T H I S+W E E K

Favorite travel books
By Don George, Editor

Two Towns in Provence
by M.F.K. Fisher

Natural Opium
by Diane Johnson

The Snow Leopard
by Peter Matthiessen

Roughing It
by Mark Twain

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Hong Kong Farewell
By Simon Winchester

D E P A R T M E N T S

Postmark | Brighton:
Absurd in England
By Andrew Ross

The Surreal Gourmet
Bananas for Bastille Day
By Bob Blumer

>Readers' Tips and Tales
Why does the world love to hate U.S. tourists?

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LA S T+W E E K

Tuesday, July 1

American Byways
Summer festivals, great road books and other glories

A full list of all
Wanderlust articles

Tim Gowan | The Ugly American -- Why Does the World Love to Hate U.S. Tourists?
12:38am Jul 3, 1997 PST (#36 of 36)

I'm in the navy and I used to be stationed in Japan. I've also made port visits to Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia, Singapore and UAE. I was in a squadron aboard the Independence.

When a ship is out at sea for a long time morale tends to get pretty low. When we hit a port a lot of sailors tend to get drunk and obnoxious (or sometimes worse), this certainly doesn't help endear us to the locals very much.

I wasn't there at the time but from what I hear when the Independence changed homeports from San Diego to Japan, the first night when it arrived sailors caused about a million dollars worth of damage out in town. It's really a small minority that cause most of the trouble but it gives us all a bad rap. In Japan they won't let Americans into some establishments, and to tell the truth I can't entirely blame them.

I think that countries where the U.S. has military stationed are naturally going to be somewhat resentful. How would we feel if France had bases here in the States where we couldn't go, and they frequented local establishments and acted like they own the joint, complaining about the wine and food.

Take the Phillipines for example, it used to have several large U.S. military bases there, but GIs (who are often quite young, and haven't learned how to behave yet) would act like they're the king of the place, flaunting their money, which is a lot over there and treating the people like dirt. Eventually they got pretty tired of it and kicked us out, despite the economic benefits of having bases there.

Mark Pritchard | Hong Kong
11:55am Jul 2, 1997 PST (#24 of 26)

I liked the NYT line, that Hong Kong may turn out to be a "gigantic Trojan horse" which changes China from the inside. But what change are they talking about? Everyone seems to think that consumerism equals democracy -- as if people are more free if they have a choice of 17 detergents.

I lived in Japan in the 80s, and because of the weight of consumerism, peer pressure and conformity under which people labor, I came to the conclusion that it was not a free society: people really didn't have the ability to make their own life choices. At least not the way we think of it in the U.S. On the other hand, in the U.S. we live under the threat of violence much more than other developed countries, and this is also a form of oppression.

So in deciding the "effect" of Hong Kong's return to China, there are many different scales we can use. Do we judge by the number of detergents available? By the infant mortality and literacy rates? By the number of deaths from handguns, or the number of women in the legislature? By the number of political prisoners, or the number of ethnic minorities in prison? The number of people in therapy, because even though they're making lots of money, they're still unhappy? The U.S. would look bad by some of these criteria, good by others.

So only the citizens of a place can really say whether or not they're satisfied -- whatever that means to them. Nevertheless, no one can say a society that, say, tortures its dissidents is a free society. There is probably a short list of such practices which are universally reviled.

Captain Billy | good american restaurants-a contradiction in terms
08:52am Jul 1, 1997 PST (#1 of 2)

I don't know if we just have bad luck overseas or if the food is really that bad....And we haven't been to that many countries.....And when we do travel, we never avail ourselves of tours or any other such enlightenment. We went to Spain in '92. No hotel reservations. We just got off the plane in Madrid at 7am Sunday and went to a kiosk that had the word 'tourista'.....Now, one does not have to be a multi-lingualist to understand that that was me.....Anyway we would up in a decent hotel....not great, but decent.....

Caught the train down to Seville for the Fair, then rented a car and drove down to Gibralter - where the food was worse - and around Spain....Never had a real good meal until we got to Andorra, about a month later....The food seemed to get better as we got nearer France....A hotel in a little coastal town north of Barcelona was also pretty good....

Stopped at a McDonalds in Valencia for lunch....the fanciest McD's I have ever seen....Marble floors.....Big Macs over $5.00....and the radio playing American Country Western Music......My senses were jolted a little silly at that one....

Carol and I noted that the people in Spain were all very slender and beautiful and handsome....We jokingly determined that it was because the food was so lousy that they stayed thin!

This has also happened to us on other foreign jaunts....but not in the US....We ALWAYS eat very good here....

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