8: From Kanchanaburi, after Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Chiang Rai

Beloved Friends,

At first, everything was just different. Totally, entirely different. In Europe, my experiences were at least vaguely familiar, born as they were from the intellectual and cultural history of the “Old World” I’ve been steeped in my entire life. In Thailand, I landed with nothing but a pre-existing affinity for sticky rice and curry (green, mostly), a fondness for pad thai, and whatever knowledge of Buddhism I acquired in my singular college class (on Tibetan Buddhism, mind you) plus three and a half years of meditation practice. I had no context, so everything just seemed so terribly exotic.

And boy, is it easy to capitalize on the exotic! Traveling on a prepared tour with my family, we’ve visited exotic temples, taken boats on canals that run through exotic poor neighborhoods in Bangkok, watched exotic performances of “native dances” before New Year’s, and ridden exotic animals (elephants!) rescued from exotic circuses and logging camps. We’ve learned to cook exotic food (Pad Thai) after going to the exotic market (filled with dead and dying animals) to procure exotic ingredients. We’ve heard exotic music played on exotic instruments. We’ve gone on a long trek to see the exotic people who live on the hills (Hill Tribes, they call them). And there was something off about all of that.

My mom was the first to bring it up in conversation, sitting on a porch especially made for tourists in the village of the tribespeople, being stared at by two drooling pregnant dogs while staring at the gorgeous verdant hills below. We proceeded to discuss the merits and demerits of this kind of tourism, which I’m going to call “exotic tourism.” Exotic tourism is built on looking and possessing. “Look,” it says, “at these strange, foreign things! They are so different, so weird, so backwards!” And those who look become eyes and camera flashes and wallets, disembodied and dishearted. And those who are looked at become bodies devoid of minds and hearts and individual stories. It is no coincidence “exotic” is also used to denote prostitution (of which there is an embarassing amount here) — it is built on objectification.

Also like prostitution, exotic tourism distorts an experience that ought to be sacred: human encounters. The attempt to understand another in their wholeness allows them to grow into true expressions of themselves, and it does us good too: to hold the other in the fullness of their wholeness, we ourselves must expand. We are more than eyes and ears and wallets, and they are more than bodies. We are humans, as are they, and the extent of our humanity is determined by our ability to recognize the humanity of others, no matter how different.

There are, of course, other ways to travel in these foreign lands. I have been thinking of the time I spent in Uganda and Rwanda. There, I stayed with people who became dear friends, despite being from totally different worlds. Through my residence in their world, John and Simon taught me a different way of life, one that was slower and more full of gratitude. And as an outsider, I was privy to other stories and interpretations. Under the auspices of a study abroad program, I acquired context and critical tools to make sense of the world I saw. The actions of my friends were their own, yes, but they were also parts of larger patterns conditioned by historical and economic forces. This didn’t diminish my ability to relate to them. On the contrary, it helped me try to understand them, much like an understanding of Germany’s role in WWII and the country’s subsequent division helps me understand my German friends; or an understanding of Brazil’s socioeconomic disparities and history of military dictatorships helps my friends understand me. 

And even if we don’t have two months here, and if homestays for five are not our familial cup of tea, the impetus to understand and relate drives the way my family travels. We do not want to look at the world and possess it. We want to encounter it, understand it, and appreciate it. For this inclination, as for so many other things, I am deeply grateful for the way my parents raised us. Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Pops. And David and Michael, because at this point, we all work together to make this family awesome.

As for you, my friends, may your lives be full of encounters. May you seek to understand and to appreciate. May you be understood and appreciated. May this fill you, and the world, with love.

Yours,

Rafa