In an age of commodified culture and globalization, does true authenticity even exist?
Authenticity. It’s the buzzword of the enlightened traveler. We seek the genuine experience, something unspoiled by commercialism or prior visitors; we seek the perfect interaction with the culture we’re visiting.
Maybe our fantasy is to be adopted by a tribe, to receive some kind of acknowledgment that we’re not just another camera-toting white-shoe wearing tourist. Maybe it’s to have a time travel moment, to visit a land seemingly unspoiled by progress.
Maybe we want to boldly go where no man has gone before. We are out of luck.
For some reason, writing about authenticity in travel has been flying across my radar lately. I read stories punctuated with introspective commentary about polluted cultures or an inability to leave our world behind.
I’m starting to think we are missing the point.
The Inescapable Us
We live in a small world. In a day and a half, we can be in the African bush, with a Hmong hill tribe, in the Moscow subway.
Visas and politics not withstanding, the world is open to us. If our bodies and minds can be there, our global policies and influences are there too.
And we tend to really enjoy things like Internet access and indoor plumbing, which got there the same way we did. I suspect we prefer a somewhat sanitized authenticity.
The word authenticity implies a genuine, distilled sort of experience, a kind of transitory purity that may exist somewhere, but will be gone as soon as we lay our eyes on it.
Some time back I watched an episode of Globe Trekker where the host visited a tree house dwelling tribe in – oh, was it New Guinea? And I remember seeing western t-shirts on some of the tribe, left behind by the last camera crew, perhaps?
Sure, travel companies will charge you a lot of money to offer up a “real” experience, but what you’re purchasing is no more or less authentic for its exclusivity.
A Return Home
Here in Seattle you can take a ferry out to an island and attend a “genuine” Native American powwow, with salmon bake and native dances – but the powwow we stumbled into last summer had a fun fair and roller coasters.
There was a salmon bake and dancing, but also, cotton candy and fairground games where you could win a giant pale pink teddy bear. Was it less authentic?
The strip malls of Vegas are no less real than the Kingdom of Bhutan. We have to stop being offended by the Bob Marley cassettes, no, the Pearl Jam CDs, left behind by the last generation of travelers and take it as part of the experience.
It is what is real now and when we travel we are in it. We are both cause and effect of this perceived lack of authenticity.
We’re relying on our destinations to provide it, but it’s Shangri-la, it’s Atlantis, it’s Brigadoon and Camelot. You can’t get there from here.
The best we can hope for is to be authentic in our travels. Wherever we go, there we are.
This post was originally published on Nerd’s Eye View. Reprinted with permission.
Pam Mandel is a freelance technical writer, as well as the travel editor for BlogHer. She keeps her own personal blog of photography and musing’s at Nerd’s Eye View.What do you think about culture and authenticity?
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This really depends on the definition of “authenticity,” – Ms. Mandel’s assertion that “The strip malls of Vegas are no less real than the Kingdom of Bhutan” is true or false based on this definition.
In terms of physical reality, or even in terms of having a unique culture (of uninterrupted consumerism, gambling and drinking), certainly the strip malls of Vegas are real and perhaps authentic – but it should be noted that this culture exists to sell itself. Without the attractions of sex, gambling and gaudy hotels, what is left of Vegas?
While nothing exists in a vacuum – even ancient cultures were influenced by neighbors – I would argue that when we seek authenticity, we seek something with inherent value or beauty.
For example: we want to see the Forbidden City because of what it is – a magnificent palace, a testament to the power of human creativity, and a relic of an ancient social structure. But when a Starbucks opens up within the city’s walls, it changes the dynamic: it’s no longer simply a place, it’s an attraction. Suddenly the Forbidden City isn’t simply there, it’s selling itself – luring vistors with extra charms.
It’s in this process that authenticity gets lost.
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I read the first couple of lines of this on my RSS reader and came over to rant.
Turns out I am in entire agreement with this writer.
I once new a volunteer worker who spent a lot of time with an ethnic community. Occasionally tour groups would come through. On more than one occasion there were complaints regarding the tribes’ homes.
It seems as they got richer they had stopped building their charming wooden shacks and instead replaced them with brick homes.
The tourists weren’t happy. They didn’t think it was authentic.
Now what right does a tourist have to stop development? Here were people who were working hard and investing their gains into a good home for the family.
