My friend Raba Gunasekara brought to my attention that a press release
quoting me about "The Beach" had been forwarded to this list (of which I
had been unaware, although of course I knew about the press release).
Being a bit embarassed that my ideas were introduced to this esteemed
list in the form of marketing literature, I'd like to try to clarify my position:
I'm concerned that negative portrayals of backpackers, and related
disparagement of the value of travel for increasing self-awareness and
awareness of the world, might discourage people (especially in the USA)
from travelling. That would be a shame, I think, since -- notwithstanding
the economic damage done by air travel (which features prominently in
the section of my book on the ecology of travel) and the ghettoization of
tourists (including those who prefer the label "travellers"), most
backpackers do indeed come back significantly more aware of cultural
diversity than those who don't travel outside their own country at all.
I do want backpackers to travel more responsibly than they do, but I
think they already are more responsible than most other tourists (a point
about which I had a long discusssion with Patricia Barnett, who takes
the iopposite view, when I visited the Toursim Concern offices) and
certainly are doing more to assume responsibility for their role in the
world than are those Americans who make decisions impacting the rest
of the world without making any effort to learn about that world.
This is especially a problem in the USA, where so few people travel
abroad at all. The zenophobia of the USA is so extreme, and is so
closely intertwined with the fact that most Americans never leave the
USA, that's it's hard for me not to see anything that gets Americans to
go abroad for the first time as a good thing. One of several problems
about the movie of "The Beach" is that it re-casts as Americans
characters who still behave and have the attitudes of Europeans -- not
surprising since the novel, script, and film direction were all by Brit's.
They couldn't even translate the British language into American correctly!
It's in this contact that I think it will be a good thing if "The Beach" helps
inspire more Americans to go abroad instead of to Disneyland.
Regardless of the merits of the movie, I would hope we would all
welcome whatever impetus it is providing for public debate about the
anthropology of tourism and tourists role in social and physical ecology.
As to the physical damage done by the filming of : "The Beach", I haven't
visited the site and have no opinion. If there is interest, I can post the
commentary from Joe Cummings, who writes for both Moon and Lonely
Planet and lives in Thailand, on this question.
To further fan the flames, here's a response I wrote to a query from a
USA Today reporter working on a story about "The Beach":
From: Edward Hasbrouck <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Khao San Road and The Beach
> I got this release and would love to get your comments for a story
that's
> running Friday on Khao San Road - specifically, the fact that backpack
> central is sprucing up its image, and whether the novel/film accurately
> reflects the type of travelers who congregate there.
>From the book, and from what I've seen of the teasers, trailers, and script
for the movie (I haven't yet been able to see the full film, which opens
this Friday), I think it gives an unjustifiably negative view of the travellers
on Khao San Road. That comes in part through what it actually depicts,
and even more through the absence of a comparative frame of reference.
First, I think it important to compare the backpackers AirTreks.com and
other USA travel agencies send to Thailand with the 85%+ of USA
citizens who don't have a passport and have never left North America.
As *seekers*, they deserve credit for doing much more than most
Americans will ever do to try to understand their world and accept their
responsibilities as global citizens. Most Americans are running away
from globalization and cultural diversity; backpackers at least are *trying*
to embrace it.
The attitudes of even the worst characters in "The Beach" compare
favorably, I think, to typical cruise passengers on a port call in a Third-
World Caribbean country, guests at a resort in Puerto Rico, or the
typical visitor to Disneyland.
Drugs, sunny beaches, cheap living, and the possibility of finding sex
partners among other foreign travellers are part of the experience for
many, but from my experience working with thousands of backpackers
setting out for Thailand and other countries the basic motivations for
backpackers now, as in previous years, are to learn about the world and
about themselves. They are seeking diversity and understanding. In the
USA in particular, which such high levels of ignorance about the world,
irresponsibility about the impact of USA decisions on people elsewhere,
and fear and loathing of cultural diversity, I believe that even unsuccessful
seekers of global consciousness deserve credit for the attempt.
With respect to Khao San Road in particular, the largest difference
between the foreigner travellers who stay there ("backpackers") and the
other types of foreign visitors who stay elsewhere in Bangkok is that
backpackers are the foreign tourists least interested in, and least drawn
to Thailand by, sex tourism, and that Khao San Road is the one tourist
district of Bangkok not pervaded by sex tourism.
Many other observers have noted the dichotomy between sex tourists
and backpackers as distinct communities. USA anthropologist Cleo
Odzer, in a book based on her experiences while researching and writing
her dissertation on sex tourism in Thailand ("Patpong Sisters: An
American Woman's View of the Bangkok Sex World", 1994), says, "I
loved Khao San Road people; many of them had never heard of Patpong.
How refreshing to meet people who didn't buy women".
Most foreign tourists in Thailand are men drawn by the promise of
prostitution. The wholesale prostitution of Thailand to sex tourism has
done far more damage to its cultural ecology than the making of "The
Beach" could possibly have done to its physical ecology. The attitude of
most foreign visitors to Thailand that local people are chattel to be
bought doesn't make real cultural understanding likely.
While many of backpackers' behaviors (scanty clothing, public displays
of affection *with each other*, drugs, etc.) are offensive to many Thais,
none are nearly as offensive as is sex tourism in general.
The fact that backpackers either have less money, or choose to spend
less of it on accommodations, means that they can less afford to have
things done differently for them because they are foreigners, or to
insulate themselves from local realities. Not all backpackers learn as
much as they might from their interactions with locals, but in general
they are exposed much more to local lifestyles, people, and ideas than
are other tourists isolated in highrise hotels and air-con buses and taxis.
Most Khao San Raod guesthouses are small, and their owner/proprietors
generally live on the premises with their families. They enforce, to a
degree, their family values: most of them have rules and signs forbidding
prostitutes in the rooms -- something that would be unthinkable in any
five-star hotel in Thailand where the rules are set by absentee owners
more concerned with pandering to sex tourists and their money.
Similarly, the differences between a backpacker beach destination in
Thailand (say, Ko Phangan) and a non-backpacker beach destination
like Pattaya largely relate to the divide between backpackers and the
sex tourism that dominates Pattaya (which was developed, after all, as a
turnkey "R & R" facility for USA soldiers during the Vietnam War).
So, to return to your question, "Is Khao San Road sprucing up its
image?", I think Khao San Road continues to deserve its positive image
as the center for non-sex-tourism foreign visitors to Bangkok.
In addition, as "backpackers" have become more diverse in age, income,
occupation, and other demographics, (a notable trend we've observed
among AirTreks.com clients -- I can go into statistics if you are
interested) so has Khao San Road come to be less characterized by by
the age or income of its visitors. Many people choose to stay on Khao
San Road because, although it is still a "foreigners ghetto", it is less
alienated from Thai people and culture than are five-star high-rise
foreigners' ghettoes. There is a much wider range of quality and prices of
accommodations these days on Khao San Road than formerly.
In addition, the image of backpacker centers like Khao San Road is
improving as governments and the tourism industry increasingly
recognize that backpackers, by staying longer, often spend more than
faster-spending but shorter-staying "upscale" tourists, and that their
money goes directly into smaller-scale, locally-owned businesses and
the local economy, with far less of the "leakage" of spending back to
First World countries that characterizes luxury tourism -- thus doing
much more for economic development. Research by tourism
economists is turning the traditionally accepted wisdom that wealthier
and package tourists are more profitable and better for the local
economy on its head. (I can give you more references on this if you are
interested in the economic implications of backpacker tourism.)
----------------
Edward Hasbrouck
<[log in to unmask]>
<http://hasbrouck.org>
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