Mudslide Traffic Jam 1
Mudslide Traffic Jam 2
Mudslide Traffic Jam 3
Traveling is about unpredicted encounters rather than tourist sites. As a general rule (with a few exceptions) I find tourist sites, where you are expected to appreciate beauty, insipid and alienating. Instead of feeling moved by the scenery, I am often repelled by its staging and commodification. Unless the place is staggeringly beautiful, and I am overwhelmed by it, I fail as a tourist. The carefully cultivated photogenic quality of the area destroys the possibility of spontaneous discovery, the thrill of uncertainty, and the uncertainty of desire. Being a tourist reminds me of my experience every New Years Eve, when the demand to produce exterior signs of happiness eradicates any possibility of real contentment.
The last few weeks I have been in Beijing, Kunming, and a small city in southern Yunnan Province called Tengchong. Tengchong is a somewhat run-down, poor city surrounded by volcanos, hot-springs and geysers. Most people get around on motorcycle, or by minibus. When you get about 10 minutes outside of the city, people are herding water buffalo in the streets, or working in the surrounding fields.
My happiest moments there were in the unplanned spaces, and unexpected encounters, rather than the main attractions of tourist sites. I did not find Yunfeng Shan (a famous Taoist mountain) terribly beautiful and certainly not spiritually moving. I am not sure I understand what this even means any more. And, unfortunately, it was raining on the days when I climbed the volcanos so I couldn’t see much of the surrounding landscapes.
However, returning from the volcanos, riding on the back of a motorcycle driven by an older chinese man who spoke a thick local dialect, we got stuck in one of the largest traffic jams I’ve ever experienced. The rain from earlier in the day produced a small mudslide in the road blocking traffic. A van was stuck in the mud, and had to be hauled out by a dozen or so men pulling on a rope connected to the front of the van, after which, they proceeded to start shoveling the mud from the middle of the road. Since we were on a motorcycle, we were able to glide through sooner than the other vehicles, but we still waited there for over an hour. What I was absolutely fascinated with was the mini-public that emerged around the site of the mud. People got out of their vehicles, chatted, smoked cigarettes, and watched as the men toiled shoveling away the mud (see photographs above). Instead of sitting alone in one’s car, a form of transient sociality began to take shape. Rather than impatiently wanting to return to my hotel, I was happy to mill around, and talk to people, waiting and watching, with no other real purpose or aim.
Similarly, I was happier on the back of the motorcycle, watching the fields and villages unfold, looking at the mossy tombs (or “lingmu” in Chinese) dotting the countryside, and people going about their daily lives, than I was to actually visit the intended destination. In Tengchong, I also realized that it is better to simply stay in a city for a while, rather than travel around from tourist site to tourist site. That way, you can get to experience the flesh of the city (cause cities have their own finitude, and various stages of reconstruction and decay). Again, quite unexpectedly, I became friends with a bartender, who took me around the city, and brought me to a tiny apartment in the housing complex where her sister’s family lived, playing ma jiang all day. I learned how to play ma jiang (sort of), but more importantly, was able to become friends with this family, and experience life from an interior perspective that undermines the flatness of the post-card.
In many ways, tourism is a strange form of death, and it is only in these intimate spaces of the city’s flesh, where life pulsates……
{ 3 } Comments
我想住在一个偏远的村子里，有山、有水、有歌，有姑娘、有小伙子、有老人、有孩子，有水牛、有稻田，足矣。
whats up dogg,
So would unexpectedly hiking Kiliminjaro count as insipid? Maybe not, if when you unexpectedly got to the top of Kiliminjaro, you unexpectedly met a really hot girl and you ended up getting swept up in the passion of the moment and fucking in the bushes. Given the thrust of your post, the sentence “And, unfortunately, it was raining on the days when I climbed the volcanos so I couldn’t see much of the surrounding landscapes,” should probably be replaced with “But, fortunately, it was raining on the days when I climbed the volcanoes so I couldn’t see much of the surrounding landscapes, providing me with the type of unplanned space and unexpected encounter with nature that I crave when traveling.” Also, I detected you were trying to fold in a little commie symp sentimentality into the traffic jam story. I was just driving outside Tucson and there was a two mile traffic backup on the other side of the highway, and everyone was out talking, hanging out, etc. etc. So yes, transient sociality arises out of traffic jam culture even in imperialist countries, you anti-American slut.
Dear Two-Pack,
Yes, I am biased. make something of it.
Your observation and comment might have some force of intellectual merit if you weren’t such a jingoistic shit brain.
Oh, and by the way, if you are going to make grammatical criticism learn how to spell – any preschooler can bark out D – O – G, unless, of course your pants are falling off your ass you have more gold in your mouth than the vaults at Fort Knox.
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