so people have been asking me,
"How's Thailand?"
and I just wanna answer, "Like any highly traveled city or place you've ever been."
you know....
Starbucks is there, and McDonald's and Burger King. These franchises they've morphed from restaurants to familiar friends.
At a Starbucks the other day I was looking in the glass case at all the pastries and cakes, how cookie cutter clean they look, and how they are exactly the same pastries Starbucks sells in Omaha, or Albuquerque or LA.
Imagine the amount of jet fuel used ONLY to ship Starbucks pastries around?
and there's a lot of white men with big bellies with shaved heads and sunburns who walk on the beach holding the hand of a Thai escort. I know Thailand is known for it's proliferation of open prostitution and lady men (there's even a cute one with ponytails who works at the Starbucks on our beach.) but still, this easy romance feels like a commodity to me.
Is this how it is in every international city?
Chain restaurants, ATMs, the very rich white guys and the very poor people of color changing your sheets and washing your clothes.
The local cuisine is always very spicy and cheap,
the local people very friendly,
I don't want to get into stereotypes here,
but isn't that the point I'm trying to make?
That globalization makes everything less unique, that major corporations take over, and the local people turn into a generation of burger flippers, prostitutes, and taxi drivers.
Jobs are good, but for the price of spiritual and cultural loss?
Come on, now.
Thailand is great, but my air conditioned room overlooking the Andaman Sea isn't so different than your hotel room in Hawaii, in Shanghai, in Buenos Aires; where ever.
think about it.
Tags
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Today in the mail, Gigs got his missionary tags!!!
It's happening!
Go, Gigs, Go!!
2 comments:
I just found your blog--and a conduit for information for when we visit Mongolia! We are living in Beijing for the next 3-5 years, having arrived from 3 years in Tanzania.
We were in Chiang Mai over Christmas and I so hear you. Those generifying trends are happening all over the States, too. Gone are the mom-and-pop shops, the cafes, etc., replaced by big-box stores and chain restaurants.
Overseas, there's definitely an image with those American/Western things as being better or more cosmopolitan or a symbol of wealth. When you're dragging 3 kids through an unfamiliar country and they've refused to eat anything but white rice for 3 days, I admit those golden arches bring an inner sign of relief. I also know that my kids are pickier here because they know a pizza is nearby, whereas in Tanzania there was NOTHING ELSE in the near future but what was being served. They were better eaters.
Mongolia is on my list of places to visit--it looks beautiful!
I really like a popular interviewer from my country who has travelled to the most differentes places in the world. He says the more he travels and get to know different people and different countries, the more he gets to the point that in fact people are the same. They have the same fears, the same dreams. They only have different ways of view.
The Globalization have good and bad points. It is really good for who makes money with it. Unfortunately to make everything in the same standard is a bad point.
I will give you an simple example. Brazil has just passed for an orthographic reform... what for? Having the same grammar rules as Portugal makes it easy to translate and send books.
So... I ask you...what can we do!?
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