Everywhere I went I was confronted by people wanting me to ride in a horse cart, buy a sand painting, or take me to the most important/highest/biggest temple in Bagan. All of these people had good hearts, but they also wanted my money. After awhile, I became a bit jaded and leery of anyone who wanted to "help" me. I was struck by the number of children working on the streets to sell simple drawing that they had made, working in lacquerware shops, or even selling bananas on the side of the roads.
As I traveled down bumpy roads, dirt roads, rocky roads, and even a few no existent roads, I came to really appreciate all of the sleek and smooth roads of Singapore. Not only that, I lived off bottled water and hoped that the water was not tampered with or contaminated. Every vegetable that I ate was boiled and cooked within an inch of its life for fear of water born disease. Fortunately, I survived the roads, water, and vegetables. Yum!
But the most interesting thing to me was the temples. They were not as spectacular on the inside as the tombs I have seen in Egypt or even temples in Cambodia. Yet, the temples of Bagan, when you look at all of them spread out over the vast plains, you are struck by the beauty of the moment. It is truly an impressive site to see such fantastic temples in a place of such extreme poverty. I wonder if temples, like those of Batan, will be able to bring the people of the area a chance at economic freedom.
Sarah H.
ReplyDeleteApril 2, 2012
Social Issues During Spring Break
In Saigon ( Ho Chi Minh city ), in markets, and on the streets, local people are constantly trying to sell their food, drinks, and assorted merchandise. They make almost all of their money off tourists, who come to visit with their families, mostly expats from surrounding countries come to experience and see Vietnam, because of the tunnels and temples and palaces and handicrafts. In fact, 15 million tourists visit Ho Chi Minh city every year.
In the markets of Vietnam, people will sell everything from snakes in glass bottles to tea and coffee. Though the markets are always divided into different sections based on their various categories. For example, the local people separate clothes stalls from food stalls and drink stalls. You could find anything in the market, in the market that my family went to there was a maze of goods and different versions of the same things being sold door to door. Everyone sells the same kind of dried shrimp, and same miniature chess sets and local teas.
But you never see the expats selling what they have in a market, or having to sell what they make so that they can put dinner on the table. You only ever see the local people selling things. Even in America, none of the wealthy people have to sell their things, even when times get tough, yet you do see the illegal immigrants selling things and working low paying jobs. The "white" people that visit places like Vietnam are the number 1 consumers of the product that the local people make, but they also pay the most, for example, a local person may pay 10,000 dong for a pair of sunglasses, where as a tourist may have to pay 100,000 dong, simply because the local people can get higher prices out of tourists than they can out of other locals, because they could use the money.
In Vietnam, most tourists would find that not very many people work a desk job, or at an office, because most of the people sell things during the day, and then go home at night to their family. But the people who go to an office tend to have more money, and many of the expats and tourists come to places like Vietnam, so that they can buy things and see things. All of which cost money, and the way for the government to get money is through tourists, and the local shopkeepers also get their money out of the tourists, because the tourists have the money.