Over the years, I’ve been continually bothered by a key contradiction of travel: Is tourism “good” or “bad’ for a place? On the one hand, visitors bring much-needed tourism dollars to cities and towns that might struggle to support themselves otherwise. On the other hand, along with the tourist hordes often comes overcrowding, disrespectful behavior and “corruption” of the local culture.
If you’re praying to your personal deity at a church, mosque, shrine or temple and a group of loud, 20-somethings from Decatur, Georgia stomp up and snap a selfie with you—without asking—is this okay? Is this what you bargained for when you said yes to tourism?
Although I always try to be respectful wherever I go, I, too, sometimes fall into the trap of “exoticism hunting.” It all started when I was 10 years old and viewed the slides my grandparents took on their journey to China and Hong Kong. Slide after slide presented a magical world I had never dreamed existed – colorful lanterns, majestic dragon boats, elegant temples gleaming in red and gold.
I yearned to visit those place, snap photos, and exult in the rush of exoticism. Just imagine the stories I could one day share with my friends and family! By visiting such special places, I hoped I would become special too. The magic dust would somehow rub off on me.
And to be honest, that kind of magical transmutation DOES happen sometimes, especially at a strikingly foreign place like Boudhanath, Nepal.
One of the world’s largest spherical stupas and a premier UNESCO World Heritage site, Boudhanath sits just a few miles outside of Kathmandu. A central hub for Tibetan Buddhism, this classic, whitewashed monument (the holiest Tibetan Buddhist site outside of Tibet) is renowned for its massive mandala design, all-seeing Buddha eyes and surrounding monasteries.
An active spiritual site, Boudhanath draws droves of pilgrims practicing “kora” (clockwise circumambulation around the stupa), lighting butter lamps and spinning prayer wheels. The monument stands on a massive, nine-level base representing Mount Meru, the center of the cosmos, and is crowned by the watchful eyes of the Buddha.
While the original structure dates back to the 5th century, the current building only became a major refuge for Tibetan practitioners in the 1950s. The site is particularly beautiful in the evening, when hundreds of lamps illuminate its dome.
What traveler wouldn’t want to experience an exotic place like that!
And yet—I have to ask myself, doesn’t my secular visit to this site disrupt the faithful who have traveled miles to quietly pray and make religious offerings? Even if my tourist dollars fund maintenance of the stupa and support the local businesses?
There’s no easy answer to my cognitive dissonance except to draw on the expression “hanshin hangi,” the Japanese belief in “half belief, half disbelief.” In other words, sometimes you just have to embrace paradox—the notion that contradictions can coexist side by side. Left/right, up/down, correct/incorrect – life throws a lot of paradoxes at us; we don’t have to stress when we confronted with conflicting opinions about something. We can hold differing perceptions and still be a-okay.
Tourism is bad. Tourism is good. It’s something in between. It’s all of that! Hanshin-hangi!
(There’s a pivotal scene near the end of Les Miserables where the inspector, Javert, is saved from certain death by Jean Valjean, the criminal turned businessman/philanthropist who Javert has been chasing throughout the story. Unable to hold conflicting notions that a “bad” man can also be “good,” Javert throws himself into a river and perishes.
I hope that a paradox never drives you to such a state of consternation! The next time you’re faced with diametrically-opposed judgments about someone or something, remember Hanshin-hangi! Contradictions can co-exist. No need to stress. No need to throw yourself off a bridge. Embrace the paradox!)