On Traveling and Touring

In life, there are two basic kinds of people. All behavior, all personalities, all characters can be distilled down into one of these. Unlike other classification systems, there is little or no cross-over. You are absolutely one or the other.

In essence, all people are either travelers or tourists. You may not think there is a difference, but bear with me on this. When I am finished, you will see that this system is a fine way to classify anyone, and there is no need for such things as matrices, since there are only two ans ince they are absolute.

On the one hand are Travelers. Travelers are the group that include adventurers, thrill-seekers, life-long learners, entrepreneurs, and people for whom safety zones are confining and restrictive. This group would include pioneers, discoverers and people for whom pushing the envelope is just starting to get fun. A traveler avoids major highways and interstates like the plague. For them, going to "popular" tourist destinations is the antithesis of excitement. If millions have done it, then what's the point in emulating their experience?

Travelers are easy to identify. They commonly carry multi-function tools every day of their lives. At the airport, train station or boat landing, they are often alone and all of their baggage is highly practical, completely portable and doesn't require checking anything for handling. If you were to examine their baggage, you would find everything in it to be of multiple use, and most likely they will be carrying a towel (a tourist expects towels to be provided wherever they go).

A travelers will rarely interact with natives of their own land. They prefer to mix with locals, learn the language and eat the same food and in the same manner as those of the host country.

Travelers rarely carry cameras. Where they go is for their own memories, not for entertaining the meek back home. Furthermore, they don't want to attract the wrong people to the places they like to go, so they don't advertise the locations and experiences. Even with photos to proves it, most people wouldn't believe their stories anyway. A location where a traveler is most unlikely to meet others of their kind are the places that attract them. Travelers prefer the experiences that no one else but the natives have experienced.

The Tourist, on the other hand, is the polar opposite, and comprises the vast majority of people on Earth. These are the people who have made America what it is: purveyor of the repeatable experience. These are the people who go to Paris, meet only with other folks from the home country, require guides, stay in Holiday Inn, eat at McDonald's, and then go home and say that they have been to Paris.

The Ugle American is the quintessential tourist. They only speak Merican and think the whole world does. If a local doesn't understand, they speak louder and slower, thinking that will solve the problem. They can't imagine that anyone would want to be anything but like themselves. They want to go to the Eifel Tower, because somehow the millions of photos spanning the entire history of the object is not enough. They must go and touch it like a million other people. Tourists think that a somewhat stable pile of steel girders is a worthy object of pilgrimage. They can't wait to get home and regale their friends with tales and photos of what it was like to ride the elevator to the top, as if that is different from any other elevator ride available up the street at home.

The tourist is easy to spot. They wear garish clothes and, at the sirport or train station, they are the ones with a trolly loaded six feet high with baggage. To them, losing the make-up kit is a major catastophe that threatens the stability of the Free World.

The tourists wants a repeatable experience. They want the hotel, meal or tour that they are comforable with at home, and have experienced many times. Their biggest thrill in life is to be able to say, "Me too!" Their entire goal in going on a trip is to take a photo of themselves in front of some landmark. They wake up at night in a cold sweat at the thought of running out of traveler's cheques.

The traveler and the tourist both collect souvenirs, but the objects the traveler finds are mostly meaningless to anyone but themselves. The tourist buys the little key chains and paper-weights and refrigerator magnets. The travelers spend most of their lives far outside their comfort zones, where tourists have never even explored the limits of theirs. A traveler will try some unknown food where the tourist is shocked if the local KFC doesn't serve original recipe.

In short, the tourist goes to the Grand Canyon and looks down in the hole from the safety of the Kodak Moment overlook, while the traveler hikes deep into it with only minimal concern for life and limb.

So, what does all this have to do with the price of tea in China, you ask? Good question. The The next time you hear some "authority" give dire warnings of terrorism and offer to take away your freedoms to save you, check your reaction. If you think it's a good idea, you're a tourist in life. If you immediately have a desire to go to the heart of the 'danger zone' to prove it's all bullshit, then you're a traveler. The traveler knows that the real terrorist is the one who tries to manipulate you with fear.

