Category Archives: travel

Damn smug Canadians … or were they Americans?

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Queuing up to board a recent flight, I noticed this half of a matched-set couple:

Canadian flag backpackerThe pair of tan, sandal-clad travelers carried black backpacks slung over their shoulders. Onto each backpack they had hand-sewn small, but prominently placed, Canadian flags.

They spoke like Americans, they looked like Americans, but they did not want to be mistaken for actual fat, loud, gun-loving American heathens. They were Canadians* and they wanted everyone to know it.

As an American, if I felt compelled to display an instant-disclaimer, a sewn-on patch like the following would be required:

American backpacker comic

But instead, I’ll just proudly hold my family’s stack of American passports in every immigration line and try to demonstrate through my actions that many of us are not “Ugly Americans.”

*Or perhaps they were Americans who thought they’d receive better treatment from locals and fellow travelers alike, if they were thought to be Canadians. 

Post-script: Having just written this post in the morning, I spent the evening watching Argo, where Americans pose as Canadians to escape post-revolutionary Iran. It appears pretending to be Canadian can be frightfully useful!

Harmony in Phuket: we are all equal in our aggressive occupation of the sunbeds

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After leaving the cultural heart of Thailand – Chiang Mai – we devoted four days to an isolated beach resort in Phuket. I was prepared to spend these days swimming with my children and obsessively people-watching the other tourists. What interesting or annoying characters might pop up? Are the stereotypes about which nationalities monopolize the sunbeds true?

Row of "reserved" sun-beds

Row of “reserved” but unused sunbeds

Absorbing stereotypes from the English. During the three years I spent in England, I sometimes listened to a call-in chat show on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. It was the kind of local call-in show where folks talked about the weather, local festivals, and loose livestock. One morning, an hour was set aside to moan about summer holidays.

German occupation. A large portion of the moaning was devoted to complaining about Germans on the Mediterranean Coast waking up early and claiming all of the sunbeds with towels, books and hats. After marking their territory, I suppose the Germans wandered off to the breakfast buffet. Indulging in a few more stereotypes, I assume that this chain of events occurred because: (1) the British woke up late because they had to sleep off the previous day’s sunburn and night’s drinking; and (2) their unfailing politeness kept them from removing the items reserving the seats and simply throwing them into the sea.

Enter the Russians. Poking fun at Germans is a favorite English pastime, one fed by Monty Python (see for example either their “Mr. Hilter on Holiday“ or “The Funniest Joke in the World” sketches), but the callers that morning were ready to turn their holiday fury on a new group: the Russians. Not only did several callers agree that the Russians hogged up the sunbeds, but also that the Russians were so shockingly impolite (in the English callers’ opinions) that they would remove the Germans’ hats and books and take over their “reserved” sunbeds.

Prelude to sunbed wars? So I was delighted when upon entering the resort I heard English, German, French, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese being spoken by the guests. Would there be a World War III of sunbed occupation? I was further thrilled when I noted that the sunbeds had “polite reminders” in English and Russian that sunbeds should not be reserved:

Sun-bed notice in English Sun-bed notice in Russian

Was this a tip-off that the emerging Russian stereotype was correct?

Our young children rise early, and therefore we were saved from the trauma of sunbed-less holidaying. But, as we sat pool-side slathering on sun block, we watched every morning as: (1) some people “reserved” sunbeds with copies of cheap paperbacks at around 8 am; and (2) some circled the pool in search of empty sunbeds at around 10 am.

I am (almost) sad to report that no one nationality dominated either group.

The Outliers. I did hear about one Chinese woman who went into total meltdown because she couldn’t secure a sunbed, but I didn’t see it with my own eyes (and once the day wore on, sunbed turnover was quite frequent, so I’m sure she swiftly found a pool chair). Also, I saw a pair white hats occupy two well-placed sunbeds for the entirety of one morning. Despite having my own chair, the passive-aggressive, naughty side of me was sorely tempted to remove the hats to the shrubbery, just to see what would happen.

Harmony Reigns. Schadenfreude be damned, the holiday-makers were mostly happy and no one nationality dominated in sunbed occupation. There was only harmonious, multi-cultural holiday-making for all and everyone was equally, but only very mildly, annoying.

