Reflections of a post-tourist

"[T]he post-tourist knows that he is a tourist: not a time traveler when he goes somewhere historic; not an instant noble savage when he stays on a tropical beach; not an invisible observer when he visits a native compound. Resolutely 'realistic,' he cannot evade his condition of outsider."

Maxine Feifer, Going Places: Tourism in history. The quote can be found in this interesting (but fair warning: academic) article...


Indeed, that is I, the post-tourist. And a post-tourist stuck in the paranoid internet cafes of Southern Xinjiang, where just using a computer is enough of a hassle to disuade me from even attempting to post photos.

So in lieu of photos, these post-touristic vignettes:

1. Authenticity: In Kashgar the eruptions of hand drums and wailing so-na signals just that that latest tour group has arrived, the latest department store has opened. Instead, local Uighurs (in the small towns at least) crowd the doorways of VCD shops, dubbed Bollywood productions blaring.

2. The Global Bazaar: Beyond the hackneyed tropes of Kashgar as 'ancient crossroads' lies the (recently refurbished) bazaar. Within, the carpets bear stickers proclaiming "Silk Style - Made in Belgium" (the cheapest) or are made to order using local specifications by factories in Hangzhou. The 'silk road' stretched and rewoven as a silk web of global commerce. [I bought Pakistani carpets instead.]

3. The World Game: A three and a half hour busride across the desert to Yarkand, the bus stereo all the way blaring a "Uighured" version of 'The Cup of Life' by Ricky Martin, amongst other hits. An instrumental version fortunately; a real Uighur Ricky Martin may well have driven the surrealness well above my threshold. ['We just stopped for a bathroom break and he ran off into the desert screaming "Ole, Ole, Ole"...we never saw him again.']

4. The (other) locals: In Kharghilik yesterday eating lunch in a Sichuan restaurant. The Uighurs are fasting, which leaves Sichuanese - seemingly most of the Han immigrants are from there. In Chinese, I ask the boss the directions to the town's main mosque (qingzhensi). She looks at me, puzzled: Mosque? Is that some kind of restaurant? I don't know of any around here..." On the corner 25 metres away from her door is a small mosque.

(For a similar experience, see here. BTW. Does anyone actually follow these links I dig up?)

5. The Language Barrier: Buying bread here in Hotan this evening, I offer a winning 'Asalaam Aleikum' to the boss. She looks at me, puzzled (I have got a lot of this recently). "Well, are you going to answer him?", the woman next to me asks her (or so I assume, telepathically). "Oh...right. I thought he was speaking to me in English and my brain just kind of froze up," the store owner replies. So 'Asalaam Aleikum' doesn't work all the time... but having telepathic Uighur-language powers is always helpful.

6. Being There: Today, on the bus to Hotan, along the southern rim of the most landlocked desert on Earth, the Uighur soap opera DVD dragging into what must be its third hour at full volume, a thought comes to me: "It would be really great to be at the beach right now."

[I'm having gmail problems, courtesy, I can only assume, of the party people in Beijing. So apologies if i cannot reply to you at the moment. it works sometimes, not others.]