to this shady transaction. I asked to examine the receipt, then refused to return it. As the driver protested, I was filled with a burning mix of anger and shame. Here I was, the irate, demanding, unreasonable American, without even the language skills to explain my fury. Through the anger, I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for this guy, whose only apparent fault was his employment by the unscrupulous agency. Still, I was angry and distrustful, and those feelings trumped my sympathy. All of the things that we had been told earlier in the day—that we were going to a government tourist agency, that the train was full, that we were buying tickets on a government bus—had been blatant lies. I felt I was being treated like a walking, gullible, dollar sign. And what's worse, they seemed to be right.
But the bus ride turned out to be perfectly acceptable, if a little over-priced. As I retuned to a relatively sane and rational state of being, I struggled to identify what had made me so angry. It wasn't the money. Being taken advantage of was certainly part of it, but even that wasn't a sufficient explanation. What angered me so deeply about the bus fiasco was the relationship of mutual exploitation—a relationship that brought out the worst in everyone. In no small part, my anger was at being defined as a tourist, and all that seemed to imply—a temporary, superficial presence, the stereotyped, financially driven interactions with locals. I wanted to scream, “I'm not like that!” But as I stared down at the Lonely Planet on which I was so dependent, I wondered if maybe I was.
The next few days in Thailand left me with a strong, visceral sense of tourism in the region, and didn't make me any happier to be lumped with it. Manila has its share of foreigners, and more than its share of sex tourism and the like. But compared to Thailand, the Philippines might as well not even be on the tourist map. Along the major corridors of Thailand—and with only a week, that's almost all we got to see—tourism is king. There are the girlie bars and the package tours, but even bigger is the ubiquitous “backpacker culture.” Everywhere. From every imaginable Western country, people my age seem to have flocked to Thailand. And the appeal is understandable: a Buddhist kingdom, a confluence of South, East, and Southeast Asian cultures, a place of incredible biological and natural diversity and beauty. I get it. Thailand is a cool place to visit.
That is what made the reality so much more galling. For all that the country offered, the backpacking culture was amazingly predictable. The hostel we stayed at was packed late into the night with white people—drinking with other white people. Gorgeous wats nearby were left largely unvisited. Open the Lonely Planet —the veritable tourist bible, constantly referred to on advertisements and found in nearly every bag—and you're immediately hit with strongly worded guidelines on culturally appropriate dress and behavior. No Thai besides a sex worker would ever wear a tank top or revealing shorts, and yet these are virtual backpacker uniform.
In the midst of this often depressing spectacle, a few moments did remind me that Thais and foreigners could interact outside of the typical tourist script. At a paper factory just off a street of tourist shops, I watched two western men placing an order in fluent Thai. They took their shoes off at the door and put their hands together in respectful wai , a greeting that as often as not we had seen parodied rather than used. In a sense, there was nothing at all remarkable about the whole interaction, but that naturalness was exactly what made it so remarkable.
Even more comforting was a late afternoon visit to Wat Chedi Luang, in the middle of old Chang Mai, right at the heart of the backpacker district. In a city of wats, Chedi Luang stands out with its towering half-ruined chedi, a giant brick stupa that once housed Thailand's famous emerald Buddha. But for me, the real treasure of the wat was a couple of bizarrely European cast picnic tables, and a sign saying “Monk Chat: Please come and talk with us about Buddhism, monk's life and Thai culture. If you only look around and do not talk with us, we feel very disappointed.”
Around the tables sat several monks, as well as a few foreigners and a handful of local schoolchildren. Liz and I sat with one monk, beginning with an awkward exchange about where we were from. Slowly the awkwardness waned, and a long conversation emerged, bouncing from the monastic perspective on playing guitar to the differences between Thailand, Laos, and the Philippines. Toward the end of the conversation another foreigner approached. That she was conservatively dressed and greeted the monk in Thai was enough to grab my attention. I repeated her greeting to myself, trying to memorize the pattern of tones. As I did this, I realized to my surprise that their conversation continued in nearly fluent Thai. I was impressed. And jealous.