Related posts:

Ugly American, Ugly Chinese: the tourist trap

Ten Tiny Tales from Chiang Mai, Thailand

冰水人: The loud American wants ice

Ten Tiny Tales from Chiang Mai, Thailand

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1. Elephants are awesome. Go to Elephant Nature Park, a heaven on earth for abused and rescued elephants.

IMG_1942

2. Small children are highly portable, but very loud. You can check quite a few sight-seeing boxes while holding a six-year-old’s hand and carrying a 2-year-old on your back. Do take them to noisy places to help drown out the whining and screeching.

Through a market in Chiang Mai

3. Both satisfying and head scratching wisdom can be found in sprinkled in the trees around Wat Phra Singh.

Quote at Wat Phra Singh

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4. American tourists are more annoying than Chinese tourists. Or maybe it’s just that I understand every single trivial, annoying word that they say about the Green Bay Packers and the slivers stuck in their feet. (See these old posts for more background on the annoying tourist wars: Ugly American, Ugly Chinese: the tourist trap and Do expats judge their “own” more harshly?)

5. Tex-Mex should not be ordered outside of select destinations in North America. I’ve previously laughed at blue-cheese-filled enchiladas in Groningen, Netherlands. This trip I fooled myself into risking a Tex-Mex meal only to be presented with a plate of tacos covered in sweet vanilla yogurt. Because it’s the same thing as sour cream, right? Wrong. I have only myself to blame.

6. Tuk-tuk rides are thrilling. In our six-year-old’s estimation, tuk-tuk rides fall below swimming, but above elephants in the hierarchy of holiday highlights.

From the tuk-tuk

7. For the sub-three set, chasing pigeons trumps viewing ancient temples.

Chasing pigeons at Wat Chedi Luang

8. Thai massage in a mosquito-filled room is an agonizing tug-of-war between heaven and hell.

9. The groovy backpacker trek around South-East Asia is alive and well. As a former follower of the “banana-pancake-circuit” through the foothills of the Indian Himalayas, this trite sentiment seems to ring a bell.

Are you lost?

10. There might be more Mandarin spoken in Chiang Mai than Hong Kong. We’ve seen a large number of Mandarin-speaking independent tourists in Chiang Mai. Is it all to do with the recent Chinese blockbuster comedy, “Lost in Thailand” (人再囧途之泰囧)? Regardless, it’s nice to see a shift in tourist faces.

Chinese tourists hop out of a jitney


Next up: Phuket. Will the Germans hog all the sun-loungers? Will Mainland Chinese — gasp – hang their laundry from the balcony and talk too loudly? Will Americans be overly familiar and talk too loudly?

On cruise ships through Asia the self-hatred is free*

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Cruise ship docked at Ocean Terminal

There is a cross-roads at the tip of Tsim Sha Tsui that buzzes with tourists. They disgorge from the historically wonderful Star Ferry, which crosses Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor, and are immediately assaulted by South Asian touts pushing tailored suits, ladies’ handbags and “copy watches” on them. With the hot sun in their eyes and flyers shoved into their hands, many bee-line for the cool air conditioning of the Harbour City/Ocean Terminal shopping complex.

Two weeks ago, I loitered in this area waiting for my husband and his parents to meet me off of the Star Ferry. I had forgotten just how packed with tourists, touts, buskers and pro/anti-Falun Gong groups this spot can be.

It’s a mildly irritating hustle, but most Hong Kong tourists safely and happily brave this chaotic cross-roads.

Except for one sad group: a self-selected segment of cruise ship passengers who seemingly only visit tourist sites from the ship via hermetically sealed bus.

After re-uniting with my visiting family, we sat down for dinner at one of the restaurants in Ocean Terminal with ring-side seats for the 8 pm harbor light show. Yes, the daily light show where all of Hong Kong’s major buildings light up and blink for 10 minutes like anemic slot machines.

As we tucked into our steaks, at around 7:50 a convoy of buses — interiors and passengers bathed in fluorescent light — streamed past us from the cruise ship berthed at Ocean Terminal. White paper taped to the coaches’ front windows stated: “8 pm harbor light show.”

