Plunder and Pleasure

essay

by Elizabeth Anacleto

Plunder and Pleasure
By Elizabeth Anacleto

Everything has a political context. Tourism, and notions of travel, adventure, and of the exotic that are necessarily annexed to it, are no different. If anything, its seemingly benign existence, its innocent marketing, should indeed set off alarm bells. Most things that are packaged as ‘value-free,’ more often than not prove otherwise. Tourism is often excised from its political context because what it reveals upon further examination just doesn’t jive with glossy travel brochures. The idea of the holiday is about escape. Thus, the consumer, in order to consume, must believe that the tourism industry’s agenda is simply to assist in that escape. The consumer does not need, nor want to know the implications of his/her escape. Politically and economically, these implications just don’t sell. In other words, the industry is anything but just.

Travel has meant different things at different times and is a concept that is also imbued with implications of a gendered nature. For instance, historically, a woman who traveled without the protection of a suitable male chaperon risked losing her respectability in the social world. Stepping out of the private sphere and entering the public sphere unprotected caused her to be read as available. Therefore, if she came to harm, it was regarded as her due punishment for this transgression. Conversely, for men, the opposite was true. If anything, travel away from home was seen as a sort of milestone, a rite of passage if you will. Although time has tempered and moderated these gendered assumptions, they continue to be imbedded in concepts of contemporary travel.

Interestingly, challenging heteronormative ideas does not preclude what can effectively be seen as complicity with patriarchal, imperialistic political agendas. A case in point is that of the ‘Victorian lady travellers.’ These white women challenged conventions by traveling with little or no ‘proper’ male protection. Although their un-chaperoned search for adventure essentially undermined Victorian notions of femininity, many did not support other efforts aimed at female liberation, such as the suffrage movement. Furthermore, many failed to understand how their own claim to the right of adventure helped fuel Western imperialism. Many women funded their travels by speaking at popular lecture circuits that, in conjunction with world fairs and museums, fuelled the growth of the tourism industry – an industry founded and maintained, in large part, by colonial ideologies. Likewise, many today find themselves engaged in seemingly benign adventures, without possessing full comprehension of the political context in which their adventures occur.

Because I am a young woman seeking adventure, I found myself in Thailand during the summer of 2002:

I’m on a beach on the island of Ko Samui. I’m crying… again. My friend laughs and says that I’m the only person she knows that would find herself in such beautiful surroundings, yet be driven to sit and weep while composing depressing poetry:

Beads of sand trickle along the folds of my flesh
And I am ashamed of my own indulgence
My pride drowns in my cocktail
And I choke on every sip

Everywhere I turn there is no lack of services for tourists: internet cafes, hostels, hotels, and laundry service signs line the streets; tuk-tuk and taxi drivers, street vendors and tour guides all vie for my attention. In some places there appear to be almost as many tourists as there are Thais. Many get irritated or angry when a Thai does not speak their language. In the North I watch tourists take photographs of indigenous tribal members as though they were at a museum. Culture here is not shared, but appropriated. One Thai man tells me that young men and women here no longer wear traditional Thai clothing – they wear ‘Western’ clothing instead. I can see that he is right. I see a European middle-aged white man with a young Thai girl. The next day, he’s with a girl that looks even younger. My friend must restrain me from approaching him and slapping him up-side the head. I see mothers with babies living on the streets of Bangkok. I cry when children approach me with begging in their eyes. My friend reminds me that they know how to ‘play’ the tourists. I reply that although they think they’re getting one over on me, we’re really getting one over on them because in North America – although I do not mean to negate the extensive poverty that exists there – children do not have to learn how to ‘play’ tourists. There’s a McDonald’s in Chiang Mai: a combo meal is too expensive for the average Thai. The customers are either foreigners or upper-class citizens. They are treated as if they’ve just walked into a four star restaurant – there’s a greeter, and a floater (to take your tray or ensure that you have enough ketchup). It seems as though the whole country exists exclusively for your personal enjoyment. I try to explain to one Thai woman that I’m not rich: “I’m a poor university student,” I explain and am instantly disgusted with myself. I wear my privilege – there’s no denying it anymore. I realize she would never be able to afford a trip to Canada. One Canadian dollar gets me twenty-five to thirty baht, enough to buy a simple meal.

Frommer’s and Lonely Planet did not adequately prepare me for this. Frommer’s was right about one thing though: “Thailand’s allure is pure Oriental fantasy.” I am, however, compelled to contest Lonely Planet’s assertion that, “Thailand… has never been colonised by a foreign power”.

Tourism may be understood as the godfather of globalization. It has acted as a way to plug economies into the global motherboard. Thailand’s political history is one that is fraught with instability due to episodic periods of dictatorship and military rule. Thailand’s economy also received a fatal blow in 1997 when they experienced a severe market crash after which they received a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which imposed conditions for recapitalisation and restructuring. The IMF loan, in conjunction with tourism-generated revenue (a major staple in the Thai economy since 1986), helped re-stabilize the country’s economy by the year 2000.

It is interesting to note here that a number of recent Hollywood films, for example “The Beach,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, further popularize Thailand as a vacationing spot. Media therefore, can be seen as working a two-way street. While North American culture is exported to Thailand via Hollywood, fashion and fast-food chains, Thai culture, in turn, is appropriated by Hollywood. Such cultural intersections drive the tourism industry, benefiting the economy as well as international travel corporations. Thus, Thailand is formally plugged into the global economy. No matter if that plug is pulled, and all the lights go out; a heavy reliance on any one industry leaves an economy open to corruption and economic instability. For better or worse, Thailand, meet World; World, meet Thailand!