The camera kept clicking away.
“O I love your place. These old cobbled streets… and these quaint houses that you still live in. So much history and culture. And your language sounds so romantic. I can’t believe that you actually have wifi. Awesome. Oh, your skin tone is so exotic. Let’s take a selfie. Thanks for letting me click your pictures. Bye.”
LETTING ME? Like I had a choice! Darn tourists. Assuming that the primitives are all waiting around just to chat and pose. And then they wonder why our markets are so expensive – maybe to reimburse us for our loss of privacy and respect.
Written for Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.
Tourists are a blessing and a curse.
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Turning other peoples’ cultures into an object of consumption is one of the least attractive aspects of tourism. I liked your anger here
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The love hate relationship with tourists communicated well.
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A patronizing attitude that the guilty party probably had no intention of displaying. Tourists don’t usually intend to make the people whose privacy they are invading feel like something in a museum display, but I’m afraid it happens. We all tend to assume that OUR. place is the real one, and everywhere else is just a fascinating place to visit.
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Good story!
Our town in MI used to be full of manufacturing but as the rust belt has tightened the city leaders are pushing more for tourists. We see more every year. One took my picture as we passed on a dune trail. No permission was asked. It definitely felt like an invasion of privacy!
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I hate it when I see that. I just can’t fathom ever disrespecting a culture – that I’m visiting, by the way – like that.
I agree with Neil. I like your anger here.
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More than once I’ve taken a photo of a local, with their permission, after which they held out their hand hoping a bit of cash! Can’t say I blamed them.
Here’s mine!
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I lived among the locals in a tourist destination for 15 years, so I saw the picture from both sides – tourists are money machines, and many locals rely on that income, but only a few tourists are interested in more than cheap entertainment.
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Irritating, but a necessary evil in many places, sadly. I’ve lived in several places that have relied on tourism, so I feel the pain of your protagonist.
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I’m glad we tourists can’t hear the thoughts going through the heads of locals we irritate with our touristy ways! But yeah, they make us pay for it, don’t they?! Enjoyed this story.
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