Now, aside from the area around Ocean Terminal, the only other area to view the light show from is “The Avenue of the Stars,” which is a perfectly flat two-minute walk from Ocean Terminal.

And yet these cruise ship passengers boarded buses to get there.

Were they afraid to walk through the rather tame gauntlet of Indian and Pakistani salesmen?

Do they exclusively participate in activities entirely orchestrated by the cruise ship’s sightseeing team?

Hong Kong is probably the safest big city in the world; can’t the cruise ship hosts encourage their passengers to temporarily leave their comfort zones and mix?

On watching the third busload of gloomy cruise ship people stream by, I said to my husband in (condescending) half-jest: “cruising: the self-hatred is free.”

I am certain their evening ended safely back on ship with a “Cantonese-inspired” dinner capped off with fortune cookies and light entertainment by Filipinas in qipaos that just hinted at “The World of Suzie Wong.”

 

*Every time I judge other people it comes back to bite me. Thus it is now karmically inevitable that I will spend my golden years on a cruise ship through Asia. 

Ugly Americans, Ugly Chinese: the tourist trap

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The original bad tourist: “The Ugly American” in 1950s Cuba.

Bashing Mainland Chinese tourists is rather fashionable in Hong Kong. The South China Morning Post is always eager to print something embarrassing about Chinese tourists. See for example the following two recent articles:

“Chiang Mai locals shocked by ‘rude’ Chinese tourists.” This article quotes a letter to a Thai newspaper by a Chiang Mai resident:

“[Chinese tourists] tend to drive speedily on the wrong side of the road, and often go against traffic on one-way streets. Chinese tourists also often stop in the middle of busy intersections – just to argue among themselves about directions. Some hotel and guesthouse operators are turning them away because they say Chinese tourists often rent a room for two, but stay overnight in a group of four or five. They also deplore their tendencies to litter and hang their clothing on the balcony railing.”

The article then goes on to supply a helpful list of (allegedly frequent) offensive acts by Chinese tourists:

  1. A tendency to not flush the toilet.
  2. Flouting traffic laws when driving, riding a bicycle, or parking their car.
  3. Being loud – even in five-star hotels.
  4. Littering, spitting, queue-jumping.
  5. Allowing children to defecate in public pools.
  6. Terrible English-language skills that lead to difficulties in communication.

“Outrage after Chinese men on Air France flight take wine bottles ‘to go’.” This article takes joy in pointing out how “uncivilized’ Chinese tourists can be by relating an anecdote about two drunk guys on a flight:

Two Chinese men on an Air France flight recently shocked their fellow passengers by snatching eight bottles of wine from the airline service cart, ignoring objections from other travellers on board….

Wen [Fei, a fellow traveller,] tried to stop them after they each took at least eight bottles of wine and stowed them in their bags – without asking the flight crew.

“I explained to them it was not OK and interpreted the flight attendents’ explanation in French, but they said it was none of my business, ” Wen told SCMP.com on Tuesday.

The two men, apparently drunk, then shouted at Wen in the Wuhan dialect, she said.

“They asked me to back off if I ever wanted to leave Wuhan in one piece,” said Wen.

This incident then prompted a number of “netizens” to fire off complaints about Mainland Chinese tourists. And of course, these complaints are also captured in the SCMP.com article:

“The Chinese are always loud and jump queues to get on a flight – even when everyone has a seat,” said a netizen.

But Americans are the original “ugly tourists.” As an American myself, I know that a small number of jerks make everybody else look bad. Key American tourist faults that appear on every “Ugly American” list include that:

  1. We are too loud.
  2. We are overly patriotic and too quick to assume that “the American way” is the best way.
  3. We assume that everyone else will speak English to accommodate us.

I’ve seen the folks who fulfill these stereotypes abroad. I know they exist. Just like I know the Mainland Chinese tourist who argues loudly and spits in public also exists.

But it’s (hopefully) just a smallish portion of American tourists who fuel the “Ugly American” stereotype. Just as it’s only a portion of Mainland Chinese tourists who fuel the “Ugly Chinese” stereotype.

