What does Susan Boyle have in common with the Uros Indians of Lake Titicaca?
No it isn't a joke, it's a precursor to a serious point that I want to make about travel. Bear with me, I'll get to the point eventually. Susan Boyle is, if there is anyone in the world who doesn't already know this, a former contestant on the X-Factor. She has a pretty good voice but she got to the final, and boy does everyone skirt around saying this, because she was really rather ugly. The idea that someone so plain could have a good voice seemed to catch the public imagination. I've never seen the program but for a few weeks you couldn't avoid her. She was on the news, she was on the front page of every newspaper, she was talked about on discussion programs. She was everywhere. When she was on the verge of a breakdown from all the attention even Gordon Brown got in on the act, sending her a message of sympathy.
Today she was on another discussion program because, apparently, she was a guest on last night's X-Factor. They showed a clip. She's still no beauty but she was styled well, dressed in nice clothes and she certainly didn't cut the exceptionally unattractive figure she cut before. So what were the panellists of the discussion saying about her?
They were saying that she shouldn't have used her new-found fame to smarten up, that she should have stayed ugly, badly-dressed and unappealing. They said that she was much more interesting when she was a good voice in a not so good body and that now she was an indifferent voice in an indifferent body. This seemed to me to be a very harsh judgement. Surely there's nothing at all wrong with her making herself presentable for a TV show watched by millions. She has a new CD out with a flattering picture on the cover. What's wrong with that?
This suggestion that people should look and behave in the way that we want them to, in the way that we expect them to, in the way that does not disappoint our beliefs about them, is what she has in common with the Uros Indians. And with native peoples around the world.
When I saw the Uros Indians I knew a number of things about them. And most of the things I knew, culled from travel guides, were wrong. They live on floating reed islands in Lake Titicaca. Relatively true although a lot of them actually live on the shore and go out to the islands for the tourists. They are traditionally dressed barefoot natives. Not true at all. I saw them changing from jeans and T-shirts and throwing their training shoes into the reed huts as we approached. They lead a traditional lifestyle. Only true if the traditional lifestyle includes satellite television - most of the huts have aerials. They live in huts made of reeds. Well actually in huts made of wood and corrugated metal but given a "Traditional" veneer to suit the tourists photographs.
The question is why shouldn't they make use of the modern world? And why should they have to try to hide it, to pretend to be something they patently are not, just so that the tourists can marvel at the traditional life and take their pictures of the amusing primitives?
I've encountered it time after time. In an Amazon village people were shocked when in answer to how he had achieved such spectacular colours in his clothing a village elder told them that he'd bought the dye in the city, hadn't they seen such things themselves.
In a Karen village in northern Thailand there was grumbling that electric wires and light bulbs were "out of place" as were the plastic bowls and metal pots and pans.
Why do we do this? Why do we believe that people in villages from The Amazon to Africa to Asia are somehow betraying us if they seek to take advantage of even a fraction of the things that form the everyday backdrops to our own lives? They aren't, any more than Susan Boyle is. They are entitled to live their lives as they please and without worrying about what we think. If that spoils a couple of "quaint" photographs then I for one don't actually care.
Post edited to correct an error. Susan Boyle came second not first.
No it isn't a joke, it's a precursor to a serious point that I want to make about travel. Bear with me, I'll get to the point eventually. Susan Boyle is, if there is anyone in the world who doesn't already know this, a former contestant on the X-Factor. She has a pretty good voice but she got to the final, and boy does everyone skirt around saying this, because she was really rather ugly. The idea that someone so plain could have a good voice seemed to catch the public imagination. I've never seen the program but for a few weeks you couldn't avoid her. She was on the news, she was on the front page of every newspaper, she was talked about on discussion programs. She was everywhere. When she was on the verge of a breakdown from all the attention even Gordon Brown got in on the act, sending her a message of sympathy.
Today she was on another discussion program because, apparently, she was a guest on last night's X-Factor. They showed a clip. She's still no beauty but she was styled well, dressed in nice clothes and she certainly didn't cut the exceptionally unattractive figure she cut before. So what were the panellists of the discussion saying about her?
They were saying that she shouldn't have used her new-found fame to smarten up, that she should have stayed ugly, badly-dressed and unappealing. They said that she was much more interesting when she was a good voice in a not so good body and that now she was an indifferent voice in an indifferent body. This seemed to me to be a very harsh judgement. Surely there's nothing at all wrong with her making herself presentable for a TV show watched by millions. She has a new CD out with a flattering picture on the cover. What's wrong with that?
This suggestion that people should look and behave in the way that we want them to, in the way that we expect them to, in the way that does not disappoint our beliefs about them, is what she has in common with the Uros Indians. And with native peoples around the world.
When I saw the Uros Indians I knew a number of things about them. And most of the things I knew, culled from travel guides, were wrong. They live on floating reed islands in Lake Titicaca. Relatively true although a lot of them actually live on the shore and go out to the islands for the tourists. They are traditionally dressed barefoot natives. Not true at all. I saw them changing from jeans and T-shirts and throwing their training shoes into the reed huts as we approached. They lead a traditional lifestyle. Only true if the traditional lifestyle includes satellite television - most of the huts have aerials. They live in huts made of reeds. Well actually in huts made of wood and corrugated metal but given a "Traditional" veneer to suit the tourists photographs.
The question is why shouldn't they make use of the modern world? And why should they have to try to hide it, to pretend to be something they patently are not, just so that the tourists can marvel at the traditional life and take their pictures of the amusing primitives?
I've encountered it time after time. In an Amazon village people were shocked when in answer to how he had achieved such spectacular colours in his clothing a village elder told them that he'd bought the dye in the city, hadn't they seen such things themselves.
In a Karen village in northern Thailand there was grumbling that electric wires and light bulbs were "out of place" as were the plastic bowls and metal pots and pans.
Why do we do this? Why do we believe that people in villages from The Amazon to Africa to Asia are somehow betraying us if they seek to take advantage of even a fraction of the things that form the everyday backdrops to our own lives? They aren't, any more than Susan Boyle is. They are entitled to live their lives as they please and without worrying about what we think. If that spoils a couple of "quaint" photographs then I for one don't actually care.
Post edited to correct an error. Susan Boyle came second not first.
2 comments:
John has pointed out to me that Susan Boyle did, in fact, lose the X-Factor which in my view has no bearing whatsoever on the point I was making.
However he is right in something else he said. I am rather proud of the fact that I got that wrong. After all I did point out that I have never actually seen the program.
I shall adjust the main entry accordingly.
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