Why are people spraying tourists in the face with water pistols?
Dear Dale:
I’m a housewife. My husband retired a few months ago after forty years at the cat food factory and he got a nice big payout so we decided to splurge. Took a trip to Europe. My husband’s Italian and he wanted to rediscover his roots and I’ve always wanted to see the greatest hits of Mick and Angelo.
But things didn’t work out the way we planned. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a Pizza Hut anywhere. And those gladiators outside the Colosseum? Not only are they not real, they actually expected us to pay to take a picture with them and got more than a little snooty when I refused.
But the worst was that woman who attacked me. I was looking for the place where Audrey Hepburn meets Gregory Peck so I asked her for directions but instead of telling me she sprayed me in the face with a water pistol. I couldn’t believe it! Was more shocked than angry since I figured she was loony tunes.
But then I remembered that sign I saw on the way in from the airport, the one that said Tourist Scum. At the time I thought it was mistake, that they meant to say Tourists Come, and my husband and I had a little chuckle over the misspelling but I now realize it wasn’t, that they meant it and that was their way of telling us to skedaddle. Well, talk about an Unwelcome Wagon!
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those bad Americans who gets upset because the menu at McDonalds isn’t in English. No, I can rough it. I just point at the picture and keep raising my voice until someone who speaks English comes running. Works every time. But I do expect certain creature comforts like a clean hotel room, a mint on my pillow and a waiter who doesn’t spit in my food. Is that too much to ask? I don’t think so.
Have to say, it really changed my attitude towards them. I thought they loved us over there, for saving them from the Nazis in both WWI and WWII. But no, I guess gratitude only lasts a century. No, it’s worse than ingratitude. They’re actually mean to us, although Lord only knows why. Why do they hate us?
Signed,
Never going back
Dear NGB:
It’s called overtourism. Too many people in the same place at the same time.
Which only makes sense. Imagine a village, a sleepy place in the middle of nowhere where no one ever goes. But then, one day, a stranger shows up.
Imagine the consternation that would cause, all the villagers rushing out of their smoke-stained hovels to stare at this apparition and, after poking him with a stick to make sure that he’s real and not a devil, they crowd around, eagerly asking him questions about the outside world and all the miracles of modern life: toilets, tampons and televisions. And, for years after he’s gone, they retell the story of his arrival, until it becomes a mythic event, like UFO sightings, Jesus appearing on a tortilla or the Cubs winning the World Series.
But now, let’s imagine that, instead of keeping it quiet and going to his grave as the only outsider to ever have visited that god-forsaken place, he tells two friends, who tell two friends who tell two friends and so on.
The following year ten people show up, piqued by their friend’s romantic tales of an unspoiled people and eager to experience their backwardness — which the villagers would probably see as a sort of Second Coming and so, welcome them with tea, feasts and sexy young chicks, all eager to offer up their virginity to the handsome virile strangers.
Pretty soon word gets out and the trickle becomes a flood, with a hundred people visiting the following year. Now, the human connection is lost and it becomes a business: souvenir shops are set up, homeowners start charging for lodging and the chicks stop giving it away for free. Money pours in and the village modernizes: plumbing is installed and they stop shitting in the street.
A year later it’s a thousand and the village is overwhelmed: rents shoot up, local guys can’t get laid because only foreigners can afford whores and the sewage system fails, filling peoples’ homes with filth and forcing them to shit in the street — only now, having been spoiled by flush toilets, it’s not as much fun. So naturally the locals start acting up: ululating outside your hotel room, slashing your suitcase with scimitars and overcharging for donkey rides.
Which is exactly what’s happening in tourist Meccas like Athens, Venice and Barcelona: pushed out by rising rents, the locals can’t afford to live in the nice parts but have to live in the surrounding slums instead.
What’s worse, they have to both watch their beautiful city degenerate into a diseased Disneyland of what it once was and commute in every day to serve the very tourist trade that degrades it.
So naturally they overcharge you, lift your wallet on the subway and drop you off in the middle of skid row late at night. You would too.
So next time someone suggests going to Europe (or anywhere else outside of America), give them a firm No Way Jose. You’ll be glad you did. Because roots are for growing out of not rediscovering and there are probably lots of nearby places you haven’t been to yet. Like your local crack house.
(Now there’s an experience you’ll never forget.)
Or the slaughterhouse. Take the family to see how sausages are made.
(You’d be amazed how much money you can save on meat.)
Truth is, the world is more than just a backdrop for Instagram photos. It’s also someone else’s home. So stop peeking in the windows and let them watch TV in peace. Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Dale
Hi. If you’ve made it this far, you probably liked the story. So why not check out some others at my Medium page? https://medium.com/dear-dale
