I survived Chichicastenango today. Chichi is Guatemala's version of an outdoor metrotown mall. Me and my 40 Quetzales couldn't get far anyways so it was a forced-to-be-good type of situation. I weaved through the walkways, took photos, translated for others what i could...i chilled. There was nothing that screamed, "i gotta have it" anyways.
I've been in kind of a funk lately. Maybe I've actually managed to be jaded in the past couple of days, but i can't help but feel that the sincerity in people's words no longer exist. It's almost as if these locals i meet only speak to me to make a sale. To them, I'm just a walking dollar sign. These compliments that they lay on thickly is a gimmick - a marketing plot. Flattering as they are, i know that the moment i turn the corner, that line is used again on another passing tourist. I don't expect anything more or less than that.
I also sense that i'm nothing to them but an their entertainment piece. "Let's watch the Chinita manage her way through town and try speaking our language...let's see what she'll fall for", it feels like they're saying.
In one way it's fair.
I mean I am just another tourist in their country taking photos of their people and culture, observing what I can. This is their business; this is their life and this is how they make money. They're as much entertainment to me as I am to them.
In summary, we're just using each other. They're annoy
ed by me as I am with some of them. They stare at me and doubt me as much as i stare and doubt them.
On the opposite side of spectrum however, they're as fascinated in me as i am fascinated in some of them. They look and want to know about my life as i look and want to know about theirs.
Then maybe the real summary is...we're just two co-existing cultures trying to work with each other to achieve our goals.
I've been in kind of a funk lately. Maybe I've actually managed to be jaded in the past couple of days, but i can't help but feel that the sincerity in people's words no longer exist. It's almost as if these locals i meet only speak to me to make a sale. To them, I'm just a walking dollar sign. These compliments that they lay on thickly is a gimmick - a marketing plot. Flattering as they are, i know that the moment i turn the corner, that line is used again on another passing tourist. I don't expect anything more or less than that.
I also sense that i'm nothing to them but an their entertainment piece. "Let's watch the Chinita manage her way through town and try speaking our language...let's see what she'll fall for", it feels like they're saying.In one way it's fair.
I mean I am just another tourist in their country taking photos of their people and culture, observing what I can. This is their business; this is their life and this is how they make money. They're as much entertainment to me as I am to them.
In summary, we're just using each other. They're annoy
ed by me as I am with some of them. They stare at me and doubt me as much as i stare and doubt them.On the opposite side of spectrum however, they're as fascinated in me as i am fascinated in some of them. They look and want to know about my life as i look and want to know about theirs.
Then maybe the real summary is...we're just two co-existing cultures trying to work with each other to achieve our goals.
I know what you mean. In Thailand, whenever someone seemed to want to help you, it was because they were trying to bring you into a gem shop or sell you a tuk tuk ride. There were 2 instances though where it was genuine; a crazy guy on a motorcycle decked out as a ninja at a stop light helped J and I cross a street, and a random guy smiled at us as he biked past us with his grandmother on the back of the bike.
ReplyDeleteEven in our "real daily life", how many times are things genuine? When we travel we think this will somehow change and become some sort of Disney Land thing but it doesn't.
You're very right - though it may seem at times that genuine acts of random kindness are rare and few...they still do exist.
ReplyDeleteI hear fake laughter and the word 'Love' thrown around on a daily basis. Regardless of where we are in the world, the search for sincerity would be a difficult one, it seems.
I think the trick is to just stop the search completely, and just be happy when it happens. That's why I carry on knowing that I would do onto others as I would like to be done onto me, and that there just helps me sleep better.
I left Disney Land when I was 12 years old. hahaha