The first is what I would name as the "Superiority" view of travel. In this version, everything is viewed through the lens of one's own culture and experience in a negative sense. This can come across in such statements as "This (fill in the blank) is so much worse and primitive than we have at home" or "I cannot believe that they do/believe (fill in the blank two)". This can be any number of things, from pollution to health care to bathroom facilities to housing to the nature of toilet paper (trust me, there is a significant difference in toilet paper throughout the world. In some cases, old sewer systems are the cause).
The second is what I would name the "Inferiority" view of travel. In this version, everything is viewed through the lens of one's own culture and experience in a positive sense, mostly comparatively. This can come across in such statements as "They do (fill in the blank) here so much better than we do at home; it is scarcely believable that we are civilized country doing it that way" or "They are so much more correct in that they do/believe (fill in the blank two)". The crossover in what these things may be are the same, but the point in this case is usually a lever against one's current country or culture to express dis-satisfaction in an alternative method.
The third, and arguably the most difficult, is what I would name the "Observational" view of travel. In this version, everything is simply viewed in the context of where you are. Judgements is for the most part withheld (except for some fairly egregious things that are generally noxious everywhere) and there is no comparison with one's home culture and experience. Things simply "are". If there are things that are better or worse, one does not comment on them: one figures out what one can do in one's own sphere of influence and power to change them, and then changes them.
It is not for us to change other places; it is for other places to change us and how we view where we live.
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One of the most noticeable difference I found being in Cambodia and Vietnam was simply litter.
To be fair, having come within the previous month from Japan, Switzerland, and Germany, I certainly had not been prepped in that sense for what was effectively the Third World. That is not a judgment, it simply a comment on previous 4 weeks of experience.
Simply put, litter was almost everywhere.
It was on the streets, in gutters, between buildings. It was on the sidewalk. In the countryside, it was in fields and on roadways. In the rivers and lakes we traveled, it floated by with the current or slowly rocked on the shallows, to be strewn on the shores by waves at some point.
To be honest, it surprised me.
If I dig into my mind a little bit, I can come up with potential reasons. One, of course, might simply be that in both cases, these countries have "modernized" within two generations. In the "old times", things were simply much less single use and got used until they were no longer usable and even then, were broken down into smaller elements to be reused. In another potential reason, materials used to be much more organic and would break down over time in the climate - an example of this would be coconuts, which are ubiquitous as food and material throughout the region. Done with the coconut shell and leaves? Toss them to the side somewhere; they will breakdown in the heat and humidity (plastics of course, much less so).
There were isolated places where this was not the case - mostly (to be frank) the major tourist locations. In at least one city, significant efforts had been made by the local authorities to clean things up and it was very noticeable in comparison.
But to be fair to those countries, most of the people there have arguably more pressing concerns than the litter that has become part of the landscape.
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You may remember that two weeks ago I published a post on Packaging Waste. This was pre-written before I left; the fact that it somewhat happily overlapped (if one can use the term) with my experience abroad was purely coincidental. But it did get me to thinking - not in the first two versions of travel mentioned above, Superiority ("How much better I do things") or Inferiority ("How much worse we could be doing") but simply Observationally, specifically "How much waste am I putting into the system and where am I putting it?"
There are some pretty obvious things of course, like every time I do an online order of anything - but there are a lot of more subtle things as well. The one that leapt to my mind is the amount of pre-packaged food I eat - not the things I eat regularly as meals (I am pretty good about buying in bulk for those) but the smaller pre-packaged snacks like protein bars or those Will-O-The-Wisps at work, the individual bite sized candies that are always so convenient.
And so, I have another area I can work on.
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Bite sized candies are pretty easy to deal with - do not partake (also, waistline will thank me). But other sorts of snacks are more difficult. I would very much likes something more filling and certainly something with protein.
And thus, I made beef jerky this week.
I do not have a full cost break down between number of days and grams of protein for the approximately 4 lbs. of on-sale steak I used versus protein bars I would have eaten. And I do not know that I fully have a grasp of what the "litter quota difference" is between x number of wrappers that are in some manner plasticized versus the styrofoam and plastic wrap that was used for the meat. So maybe in my mind, the whole thing is a wash.
But what still haunts me is the amount of waste I saw as I traveled through Cambodia and Vietnam, waste that I highly suspect will outlive me and that in subtle ways tore down the beauty of what I was seeing and in even more subtle ways, the lives of those that have simply learned to live with it.
I cannot do everything. But I can do something.
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A Personal Request:
My mother in law had knee surgery this past week. Her initial response was fabulous and she was able to go home; The Ravishing Mrs. TB flew down this week (just after getting back from our trip) to stay with her for at least three weeks initially. Any kind thoughts or prayers for her healing would be greatly appreciated.
Prayers up friend.
ReplyDeleteAs far as packing waste and the moral degradation of just "living with it" we can choose to be part of the problem or part of the solution.
But the problem is SO BIG.
One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?” The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.” “Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!”
After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said…” I made a difference for that one.”
Throw that starfish.
Thank you Michael! I spoke with The Ravishing Mrs. TB last night and things seem to be going very well so far with her mobility, so that is hopeful.
DeleteThe problem is far bigger than any one of us. But to your point - and really with almost anything - we can all do something.
Everywhere you look everything is wrapped in ......plastic! Companies that produce paper toweling and TP need to switch their packaging from plastic to paper. When I walk on the path down on the lakefront I bring a bag to pick up trash dropped by people who don't want to hang on to it long enough to drop it in the cans placed for that purpose.
ReplyDeleteAh, you are a good man, Nylon12.
DeleteThat is a really simple solution. My immediate reaction is that it changed for the same reason that we went from the paper grocery bags of my youth to the plastic bags of today: we were cutting down trees (a renewable resource, as you know). Somehow the non-renewable, never-degrading world of plastics was somehow better.
Just that, to your point, would be a great start.
Just because I forgot, prayers for your MIL are in the rotation TB.
DeleteThank you Nylon12! She seems to be doing well so far.
DeleteIf trash cans aren't a part of life,litter will be.
ReplyDeleteJustin - That is an interesting comment. Public trash cans seem pretty hard to come by in other parts of the world - Japan (somewhat surprisingly), but certainly in Vietnam and Cambodia. I am not sure why.
DeleteI have pondered this very thing during my tours of third world countries, all of which have lots of litter. I think it is a generational thing. Back in the earlier half of the 20th century, our cities and even farms would probably look similar to many third world countries today. Eventually we realized the errors of our ways and cleaned things up. I think third world countries are just two or three generations behind us in that aspect.
ReplyDeleteI think many countries lag us on a variety of issues from mass shootings to political divisiveness. I see the seeds of what we have sown, intentional or not, across the world these days. What I'm not sure about is if we can do the same but for things that we will be proud about when we see other countries copying our lead.
It could be, Ed. I guess I just never saw it to the extent I did overseas when I was growing up, include some fairly remote and agricultural areas (although I am obviously well past that mid 20th Century mark).
DeleteAs to seeing it in future, I honestly do not know. There are cultural shifts which have to happen which, as you note, seem to come with baggage of their own. Perhaps some other country will thread the needle we have not.