TEXT E The tourist trade is
booming. With all this coming and going, you’d expect greater understanding to
develop between the nations of the world. Not a bit of it! Superb systems of
communication by air, sea and land make it possible for us to visit each other’s
countries at a moderate cost. What Was once the grand tour, reserved for only
the very rich, is now within everybody’s grasp The package tour and chartered
flights are not to be sneered at. Modem travelers enjoy a level of comfort which
the lords and ladies on grand tours in the old days couldn’t have dreamed of.
But what’s the sense of this mass exchange of populations if the nations of the
world remain basically ignorant of each other Many tourist
organizations are directly responsible for this state of affairs. They
deliberately set out to protect their clients from too much contact with the
local population. The modem tourist leads a cosseted, sheltered life. He lives
at international hotels, where he eats his international food and sips his
international drink while he gazes at the natives from a distance. Conducted
tours to places of interest are carefully censored. The tourist is allowed to
see only what the organizers want him to see and no more. A strict schedule
makes it impossible for the tourist to wander off on his own; and anyway,
language is always a barrier, so he is only too happy to be protected in this
way. At its very worst, this leads to a new and hideous kind of colonization.
The summer quarters of the inhabitants of the cite universitaire: are
temporarily reestablished on the island of Corfu. Blackpoll is recreated at
Torremolinos where the traveler goes not to eat paella, but fish and
chips. The sad thing about this situation is that it leads to
the persistence of national stereotypes. We don’t see the people of other
nations as they really are, but as we have been brought up to believe they are.
You can test this for yourself. Take five nationalities, say, French, German,
English, American and Italian. Now in your mind, match them with these five
adjectives: musical, amorous, cold, pedantic, native. Far from providing us with
any insight into the national characteristics of the peoples just mentioned,
these adjectives actually act as barriers. So when you set out on your travels,
the only characteristics you notice are those which confirm your preconceptions.
You come away with the highly unoriginal and inaccurate impression that, say,
Anglo-Saxons are hypocrites of that Latin peoples shout a lot. You only have to
make a few foreign friends to understand how absurd and harmful national
stereotypes are. But how can you make foreign friends when the tourist trade
does its best to prevent you Carried to an extreme, stereotypes
can be positively dangerous. Wild generalizations stir up racial hatred and
blind us to the basic fact—how trite it sounds! That all people are human. We
are all similar to each other and at the same time all unique. Which word in the following is the best to summarize Latin people shout a lot