Chapter 15: Intercultural Communication
15.9 How to Approach International Travel: Insulating or Embracing?
In Anne Tyler’s novel The Accidental Tourist, the character Macon Leary is a paradoxical person: a travel writer who hates to travel. His books are popular because they appeal to people like him: people who are forced to travel, but whose main desire is to stay within a cocoon of familiarity no matter where they go. I assume Tyler gave him the last name “Leary” as a reflection of his attitude toward life: uneasy about everything, never letting his guard down. Although it’s a work of fiction, it’s plausible that a travel writer with this attitude might achieve a fan base, since many people are understandably nervous about traveling abroad, and would rather find a familiar fast food chain than try the local cuisine. Some vacationers just want to experience a sandy beach without having to worry about changing money, learning the local language, or getting sick from drinking the water.
One strategy to avoid those stressors is to visit an all-inclusive resort. I’ve been to such a resort in Mexico, and while it was “care free,” it didn’t feel much like being “in” Mexico; it felt like hiding in a self-contained pod that had been magically transported thousands of miles from home. I looked at the staff and wondered what it would be like to visit their houses. I later traveled to Thailand in late December, and was disappointed to hear Christmas music everywhere I went (even though Christians make up only 4% of the Thai population) but never a note of Thai music.
This is why I admire travel show hosts like Michael Palin, a man who has traveled the world over but avoids hotels whenever possible, preferring to stay in people’s homes and eat food cooked by people in their own kitchens. Yes, he has occasionally gotten sick, but that suffering pales next to the joy he feels embracing the local culture and meeting the local people. Instead of flying, he prefers to cross the Indian ocean in a dhow (tiny boat) or take a train across the Sahara desert. His desire to experience the world directly never seems to run out: as of this writing, he is 81 years old but still traveling.
Insulator or embracer: which one are you? A mix of both, I assume. There’s nothing wrong with being risk-averse or a homebody, as long as you don’t let that stop you from indulging your adventurous side every once in a while and seeing what other places are really like. If you can’t afford international travel, try listening to music from faraway lands, watching a show or movie from the other side of the world, attending an international festival, or eating culturally different cuisine.
What if you don’t like the food, get tired of reading subtitles, or find the music irritating? Well, at least you caught a glimpse of other ways to do things, other standards of what is beautiful or tasty or funny, and that might make you appreciate your own culture more. To visit that water metaphor one last time, you have left your own little pond for a minute, thereby learning a little more about the water you swim in.
15.3: Music from Across the Atlantic
Ali Farka Toure was not from “the middle of nowhere,” but he was from a region that came to symbolize the middle of nowhere: Timbuktu, Mali (a major trade capital five hundred years ago). He was a popular musician in Mali before he was discovered by western audiences. One fan was American musician Ry Cooder, who brought him to New York to record the album Talking Timbuktu in 1994. While he was in America, Cooder wanted to introduce Toure to American music, so he put on an album of Mississippi blues, curious as to what Toure’s reactions to this unfamiliar genre of music would be. Cooder was surprised that Toure didn’t find it unfamiliar at all: he immediately recognized it as Malian music.
There’s a mini-lesson here about the history of musical genres. When the slave traders stole people from West Africa and brought them to America, the West Africans brought their music with them. After crossing the Atlantic, that style turned into Mississippi delta blues, which achieved modest success in America, but really caught the attention of English guitarists like Eric Clapton (Cream), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), and Keith Richards (The Rolling Stones), who turned it into British rock and roll. That led to what is known as the “British Invasion” of English bands into America. If you’ve lost track, the music has crossed the Atlantic four times already, and kept bouncing back and forth until the distinction between English rock and American rock became meaningless. People from both countries are largely unaware that it originated from a different region entirely. So next time you listen to good old American rock and roll, remember that it comes from “the middle of nowhere” in Mali.