At the end of the day, I suspect that both groups are disliked for being “upstarts.” A final quote from the Chiang Mai article illustrates the point:

When [a Thailand resident] asked a Chinese tourist why he came to Chiang Mai, the man in his 30s ”stabbed a thumb to his chest and said ‘I am rich’.”

Americans have long been considered to be “uncouth nouvelle riche” and now Mainland Chinese are considered much the same.

Welcome to the club China.

Ten “Mainland Moments” in Hangzhou

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Sunset over undeniably beautiful West Lake, Hangzhou.

My heart was happy to touch down in Mainland China after three and a half years away. My lungs recoiled. And my mind fully confirmed that Hong Kong is on another planet from “The Motherland.”

Hangzhou itself surpassed my expectations. West Lake and the surrounding gardens are truly gorgeous. Exactly what you imagine “romantic,” “exotic,” “foreign” China is like: tall golden-spired pagodas, green willow trees hanging over lotus-ringed ponds, pavilions used as informal stages by Chinese classical musicians, charming tea houses, and elaborately carved wooden pleasure boats.

Unbelievably, none of it was marred by garbage cans in the shape of penguins or speakers in the shape of mushrooms blaring tinny music.

The main draw-backs were the matching-capped tour groups whose leaders amplified their talks by microphone, and the non-stop, over-the-top attention my two children drew. My one-year-old son — so long as no one tried to pick him up — took to it like Miss America, waving to everyone. My five-year-old daughter adopted a duck-and-weave approach to avoid the many hands reaching to stroke her hair and clouds of camera phones seeking to take her picture.

Good and bad, here are ten things that marked our week in Hangzhou and made the Mainland feel temporarily “like home” again:

  1. Gawking at young women in hot pants with black nylons and half-boot/half-sandal-shoes and young men with big, coiffed hair. The fashions are like no other and a world apart from the understated black framed glasses and Converse sneakers that the youth of Hong Kong wear.
  2. The pleasure of reading simplified characters. Hey, look! That sign says they sell Hangzhou-produced, specialty products!
  3. Playing “stupid” as needed. Voice says: “Wo ting bu dong.” Internal dialogue says: “Yes I understand that you are asking what country I am from and if I like Hangzhou, but I have already had this conversation many, many times today and am pretending that I don’t understand. Though why you’d guess that I’m French is beyond me.”
  4. Opaque, brown air. A politically savvy meteorologist might charitably call it “haze”:
  5. Non-stop construction. Looking at the city, rather than West Lake, one can see a forest of cranes. As in every Chinese city.
  6. Non-stop honking and “catch-as-catch-can” style of driving. ”I drive a BMW so of course I can use the road shoulder to pass at-will” or “this one-way street is a trifling inconvenience to be ignored.”
  7. “Living out loud.” Tai chi is commonly practiced in public places, but the wide assortment of other public pursuits is astounding: swinging giant poles around within inches of a crowded walkway, ballroom dancing, group “jazz-style” dancing, and this flamboyant singing and dancing duo:
  8. Surprising English world choices. The glittery fashion clothing store called “Slavery” or the banner welcoming the “Mock Survey Consultants” to a local hotel.
  9. The Great Firewall of China. Sigh. At least I could access the New York Times for the first four days of the trip. Then it was gone. Of course I immediately sought to find out why: ah yes the story of Wen Jiabao’s family wealth.
  10. Knock-offs. SPR Coffee: the chain vaguely like Starbucks. The same dark green in the logo. And the same lighting pendants of any Starbucks circa 1998. With prices as high as the “real thing” and with the real thing now on almost every corner, I see the sun setting on the SPR empire.

I blame James Bond

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Despite my mother’s jaw-cracking cringe upon overhearing the line from “You Only Live Twice,”

“…in Japan men come first, women come second,”

in 1985, I sat in front of the Saturday night TV in complete awe of Mr. Bond.

Although my progressive mother feared I’d grow up wanting to be the women in the Bond films, I actually wanted to be 007 himself. Sophisticated, intelligent, athletic, cool, and at ease any place in the world. Never jet-lagged, not a hint of “Delhi Belly,” and never needed to search for an ATM at midnight in a foreign airport while being hounded by touts.

