Firing Squad
Categories: China, Photography, Tourism
Category Archives: Tourism
Migrant Laborers as Tourists
A few days ago I was walking out of the subway station, when I became aware of a giant, dark blue bag in my field of vision. The bag was on the back of a person a few steps higher up the stairs, so it was directly in front of my face. For a few seconds I could see nothing else but the cheap piece of luggage—ubiquitous on trains and long-distance busses throughout China. The 1970’s-style font, with an image of […]
Categories: Random Reflections, Tourism • Tags: migrant worker
The Split Presence of the Tourist: Battambang, Cambodia
While enjoying breakfast in a local restaurant on the street in Battambang, Cambodia, I captured a wonderful moment that highlights some of the contradictions of tourism. Two tourists, sitting in the comfortable posture of the lounge chair attached to the front of a sightseeing tricycle, passed by. Each wore dark sunglasses and large white headphones. They stare ahead watching the streetscape unfold to the personalized audio soundtrack of narration or music. They are in the city and yet distinctly apart from it—both […]
Categories: Photo Essays, Random Reflections, Tourism • Tags: Battambang, Cambodia
“Moroccan” (Tourist) Things
Categories: Collecting, Material Culture, Photo Essays, Representation, Souvenirs, Tourism • Tags: Morocco, Orientalism, souvenir, tourism, tourist experience, travel
Yungang Grottoes: The Missing Pieces Meet The Big Holes
Oh, I’m lookin’ for my missin’ piece I’m lookin’ for my missin’ piece Hi-dee-ho, here I go lookin’ for my missin’ piece –The Missing Piece (Shel Silverstein, 1976) This afternoon I was doing some cataloging of images when I came across a folder from a few years back. In it I found a few photos from the Yungang Grottoes—a collection of ancient carved buddhist grottoes just outside the city of Datong in Northern China. Every year that I take student […]
Categories: China, Collecting, Museums, Photo Essays, Representation, Tourism • Tags: chinese sculpture, collections, cultural property, Cultural Revolution, Datong, Met, Metropolitan Museum of Art, sculpture, shel silverstein, unesco world heritage site, vandalism, Yungang Grottoes，云冈石窟
Cannibal Tours
A year ago a student borrowed our university library’s copy of Dennis O’Rourke’s classic film, Cannibal Tours, and never returned. The film is out of print and it has been tough to find a replacement—a big inconvenience because this film is so well done. I know of few films that so effectively make viewers aware of their own spectatorship—and offer a teachable and discussable critique of the tourist industry. I regularly give students a first taste of this film in my […]
Categories: Documentary, Representation, Tourism • Tags: Cannibal Tours, Dennis O'Rourke, Papua New Guinea
The Day I Met Superman
Last November a film blog that I regularly read shared a short documentary video that touched me in an unexpected way. It featured Christopher Dennis, a guy whose alter ego is Superman on Hollywood Boulevard. I had never heard of him before, but given my fascination and often adoration of people who create elaborate costumes of their favorite cosplayers, I clicked on the video. The documentary’s soft, colorful, cinematography complemented its fantastic subject. It portrayed Mr. Dennis in a respectful […]
Categories: Fame, Mythologies, Popular Culture, Tourism • Tags: cosplay, hollywood, superman
Mystery Object #8: Commemorative Flask Keychain
I can think of no better souvenir of a place of natural beauty like Big Sur than a vintage, commemorative, flask keychain shining with reflections of American heritage. A keychain. For car keys. For a car. For driving. With a flask. For alcohol. For Drinking. Seriously. This mystery object sends so many messages on so many levels all at one time that it makes my brain just want to shut down and give up even trying to understand. First there […]
Categories: Mystery Objects, Tourism • Tags: alcohol, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, drinking culture, keychain, souvenir
God(zilla) Will Destroy L.A.
Just a few days after the New Year, while in Los Angeles, we visited Hollywood Boulevard. While I don’t imagine the beautiful people do a lot of hanging around in that particular neighborhood, it is sacred ground for the global mythology of Hollywood. Visiting the “walk of fame” is, after all, what tourists are expected to do when they visit L.A. So we went to see the stars—more specifically the traces they have left behind—their handprints and their footprints and the concrete […]
Categories: End of Times, Movies, Mythologies, Random Reflections, Tourism, Video clips • Tags: Fundamentalism, hollywood, Religion
Rules to Enter Iowa
I was doing some office cleaning this past weekend when I stumbled upon an object I had collected on a road trip back in 2005—a list of “Rules to Enter Iowa” that I had ripped out of a local gazette in a hotel in Dubuque, Iowa. At the time I imagined it might come in handy for a discussion about socioeconomic class, regional identities or just rural/urban identities more generally. Since I’m not sure when I’ll use it, and I […]
Categories: Mythologies, Tourism • Tags: Gender, Iowa, Race, redstate, rural/urban, Social Class
