Friday, February 14

The Ugly __insert nation here____: tourists and their era's

As a culture starts to produce wealth for it's middle class, it's inevitable that they go out and have a look at the world.. it's as natural as any curiosity. It's also natural that the world, especially the tourism workers of the world, pick up on their unique behaviors and make fun of it.... When I was a kid, it was the Japanese, and we loved how they acted so polite, amazed, and pointed a camera, if not two, at absolutely everything! It was a joke in the city I grew up in that you had to watch out for them otherwise you would run them over because they were so stunned they would be oblivious to their surroundings.. it was hard not to like them, it was hard not to make fun of them... Americans had their era.. it's part of where the nickname Ugly Americans came from... we had a heyday, and our middle class suddenly wanted to see Paris and all the other stuff we had heard about, read about, and seen at the pictures and on the Television... Paris didn't appreciate it, although of course they took our money...
This is not to be confused with great migrations for work, like the Polish to England, the Moldavian to anywhere, The Filipinos to the Middle East, and the Mexicans to the US.. that's a whole other thing.. and I am not talking about places where people go for second homes, like the English to Spain, Midwesterners to the west coast of Florida, or Italians to Croatia.  I'm talking about what language the guy complaining at the front desk is most likely to be speaking right now.. The latest are the Chinese, and they re crating quite a stir. There are 23 million Chinese a year visiting Hong Kong alone, and there is even a trend to have their kids there for legal reasons... the Hong Kongers have picked up on it and even have a funny nickname for the Chinese guys who recently made a lot of money and dress head to toe in gaudy designer fashions ( if you bump into one, you will never forget it.. they look like all the colors of the rainbow).. Hoe Hoes... I remember when the Russians were doing the same things just 10 or 20 years ago.. taking over France and buying everything that wasn't tied down.
Here is a listing of tourist crushes and their times..

The English  The Victorian Era
The Ugly Americans 50's 60's (and to present, but we have cleaned up our rep a bit since the bad old days..
The Japanese 1980's
The Argentines  prior to 1998
The Koreans  90's and 00's
The Taiwanese  90's and 00's
The Russians   mid 90's
The Chinese   2012 to present
The Indians   2016-?

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