Was Ian Flemming’s creation really just one big glossy airline and tourism advert? If so, I totally bought in.

Reflecting back on my travels, I’ve passed through a handful of filming locations, though my experiences have been rather more pedestrian than Mr. Bond’s:

The soon to be released, “Skyfall,” was partially filmed in Shanghai and features a nighttime car chase through Pudong. I pushed a stroller around The Bund once while wearing long underwear and my daughter’s ski hat.

I’m still glad I bought into the glam-travel myth.

Inspiration: tales of sleeping in haystacks with backpacks

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I was nine when I first came to know that near-penniless youth could “backpack” around Europe. I had spent many weeks carefully studying the souvenirs placed around my best friend’s house–a ceramic Lock Ness Monster, a German beer stein, an English flag, and a French travel poster–before her parents noticed and explained that they had “picked them up” in Europe. I listened in awe as they casually mentioned traveling around foreign countries with Eurail Passes and backpacks. My lust for travel was cinched with their romantic story of sleeping on a haystack under the stars only to be awoken by the sound of cow bells.

In Paris: post-snubbing, pre-hostel search

Ten years later I found a like-minded friend and bought cheap airfare to Europe. We did not sleep in haystacks, but in youth hostels where we ran into the backpacking subculture. As we whizzed around Europe, we hit a swift series of backpacker must-dos: snubbed by a Frenchman, nearly had our passports stolen while topless sunbathing on the Mediterranean, lived on baked goods, found a cigarette butt in our set-lunch lasagna, carefully spent down our cash money before crossing pre-Euro boarders, panicked when a surprise bank holiday left us cashless, and sought out McDonald’s for the use of their clean bathrooms.

During that whirlwind trip, I kept leafing through our 1995 Berkeley Guide to Europe, looking at the tantalizing sections on Turkey and Morocco. Both places that seemed so exotic and on the very fringes of where I thought it was safely possible travel.

“Cheena Peak,” Nani Tal, India: post-exasperation, pre-horid illness

Several weeks after returning I met my now husband and started daydreaming about going further. Sometime later we set off for India and Nepal. And, as is requisite if one travels on the cheap in the Sub-Continent, we were challenged physically, mentally and emotionally on a daily basis and fell seriously ill several times. In pre-internet days, we called our folks in America using an “STD” international phone both and quickly told them we had malaria while watching to red-digit Rupee price swiftly tick higher.

We’ve only been going further and longer since. Our current “extended trip” of sorts has lasted seven years.

And so, many years later, I can point to my best friend’s parents and say that they were the ones who inspired my interest in travel and “exotic” places. Thank you Mark and Susan, wherever you are today.

***

I was inspired to write this post by Kristen at Expatially Mexico who nominated me for the Inspiring Blog Award several weeks back. Thanks very much Kristen and I hope you are thoroughly enjoying your holiday in Chiapas.

In recent weeks, I have been inspired by the following bloggers:

Hong Kong (& Macau) Stuff, Blue Balu, and Zhongguo Jumble have all inspired me to get out and explore more. My settling-in period here in Hong Kong is over and the temperatures are on the brink of dropping off: time to hit the streets.

Lonely Girl Travels wrote a post on her complete medical check-up in Bangkok that, in addition to being hilarious, also inspired me to be more creative and detail-oriented when writing my own posts. Stupid Ugly Foreigner has also inspired me to up my writing game. See especially his very relatable post, Travel Partners, or, the Gentle Hate Cycle.

Finally, Building My Bento has inspired me to inspect or buy all kinds of oddly packaged Asian food products and has even tempted me to visit the infamous Chungking Mansions (as of yet on the “to do” list, as I’m intimidated as hell).

To all of you: thanks for the inspiration. If you’re keen on “pass it on” awards feel free to join in, otherwise, just know that you’re appreciated.

Taking flight in an age of glamour-less travel

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***July 4th, departing Asia for our summer trip to America***

With a backpack and diaper bag pulling at my shoulders, I heave my youngest child onto my hip, kick the stroller to fold it up against the sky bridge wall, take my older child’s hand, and enter the airplane.

