#like i know that guidebooks for our culture exist in other countries+languages. i've seen them. this isn't a 'usamericans are dumb' thing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

themonsterunderthebed · 7 months

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petty pet peeve brought to you by sleep deprivation and the crushing weight of work building up behind my procrastination

that post going around about how dumb usamerican travel writers are for describing like a shuk or an asian fruit as a fascinating and exotic experience, because it shows the writer is...... unworldly i guess? too easily amazed by things outside their day to day sphere of experiences?

like...... travel writing exists so people can vicariously experience a different place. you get that this is context dependent right. if i've only ever shopped in supermarkets my whole life, if i'm usamerican and don't have the money to leave my home state let alone visit another continent, then yes a shuk or other open-air marketplace sounds like a very foreign and exciting experience to me! and if i'm reading about it, i want vivid descriptions of the sights, colors, sounds, smells. what's different from my daily experience? what similarities are there? how is local life in, say, morocco different than and similar to my life in kansas?

like yeah okay laugh it up at people who aren't as familiar with other countries as you are i guess, just know it comes off as petty and mean-spirited

#themonster #i could keep ranting but i won't #i dunno something about that post specifically is really getting on my nerves. like sorry you think you're better than me bc #you like know how to prepare a durian or whatever. sorry i haven't had every experience available to all humans across the globe #i actually think it's really nice that in our globalized world we can still find other cultures new and wondrous #and yes there is a line there after which you're fetishizing the exotic or describing stereotypes instead of actual experiences or places #and we need to beware of that #but none of the examples given in that post are that. they're just like 'wow the open air market is a totally different experience #to how most usamericans do their shopping! isn't that neat! it's cool to see how different places do things!'#like i know that guidebooks for our culture exist in other countries+languages. i've seen them. this isn't a 'usamericans are dumb' thing

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