003./ Tourist Privilege
Yesterday we went on a tour of the Houtong alley neighborhoods in Beijing. It was interesting to see all the old buildings, the buildings that were built in the 15th and 14th centuries that people still live in. I was struck, though, by the fact that the government has been paying people to rebuild and restore their homes in this historic district while many similar historic districts have been destroyed by construction.
The other thing that made me the most uncomfortable was the fact that we were observing the inner workings of this neighborhood as tourists. It was made perfectly obvious that we were, being carted around in rickshaws and taken to a man's family home that he has turned into a tourist destination. I was especially uncomfortable because it seemed very contrived. It seemed the reason that this particular neighborhood was being preserved was because the people were willing to collude with being made into a tourist attraction.
I felt very self-conscious about being an outsider. It seemed intrusive, artificial, unnatural. I felt like I was using these people, even though they had opened their home to us, because there is the very real possibility that making themselves into a tourist destination is one of their only economic recourses to support their families. Like Greg said, "this place is a zoo." The animals in a zoo don't really have a choice to be on display, but they do benefit from the care and feeding of their keepers.
It made me question why it is we go travel to other countries. Are we in it just to observe the city? Are we in it to really understand the way people live? Are we there as bolsters to the local economy, or merely nuisances to local people trying to live their lives? How can we reduce the cultural footprints we make. And how is tourism itself an act of Western hegemony? These are questions Miriam and I bounced around while we were looking at the courtyard house we had been allowed into.
I am privileged to be able to travel from my home to this country. It might be my motherland (and I do think of it as such, in a way), but I am a stranger here. I am privileged to be able to think about these things at all. But isn't it my responsibility as a person in this privileged position to reject making my gracious hosts into animals in a zoo?
This is an ongoing crisis of faith for me. In many parts of the world, tourism is the major source of income for families who have virtually nothing else. I wonder, though, if tourism isn't just like an aid package: it helps many in the short term, a few in the long term, but cements the dependence of developing nations on the developed world. The only way to counter the negative effects of globalization is to consciously help the less privileged pull themselves up, rather than pull the less privileged up without their consent to or knowledge of our methods.
I've always disliked being a tourist, because I don't think you can really come to know a place on a double-decker bus tour or seeing the scenic spots only. But the "authentic" things we're looking at here seem to have been turned into a stop on a bus tour or designated by the government as a scenic spot. I'm feeling very ambivalent.
