Blog: Commercialism

Elephants!

For our second day in Chiang Mai, we went to the Chiang Dao elephant camp. This was definitely on the touristy side, but also a lot of fun. Each elephant has a mahout, or trainer, who works with the same elephant starting when the mahout and the elephant are both very young.

The day begins with an elephant show, where the mahouts demonstrate how elephents can push, pull, roll, and lift huge logs, which was how construction materials were transported and manipulated before trucks and forklifts. They also show off various tricks, such as starting the show with one elephant raising the flag on the flagpole, having the elephants pick up the mahout's hats off the ground and place them on their heads, and doing "elephant paintings" where the mahout holds a paintbrush in the elephant's trunk and the elephant waves it up and down or makes dots.

posted on Dec 9, 2007 11:38 am (comment)

tags: Chiang Mai, commercialism, elephants, Southeast Asia,
Thailand, tourist traps, tourists

Minorities in the mountains

In the hills of Thailand reside many ethnic minorities in small villages. These villages are poorer and less economically developed than the cities (something true in Western nations too, of course). Many of the male villagers farm for subsistence while the women make handcrafts to sell to tourists in markets down in the cities.

posted on Nov 22, 2007 12:06 pm (comment)

tags: Chiang Mai, commercialism, ecotourism, Hmong,
photos, Southeast Asia, Thailand, travel

Tourist traps, floating markets and mall food courts

While our first full day in Southeast Asia, in Ayutthaya, was one of the best days of the trip, our second was one of the worst. The activities changed from interesting, pretty places filled with Thai people who were fascinating to watch, to dull, overly commercial places filled with Western tourists.

posted on Oct 21, 2007 11:37 am (comment)

tags: Bangkok, commercialism, food, photos, Southeast Asia,
Thai food, Thailand, tourist traps, travel

Bangkok: the Las Vegas of Asia

Bangkok evokes, to me, what I imagined of the anarcho-capitalist cities depicted in cyberpunk novels like Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. In the lawless cities of the future in these books, housing and shopping developments barricade themselves behind fortifications and private security, the only way to stay safe. Bangkok is far from lawless, but our hotel nevertheless had security guarding its gates to the street, and a restaurant we visited was located in a small shopping center surrounded along with its parking lot by a gated wall.

The city has developed so quickly and become so commercialized that many sections of main road simply pass mall after mall situated right next to one another. There are few pedestrians, with most tourists riding around in taxis and most locals using motorbikes. For those who do try to brave a short walk, the sidewalks are narrow and poorly maintained, and in many areas practically nonexistent, while traffic does not even stop reliably for red lights.

The closest analogy in the United States is the Las Vegas strip, a similarly tourist-centered fake environment.