Hi,
I just got back home, from my trip to Romania, so I decided to
check on the list :) Except some photographs from the trip, but not
too soon - I have returned that early because of an unexpected
assignment this weekend, and I plan to go abroad again start of
August - this time former Yugoslavia.
Trip was great, I solo hitchhiked from Czech republic to Romania and
back, which was excellent for meeting some nice people on the road
(people are quite friendly when they see a lone foreigner who does
speak their language a little). After taking an all-night drive
with a Spanish-Romanian truck driver to the city of Deva, I met up
with my friends who were already there, in a nice stroke of luck,
when they saw me from a truck they hiked and stopped. This time (my
second in Romania), we didn't go to the high mountains but stayed
in the lower mountains, at around 1300m. Made new friends, met
interesting people, as always. I didn't do much nature photography,
I think I haven't made a single "nature" frame. Most of the great
national-geographic nature shots seem too sterile to me. Looking
exceptional, yes, but not telling you that much how it is really
there. For that, I like the photographs of people. Which I did a
lot. All on B&W, so it will take some time before I scan some
prints. The whole trip, especially for being solo for the "road"
part of it, was very enlightening, for me, but I think also for the
friendly people we met. In the good way. Great hospitability. The
average people are far more hospitable and friendly than in the
"West". More lively. West is afraid, sterile... Of course I met
great people there as well, but not so much of them. Most of the
people on this list are very good and hospitable too, I can see
just from the GFM reports.
The people are very hospitable, but that brings a risk of ruining
their way of life. Global tourism has maybe destroyed more cultures
than many recent wars. There is no reciprocity with the "western"
tourist // "western" meaning the typical wealthy tourist who stays
in hotels etc., not a geographic meaning 'per se'.//. No
enlightening for both sides. He just tosses off money, offering
nothing but money in return for the hospitality, corrupting the
traditional reciprocal relations. While his money helps the
economy, most of it goes away to foreign touristic investors,
infrastucture that's only for tourists like McDonald chains which
they need because "I would not eat the dirty food there", and such.
I have seen tourist city centers in Romania which looked just like
the ones in Prague, Wien or Paris (meaning: sterile, ugly,
burgeause, making you puke). And few backstreets away, there was only
the poor. Not longer hospitable, because now you are not a
"pilgrim", but a member of the "tourist" class. Even if you are
only slightly less poor than them.
I hate the tourist crowds in Prague, the whole tourist center. It's like
Madame Tussaud's - city modelled in vax, vax museum, Franz Kafka
streets artifically made in vax, no longer alive, no longer
enlighteningly dangerous, no longer a living city... Sterilised by
countless boutiqus and Franz Kafka tours and "See the Golem" signs
and brothels and ..., and ... . You really hate it when it happens to
your city, and you equally hate it when you see it elsewhere.
And what the tourists bring back home? Memories of hotel rooms (the
same because it's Holiday Inn or RAS or whatever chain), "local
cuisine" tourist restaurants, some sights which they take the same
ugly kitch pictures as thousands of others. "indigenous" dances and
music performing before hotels and on the plazas, dances and music
which once had a ritual meaning, sacred meaning, but now are
performed only for the money. But in the soul, nothing, nothing.
And they leave nothing, nothing. No one benefits. Both loose.
Stereotypes are only strengthened.
It's hard to travel the other way. You will break a lot of
sterotypes. You will learn new things, which isn't always pleasant.
You will meet good people and bad people. You cannot decline
their hospitablity, even though knowing that they are offering
their best and rarest. "God return it to you, kind hosts" no longer
works now. You can stay and help, but often, you, unexperienced
worker, do more harm than help. You can give them money, but that's
the whole point - that's not totally bad for any culture. You can
entertain them. When you are at least a bit friends, you can offer
to go and buy some provisions which you have eaten so foolishly.
You can invite them to you, which is harder, because most such
people do not have the time or resources to travel Europe to visit
you. I don't know. As with most things in life, it's a decision
hard to decide. But it's better to make friends than just hosts.
When I was younger, Czechoslovakia was a communist country. Most
tourists came, who saw the city like a zoo. They saw only
the "exhibit". Zoo. Apes in a cage. Others came, mostly young
leftists, artists. They brought ideas, music, exchanged ideas.
Helped. They broke their sterotypes, and broke ours as well. They
learned that not all under Communism was great, as most young
thought in the West. They spoke of it back home. They were friends,
guests, not tourists. When we now hosted the children from
Chechnya, some people here looked at them the same way. Apes in a
cage. Stereotypes. Muslims. Terrorists. Apes. Others looked with
their heart, and learned a big lot. So the hosts can learn a lot
too, if you are a good guest.
I will end. I don't know what I wanted to say anyway, or who I am
saying it to. Some will understand, some will not. That's it. It
was perhaps the return home which made me sad, bringing back memories of
being a host myself, hosting guests from Chechnya, children from
the refugee camps who fled from the war there. And how miserable
and angry and helpless I felt when they left, and I was walking
trough the centre of Prague, with the adverts and hotels and
tourists knowing nothing... the whole machine going on and on.
Our friends in Romania asked how we liked the country. I had to say
(truthfully), that it was a great experience, and beautiful. And
that I will speak of it when I return back. So here it is :) Next
time you hear that the migrant workers from Romania or Ukraine or
whatever "eastern" country are thieves and mafians, don't believe
it :) We are neither, and it was said about Czechs in the West
as well. The Romanian culture is ancient, its artists and writers
famous (but maybe more by their country of refuge - mostly France -
than their country of origin). And the people are great. Yes there
were bad ones. But where aren't? And the good ones were very
helpful.
Thus, try not to be a tourist next time you go abroad. Be an
interested but humle observer, be a friend. Be prepared to be shocked, to
have your stereotypes broken, to think. From what I know of the
people on this list, you are not tourists that much :-) so I am sorry
for saying something obvious. But as I wrote, I was both sad and
happy, and wanted to write something. Think what you think :)
Good light,
Frantisek Vlcek