The great Merican Imperialist, FDR said it best, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Buah Si Malang Kama

There is a concept in Indonesian called "buah si malah kala." In English, it literally translates as "the fruit of the opposite outcome." The English equivalent is "damned if you do and damned if you don't." Another equivalent is "stuck between a rock and a hard place."

So, what could possibly inspire me to talk about buah si malah kala?

How about the French ban on burqas and full-face scarves?

Let's start with what the buah si malah kala is. According to legend, there is a fruit that is forbidden (sound familiar?). If you pick the fruit, you must eat it, or your mother dies. If you don't eat it, your father dies. Talk about a conundrum. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Many people, in the West, argue that the whole face-scarf thing is completely foreign to the culture, not to mention that it hides potential terrorists from face-scanning technology. It must be banned in order to protect the public order and to ensure the safety of all citizens. Also, it represents a threat to Western culture from invading Muslim traditions, and we can't have that, can we?

To all of that, I call, "Bullshit."

I was raised in pre-Vatican II Catholic tradition, which required all women to cover their heads with a veil on Sunday. If you do a Google search on "catholic women wear veils," you will find a long list of muslim-related articles. If you do a Google search for "photos, bathing suits of the early 1900s," it gets all of two results, of which neither has anything to do with the topic. Looks to me like someone is systemactically trying to erase the past. It was not uncommon for women to wear veils in America in the 1960s, and photos of turn-of-the-century bathing suits should return thousands of sites.

Maybe we in the West don't want to remember that we weren't all that different just short time ago.

In dozens of cultures throughout the world, women's hair is considered erotic. Lord knows I find it very arousing. Men wear short hair because long hair is a sign of subservience. Someone can grab your hair and make you do something. Ergo, men like women to have long hair. Ergo, women wear veils to cover long hair so that they do not seave anyone but the people they expose their hair to.

When you think about it, a veil is empowering to a woman. It takes away the power of strangers to make her subservient. But feminist idiots see it as a form of slavery. I know both from my life as a catholic and from talking to women in Indonesia that the complete opposite is true. Many women here wear a "jilbab." Search for that on Google and it brings back over one hundred hits. The interesting thing is that men here don't make women wear jilbab, the women make the women wear them. They are covering their vulnerability, not submitting to male power.

In the same way, the women here wear full-body swimsuits that, quite frankly, are far more alluring than the real thing. Face it guys, air-brushed Playboy is much better than the saggy, wrinkly, blotchy, mole-covered reality. In the same way, the skin-tight Lycra from ankle to wrist to hoodie leave much more to the imagination than any Brazillian postage stamp ever would. It's all in the mind, in the end.

Here in Indonesia, many women wear the jilbab, but there are many more traditional women, known as ninjas, who wear the black, amorphous dress with the full head and face covered. My guess is that it gives the men bragging rights. After all, if you can't see his wife, he can say anything about her and it's true. Once she drops the veil, though, there's no mystery left. In other words, under the veil, every man married a 10.

So, what does this all come down to?

Simple. Let the women dress however they want to. In the West until 40 years ago, it wasn't much different, no matter how hard they are trying to cover that up now. The whole argument is specious. They want to claim that only terrorists cover their faces. Bullshit. It that is true, then why do US DEA, BATF and police cover their faces? Are they terrorists? I'll let you answer that question. But, while you are pondering that, the original definition of the word 'terrorism' meant abuse of government power, not individuals fighting it.

Every day, I get on an ojek (motorcyle taxi), and put on a helmet and mask to keep out the dirt and pollution. They sell them here on the street corner for a dollar. At home, I'd be arrested for trying to hide my face from scanning technology. Here, I'm just one of many trying to maintain respiratory health. Whose right? Me, of course.

governments are always afraid of what they can't see. Everything is a threat to their survival and propagation. Governements thrive on sucking the life out of their subjects and keeping the masses afraid of some boogyman that drives the masses home to Big Brother's bosom.

Gimme jilbabs and burqas. I prefer the mystery and the Eternal Dance.

And screw the overpaid, blood-sucking bastards. I'm tired of their charade. They are the terrorists, not the woman wearing a burqa. Cave-dwellers with cell phones and box cutters are not the problem. Para-military police with machine guns and licenses to kill are the problem. They can wear a mask and we all applaud. What is wrong with this picture?