When I spoke with her later, I learned that she had been in the city for several months as an English teacher, and had studied abroad in Thailand as well. Monk Chat was a regular activity for her, where she could go to help teach English and practice her Thai.
In the midst of a place where so few people seemed genuinely interested in serious cultural connections, or even being culturally sensitive, meeting her was a breath of fresh air. It was also a reminder that in Thailand, I was a tourist—perhaps a more culturally sensitive tourist then many, but a tourist nonetheless. I was hardly getting off the beaten path, and definitely not staying long enough to learn the language or build relationships.
In the Philippines, of course, it is a different story. This is home turf. There is a certain pride in telling people that “I live in Quezon City,” or that “I'm working with a non-profit at Ateneo” or with fishers in Bicol. I relish the ability to get by in Tagalog or to navigate the city by jeepney. It was a feeling that I clung to even in Thailand, telling people that I was from the United States, but always adding that I was living in Manila.
There is unquestionably a real distinction between being a tourist and being a long-term visitor, but there is also a certain conceit to this distinction. After all, I am not “going local.” I don't live in a family or even in much of a community, and ten months is really not that long. My Tagalog is a far cry from fluent and I have no plans to become a permanent resident of the Philippines. For that matter, more time in a place by no means equates to knowing it more intimately. Being somewhere for an extended period can leave you jaded or caught in a routine. It has frequently been precisely the tourist attitude of seeing as much as possible that has led me to break out of my routine and see Manila or the provinces—often going to places to which my Filipino co-workers have never ventured.
Certainly there are things that simply cannot be experienced in a brief visit, but I care less about what visitors get out of it than about what tourism often leaves behind. Certainly, it leaves money, and that should hardly be overlooked. But just as much, it leaves impressions and expectations. Far too often, it creates debilitating roles for foreigners and locals alike. Interactions become transactions, culture is redefined as performance, and visitors become consumers, looking to purchase and collect things, places and people. Leaving Thailand, it was easy to be cynical about the role of tourism. I felt inclined to buy the argument of Bhutan—that tourism does not contribute positively to the “gross national happiness.” Even moderate levels of tourism, it seemed, were just less of a bad thing—but still bad.
It was another tourist experience—back in the Philippines—that gave me a more balanced perspective. It was actually a few weeks earlier, when my parents came for a brief visit. We were wandering the streets of Coron, a mid-size town that leans heavily on the money of divers and tourists, but doesn't yet seem consumed by it. We passed a sign for a coffee shop and art gallery, the kind of place geared towards outsiders, but it was closed. A day or two later, we went back by, but had no better luck. Mostly out of frustration, I checked at the internet café next door to see if it would ever be open. “Next month,” came the answer from one of the customers, introducing himself as Al, part-owner of the eventual coffee shop. But because we were there, he offered to give us a tour.
The space was a sort of catch-all experiment—part gallery, part coffee shop, part music and cultural center—a place where Al and his brothers would try to promote the indigenous arts of the island and fuse tradition skills with modern expression. As we asked questions and looked at the fanciful collection of carvings on the wall, Al's brother, John, appeared, and the conversation shifted to the musical group the two were part of. Two hours later, we were still there. John had brought out a guitar, and they had found one for my father as well. They went back and forth, John singing a mix of original compositions and classic American tunes, and my dad searching for music that he both remembered and that everyone might know, and having mixed success on both counts. The rest of us sang, or hummed, or tapped along on our knees, and Al's wife and daughter emerged from the house to cautiously join in the merriment.
Two days later, we were back to watch the whole group for a jam session-cum-impromptu concert. A couple of Spaniards heard the noise and crammed in to join us, packing the little shop to the point of overflowing. The next few hours were a blur of laughter and drumbeats, dancing and singing. Everything about the evening was genuine, driven by a desire to share culture and good times.
It was, unquestionably and unashamedly, a tourist experience. For all intents and purposes, we could only have been there as tourists—especially my parents—and if not for tourism, Al and John and the group could not have been either. For all the potential to stereotype and tokenize, we created an audience for traditional crafts and music that would not have survived on local demand alone. So while I still can't say that large volumes of tourism are particularly good for anyone, I am ready to say, that at least in moderation, they can sometimes be good for everyone.
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