And sure, as the article said, it’s all authentic. The development of this tribe is an interesting a subject as you’ll find.
I saw two and a half years of change in Hanoi. You could literally see the development. Suddenly tall builders were starting to dot the horizon. People were dressing more flamboyantly, Vietnamese people were suddenly visiting restaurants that previously had been just for tourists – it was all authentic.
There were things I was less happy with – like KFC turning up. But, you know what? It’s their city. Jobs in KFC are better than jobs in a rice fields. The food might be crap but whose to say they can’t eat it if they want to?
It’s all good, it’s all fascinating. Sure we don’t want everywhere to be a facsimile of America but how a country deals with external influences and cultures and twists them to meet their own way of living, can be fascinating.
A friend once arrived in Hanoi and wanted to go off exploring for a while. He asked me where was good to visit. I reccommended Hoi An.
He came back complaining it was full of tourists – and as ever missing the point, that people do, that he himself is a tourist. Hey it’s an authentic tourist town that was once an authentic trading post. It still has an authentic market and authentic sailing boats but while the Cargo Club’s sandwich’s and ice cream are not authentic – it tastes great. Enjoy.
This authentic thing though, like eco lodges (and don’t get me wrong, I love them) – is a good deal for the travel agent. Take to the middle of nowhere, where there is no facilities, put them in a hut without electricity and hot water – and make them pay a fortune for it.
Each to their own. To hark back to volunteering (again). If you want to know the “real” country then you won’t find it in a couple of weeks.
Hell, 30 months in Hanoi and I was more confused by local culture when I left, than when i arrived.
But at least I knew I knew nothing. If you get my drift. Finding the REAL thing – takes a long time, years probably.
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Everyone, thanks for your thought provoking comments. I’m thinking there’s at a least a few university papers out of this discussion.
For me, I try to remind myself that if I visit a place and find it overrun with tourists and Western comforts, the adventure and sense of place are not inherently devalued — they’re simply a little harder to recognize.
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I think Ms. Mandel said it right when she said
“The best we can hope for is to be authentic in our travels. Wherever we go, there we are.”That is for sure. We can’t change how other people are or how their lives and culture has changed through years and technology – much like our own. All you can control is how authenitc and sharing you are.
I think too many people miss some lovely parts of traveling and seeing the world because they strive to be less touristy. I like being in a culture and seeing how people live in daily life, but if I go to Rome, I go to the Colleseum. If I am in Paris, the Eiffel Tower.
Because you are there you might experience it all, the unique, the real and the touristy – it is all part of the make up of a place!So enjoy it all and feel free to!
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I’m glad this article was written because its something that’s been on my mind for quite somtime. With the growing market for ‘real’ tourism (i.e shanty town tours in Brazil or South Africa) I’ve wondered myself what people look for when they travel nowadays. Is sightseeing and touring around wonderful cities and gorgeous landscapes and meeting incredible people not enough anymore? Do we now need to get kicks out of being the voyeurs of human suffering and need?
I agree with the author in what she says: wherever we go, there we are. Period. Let’s not complain about the western ways ‘ruining’ other cultures, because after all, it’s our doing. We should reap what we sow and make the best of it.
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@Ben: i like the thinking around what happens to make something an “attraction.” I’m going to noodle that over.
@Lucis: I don’t think it’s just “Western” ideals that affect our travel experience. When we were road tripping in the Canadian Rockies a few years ago, we shared a picnic shelter in the rain with a very large Indian family. And once, while sitting solo on the beach in Santa Cruz, I was engulfed in a cloud of camera toting suit wearing Japanese tourists – and then, they were gone.
Affluence and tourism go together – societies that have the money to travel for pleasure will leave their mark on our travel experiences.
@Wveryone: Best. Commenters. Ever.
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Hi!
i feel your pain here. I, too, want to go places not contaminated with the outside world. My country still has those communities living in tribal state and I wish to visit them soon before they disappear.
i also prefer the road NOT travelled and possibly outer space is the next frontier
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Edward Abbey said it best when he said, “I’ve never been to a place I liked that I told anyone about”
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I want my Internet access and indoor plumbing, but I don’t want high fructose corn syrup produced in Kansas flavoring my authentic dish served to me in rural Mongolia.
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