Piece from Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place: The thing you have always suspected about yourself the minute you become a tourist is true: A tourist is an ugly human being.” (p. 14)
Scene from Life and Debt: The scene showing the Jamaican and British flags waving simultaneously in the air, then depicting it as one while Bob Marley’s One Love is playing in the background.
In the piece from A Small Place, it examines how tourist are viewed by the host of the place they’re in. We never stop to think that maybe those people hate that we come in the country to be served. Not noticing that probably in their own country, that they could never get the treatment that you are getting on your vacation. The fact that you take a vacation is a delicacy that could never tremble upon because of how poor they must be. The globalization though is the fact that you expect a little piece of home to be their. The familiar things you expect to find everywhere and not seeing the only reason they have it there is for you.
In the scene from Life and Debt I examined, it shows the newly independent Jamaica and England will be working together to aid the new country from the post-colonial reign England once had over them. The previous scene showed how the Queen arrived in Jamaica and how she was announcing the grant of independence given to Jamaica in 1962. The globalization that is prevalent in this case is how many countries in the sixties were granted independence but England still had a bind over through being apart of the Commonwealth and all the debt owed to England, the West, and the IMF. The relation with One Love playing the background was the fact it was a politically-motivated song about this situation in Jamaica.
I really, really like your explanation of your quote from A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid. It's the sad truth.. People think that they deserve the best treatment possible if they are paying for the vacation they are on. But I don't think that people take the time to think about the other side, and how service people are usually the lowest paid, and hardest working people out there. But when we go to another country we expect to be waited on hand and foot, when the people doing the waiting have never experienced that before.
ReplyDeleteI also found your explanation about the quote from A Small Place to be excellent. You illustrated a really interesting concept: the fact that tourists are not welcomed by the locals because they receive special treatment in a setting that is not always good for the actual natives. As Alexandra said, when we go on vacation we expect the best treatment from the natives in THEIR homeland. This actually is really unfair because we are demanding a luxurious "cultural experience." Yet we do not experience the culture in the area-- we experience the scenes, resorts, and spectacles that have been created for us. With this explanation, it is a lot easier to understand Kincaid's meaning of "ugly tourists."
ReplyDeleteI think that the quote you chose from A Small Place was a good one because it makes a very good and fascinating point. The phenomenon of tourism has become very ugly because of how ignorant tourists are when they visit a foreign place. Sadly, tourists really only see the natives and their homeland as a spectacle, or rather something for them to observe and marvel at. To me, this is what truly makes an ugly tourist, this marveling at the life of the natives as a spectacle.
ReplyDeleteI find your reading of the Kincaid quote interesting as well, but I think the feelings against tourists can be extended beyond just poor countries. For instance, I was in Germany this past summer with a student group and it seemed that everywhere we went (and no matter how hard we tried not to be) we were always the LOUDEST people. Even my host family told me about how they usually thought of Americans as being loud and a bit too comfortable when traveling. It was a strange and unsettling thing to discover. While we planned for the trip, we talked about our views of German culture, but we never really discussed how the Germans would view us.
ReplyDeleteSani, I can also connect to your experiences while traveling abroad. When I went to Spain with my high school Spanish class, we were given a list of things NOT to bring so we could blend into the crowd and avoid the stereotypes. The items included short/revealing clothing for the girls (because American girls are perceived as promiscuous and this could lead to trouble), and we couldn't wear white tennis shoes because those were typical American 'clown shoes'. All these items that we regard as normal were completely not a part of the culture and this was a definite learning experience for me. Trying to fit into the culture made us Americans spectacles in the eyes of the locals there, especially when we used 'American' Spanish phrases or were seen with maps in our hands. Even though we all made the effort, it is hard not to be the 'ugly tourist' who is loud and 'American' and intrusive into the quiet lives of the locals.
ReplyDeleteI liked your blog post a lot. I think that Americans in general do have a certain expectation of how they should be treated while abroad. I think tourism is a great thing because it allows us to get a taste of other places in the world. However, I think it should be noted that you can only get a feel for a country if you immerse yourself in a culture. Going to Mexico and spending your time in a 5 star resort is not immersing yourself in Mexican culture. And the same goes for anywhere else in the world. Having been abroad a few times myself, I thought my best experiences were when I was out on my own doing things people in that country themselves do. It's the only way globalization will ever work. If people try to make everything the same then it won't allow cultures to flourish anymore.
ReplyDeleteI as well think that american tourists are terrible. People should try to learn a little about the culture about the place they are visiting. Vacations are an awesome adventure but respectfulness should always come first. I have been overseas a few times and been embarrassed by other americans, the ones who wear don't mess with texas shirts. I can see why hard working people in resorts and such places hate americans.
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