Passing through premium class I note the looks of fear my family group inspires on the faces of the single business travelers and read their minds: “Does the little one look like a screamer?” “Please do not let that woman sit near me.” “They shouldn’t allow children under five on long haul flights.”

They needn’t fear, as my three seats–booked at the last-minute after crawling for several weeks through the company’s bureaucratic travel approval process–are well in the rear of the plane, straddling the aisle and near the lavatory.

As I enter the economy class cabin, the very tanned steward looks me up and down and without lifting a finger says, “you’ll have to move that bag”–he motions toward the ugly brown diaper back with pink edging I’d bought on a whim–”around to your front.”

Still holding my youngest in one arm and tapping the older one’s back to keep her moving forward, I glare at the tanned steward, shove the brown bag under my child’s leg, and proceed down the aisle.

“You’ll have to move it further around as you may hit the seated passengers…” he calls after me. Since this is already my second long flight of the day, I snap back with a fake cheery, “ok!,” though I am already several rows beyond him, scraping past bulky arms.

I still have a nine-hour flight to go before gathering up my mountain of bags and pushing them, two car seats, a stroller and two weary children through U.S. Customs and Immigration. Frankly I don’t give a damn about the elbows of the tour group on their way back from visiting “Red” China: “I thought there’d be more bicycles.” “How can anyone live in that air?” “At least we know the airplane meal won’t be dog! Har, har!”

***4.5 Hours Later***

I glance across the aisle at my older child who is sleeping with her legs dangling off the seat, back arched at an inhuman angle, face pointed upward, and mouth gaping open. My youngest child has finally fallen asleep using my body as a bed. He lets out a small whimpering whine every time I shift in my seat, threatening to awaken.

Regretting my earlier decision to drink that bottle of water before boarding the plane, I ignore the increasing sense of pressure in my bladder and turn my attention to silently viewing “Casablanca” on the seat back TV of a passenger several rows up. I watch Ingrid Bergman’s dewy eyes and the dark shadows crossing the faces of the patrons in Rick’s Café Américain, and finally drift off to sleep dreaming of expat glamour.

Pictures of Strangers

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Watching strangers is one of the simplest pleasures. I do it in airports, city centers, beaches, restaurants, on public transport, etc. Even at the zoo, it is often the people who are the most interesting to observe.

While watching, I am analyzing and evaluating: What are they doing? Why are they wearing that? Where are they going? What are they saying? Is that food they’re eating as delicious as it looks? Sometimes my internal dialogue is catty (“My God, those harem pants are hideous.”), sometimes relatively it’s neutral (“Oh, they’re eating candied crab apples.”), and sometimes filled it’s with admiration (“Wow, that elderly woman looks absolutely majestic in her lime green sari and dark, heavy-framed glasses.”).

I’ve had the lucky chance to meet and photograph some rather captivating strangers through my former work with an internationally oriented NGO. My job was what brought me to the Rajasthani village the woman photographed above happened to pass through. I quickly snapped her picture from the window of the massive old white Ambassador we were being driven about in.

Similarly, I took the following three photographs of strangers I met on work-related trips to far-flung corners of the globe:

These have been rather lucky photographic opportunities, as I am far too shy to take pictures of strangers on-the-sly.

Once in a while, I have had the fortunate chance to take an un-obtrusive picture of someone swiftly passing by me. This is how I caught on film this dapper Vietnamese gentleman cycling through Hanoi:

I suppose I could always ask permission to take pictures of total strangers, but it seems rather intrusive and I am not so bold.

In China, however, many people have absolutely no qualms about asking to take countless photographs of my two children. This request is always accompanied by the Chinese-language version of: “What golden-hair and such blue eyes! Like baby-dolls!”

Being watched and watching back, from the window of a Starbucks in Shanghai.

This boldness on the part of many strangers in China, has given me an idea. I will strike up a one-for-one deal: you can take a picture of my kids, if I can take a picture of you. The only downside is that rather than ending up with a diverse range of interesting pictures of Chinese from all walks of life, like this:

I will end up with many, many pictures of young, friendly Chinese woman holding up two fingers, like this: