Agreed, but I think that book/film brought it to the attention of more modern audiences who might not have been interested in this before.
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How do they decide who is a tourist and who is not?
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probably the people taking photos and grabbing at women are the tourists. the people working in the shops, and the geisha who live in the area, those are not the tourists.
granted this is only my wildest speculation, but i’d bet that’s how to tell the difference.
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As far as I can understand, although the impetus is poorly behaved tourists, the alleys where maiko and geisha live and work will be closed off to everyone who does not have actual business there. Very few people have actual business there, as the places where geisha work are exclusive clubs that you can not enter without an introduction from a regular member in good standing.
ETA: From an article that goes into more detail than CNN and without the paywall.
“Starting April, the alleys which also host several restaurants and teahouses, will only be open for the geisha, their clients, and residents of the district, according to a report by the South China Morning Post.”
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There’s a lot of internal tourism within Japan, and school enrichment visits – Kyoto is a popular destination. However the Japanese of course know how to follow the protocol.
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I’m well aware, but nowhere in any article that I can find in English or Japanese does it say that the entire Gion District (which is huge and contains a lot of businesses) will be closed to tourists. Every article that I can find (including the post on BoingBoing) mentions a few specific alleys where maiko and geisha live and work.
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yes. and everybody does it anyway.
Only the largest of cities, like London, can absorb the impact of millions of visitors a year.
not really. more and more hotels, hostels and airbnbs. rent goes up, people leave. I live in berlin, thank you very much.
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It is, unfortunately, still true though. There’s a particular American attitude about the world that infects interactions with others when visiting other countries. It’s not to say that American attitudes are unique (though I’m not aware of other countries that share them), and certainly not to say that other tourists aren’t also awful. In fact, tourists in general are ill-behaved, really - there’s a fairly universal, across countries, “tourist mindset” where the normal rules of behavior no longer apply. So you’ll have e.g. Japanese tourists overseas engaging in behavior they would never even consider doing back home, where their conduct would be governed by strict sets of social conventions. This is on top of not being familiar with - and thus unintentionally violating - local customs. Vacations exist in a bubble of unreality, doubly so outside one’s own culture. That doesn’t necessarily lead to bad behavior, but it often leads to uncharacteristic behavior.
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I don’t know where you hail from, but for us, that’s British, not American. Most american tourist nowadays tend to be more polite, try to speak some spanish - even if they fail horribly, that puts them above french, german and british tourons - and as the article cites, they tip well and tend to be more respectuous than most “occidental” tourists. British specifically are the reason the S in spain is silent, though for me the worst offenders are the Chinese and Russian, who seem to see Barcelona as a big outlet store, and the economy has been happily catering to them.
I guess it really depends on location… If I lived in Mexico, I’ll probably be tired of spring breakers, thrill seekers, and retirees on a budget cruise complaining about how all the food is too spicy and why everyone is speaking spanish.
Edit: Want to add to the above paragraph that the main reason I think i found mostly polite americans is because is quite expensive to visit spain from there, so they are either old, or highly motivated (as in: with a specific purpose in mind. is: I met a girl on the road to Santiago that she had sephardic ancestors around the area and wanted to see the place where they used to live). And that there are polite european tourists too… though the percentage of european tourons to tourists is staggeringly in favor of the former, and is our fault: we have been selling for the past 50 years the idea that Spain is a place to get cheap booze while relaxing on the beach.
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we should open a new attack of the tourons thread, seems this year they are starting early.
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hoo, man! you said it all right there! so true!
tourons gonna touron, no matter where they are from, or where they go. and, sadly, there are those who will disrespect the women there and try all manner of vile behavior.
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I’m American. I’m seeing the attitudes of would-be tourists in the culture at large, and noticing the obnoxiousness of American tourists when traveling (or just looking at social media, or hearing stories about friends-of-friends).
But it should be said that the quality of tourists from a given country will also vary by destination. It very much depends on why people are going there (and how much cultural/social media promotion of a particular place as a tourist destination is going on), where the absolutely worst tourists are those who are traveling “for the nightlife.” (I.e. the cheap drinks, or, worse, for sex tourism.) So British tourists in Spain, Australian tourists in SE Asia, American tourists in (parts of) Mexico…
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