I've been wondering....
By this post I would like to share/get opinions about a sort of meta issue of travelling.
Most of us who travelled a bit have seen how the way we backpackers look upon ourmselfs has changed from mere experiencing to claiming to actually 'have become a part of the culture'. I will explain by a very clear exampel what I mean by this.
When you get a menu at a restaurant the waiter might say: we have one menu for 'tourists' and an other for 'travellers'. I can see you're clearly a traveller so you will get our special menu.
As you already guessed (as have the waiter) it is considered far better to be a traveller than a tourist. It basically means that you are more experienced and street smart than a simple tourist, i.e you will get a lower price since you're too experineced to get fooled. (although, of course, by the end you will probably get the only menu there is because this is only an atempt to flattern you).
Moving furhter you might find the even more 'enlightened' state ot travelling which we might call 'I live here'
This doesn't only mean you're more street smart than a traveller. It is also a claim that you are basically a local and should be treated that way (at least as long as it comes to bargaining and experience of the local culture and behaviour).
I'm pretty sure many of you all have heard about someone claiming to be one of the above or consider yourselfs to belong to one of the above cathegories.
My guess is: since many travellers would like to differ from mere toursts they, themselfs invent what exactly composes a traveller and what it actually means to be a:'I live here' traveller. This will be a very subjective judgement in many cases.
Defining these cathegories is an intresting subject to discuss, but i would like to get more into detail.
I would like to continue by saying I have always considered myself as being a touist since I never seriously considered settleing down where i travelled. I do, however, have an interesting angle to share with you on this topic.
For half a year, I was staying in Quito, Ecuador. I was selling make up cosmetics like lipsticks and eye shadows with a colombian friend because I was travelling on a tight budget. This was a very nice experience for us both. We went by banks, travel agencies, restaurants and hotels selling our products to women working there. This was a very social event where everyone (i can't think of any exceptions) was very happy to get some time to chat and look through our merchandize. Far from everyone bought anything but everyone was happy chat for a while. We always sold to locals or colombian workers.
At one time, I got the idea sell to a foreigner (who was west european or north american).
I introduced us and our merchandize the same way we had always done and the answer surprised me.
She look quite injured and told me: No!. You see, I live here!
She then refused to talk to us. My intepretation of this is that she thought that we were trying to scam here and that someone who 'lives here' wouldn't be so foolish as to talk to us or look at our merchandize. From my experience she acted as everything but a local by reacting this way.
I have been wondering about this ever since. Are we creating a totally new subculture that we call local which is, in fact, something we created out of out own minds?
Do you have similar experineces to share? Please share some thaughts on this with me
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