Standing Room Only
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re in Dalat, in the central highlands of Vietnam. We’ve been here before, and Lee has been wanting to revisit (he says it reminds him of Asheville, which is a bit of a stretch, because Vietnam is its own unique thing), so we thought it would be a good spot for a rest after the last month of doing-going-moving-socializing. I’m drinking Vietnamese coffee and recharging my battery and slowly catching up on emails.
Standing Room Only
We went on a walking tour of Jakarta last month—the one where I nearly passed out from the heat—that showcased something that appears to be an interesting new trend: part of the pitch for this particular tour was all the modes of transit we’d be taking.
We rode the metro, the bus, a ride-share van, and had the option of the public ferry at the end.
Lee keeps joking that there must be an industry-wide tour guide newsletter, because we encountered the same pitch in Kolkata (plus a pedi-cab, which I found quite distressing, in spite of the guide’s assurances that it’s all totally ethical because each one is licensed and registered). It’s beginning to look like a trend.
When we boarded the bus in Kolkata, I managed to snag a seat, because it wasn’t totally stuffed to the gills. We rode something like 6 stops, while it rapidly filled up. I sat there in my seat, at first pleased by my good fortune and wily seat-snagging skills.
But as I watched the faces and bodies of the people jammed into the aisle, trying not to sway or stumble with every lurch of the bus, I realized just how valuable was the precious seat I was sitting in.
I am a white western woman in Kolkata—not a novelty by any means, but definitely a person of extreme privilege, relative to everyone else on that bus. Wealthy people in India don’t ride the bus. They have cars, or at the very least, they can afford a taxi.
The people around me looked tired; it was the end of the work day. How many of those people had been on their feet all day, doing some kind of hard manual labor? I had done nothing physical except go to the gym in my cushy hotel.
And there I sat, taking up a seat, torn between wanting to be a decent person and give my seat to someone who needed it more than I did, and not wanting to to lose my balance on that hurky-jerky ride.
It was fine at the time, but upon reflection, I think maybe it’s a trend of mixed blessings. On the one hand, I enjoy and value being exposed to the range of socio-economic status around the world. It’s good for me. On the other hand, it feels a little like ‘slumming.’ I don’t want to objectify or dehumanize people. Sitting on that bus, I wondered what the people around me thought of my presence—did they think, of course they’re riding the bus with us, it’s how one gets from point A to point B? Or did they think, why are those people taking up seats when they clearly weren’t down on their hands and knees scrubbing floors all day like I was? Or did they think, get off my bus, tourists—my life is not your entertainment?
Lee and I first had a variation on this conversation many years ago, when we sold our cars and started riding the bus in downtown Raleigh. At some point, Lee announced that he’d gotten all the way to the airport and back on the bus, and felt like a master of the universe. I pointed out that most likely, no one else on that bus had a law degree and a closet full of suits. (Actually, I may have said something a lot less diplomatic, along the lines of, right, you and all the poor people have figured out how the bus works.)
I think that’s why this new tour trend makes me a little uncomfortable: sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between genuine engagement and just ‘playing tourist’ with the realities of other people’s lives.
Take care,
Lisa
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