On Travel Writing Archives | North of Something

Celebrating the Local, Contemplating the Universal

14/10/2014 by Jamie 7 Comments

The reverberations between observer and observed, between self and world, allow the writer to celebrate the local while contemplating the universal… a conscious commitment to represent the strange and exotic in ways that both familiarize and distance the foreign; a writerly concern with language and literature; and finally, thematic concerns that go beyond descriptions of people and places visited” (Casey Blanton in Travel Writing: The Self and the World, page 5).

This summer I took a grad class on Travel Writing (it’s actually the reason I originally started this blog). We read many of the writers that focus on travel writing, both people that write about travel and those that simply critique it. One of my favorites was Casey Blanton. Her writing is clear and she actually SAYS something about what it means to write about travel.

After giving a history of travel writing and how the genre has evolved into what it is today, Blanton narrows down the specific criteria for what characteristics are usually seen: a narrator describing the foreign, elements borrowed from fiction, and ultimately connecting the self by means of the experience to the bigger picture. She argues “Indeed the journey pattern is one of the most persistent forms of all narratives – both fiction and non-fiction” (2). She also argues that the elements of fiction have grown the genre and made it what it is today, it “often borrows from the world of fiction to establish motivation, rising and falling action, conflict, resolution, and character” (4).

Blanton describes current travel writing as “a place where values are discovered along the way, not imported; a place where other cultures can have their say; a place where self and other can explore each other’s fictions; a place that, as Ishmael warns us, ‘is not down on any map’” (29). I love that travel writing can be so many different things, because everyone has their own personal preferences for what they like to read, and SO MANY people love to read about travel, culture, exotic places, adventures, etc. There’s something out there for everyone!

What kind of travel writing do you prefer: Descriptions/photos of a foreign place? Highlighting the people that live there? Personal stories of experience while traveling?

Cultural Compassion Through Travel

10/06/2014 by Jamie 3 Comments

When I visited Cashel, Ireland in the fall of 2003, my friends and I stayed in a comfy, rural hostel that seemed more like a bed and breakfast. There was a separate floor for men and women, a kitchen where people left their extra food when they left, and a living/smoking room where I watched a soccer game with a few Irish travelers. I don’t remember the exact teams that were playing but it was essentially Ireland vs. England. The room was thick with emotion, perhaps the beer aided the excitement.

One friendly Irishman sat down next to me and asked who I was rooting for. I told him I was currently living in England, but as I was visiting Ireland I would be happy with either winning. This was the wrong answer. Slightly drunk and with tears in his eyes he gave me an Irish earful about how he felt about England transplanting protestant English people to live in Ireland and augment the widely held catholic beliefs, how it damaged part of Ireland’s national identity, and how he could never forgive England for it. It was as if this sporting event could either redeem his homeland or drive another nail in its coffin. The conversation took place over 10 years ago and I can’t remember his exact words, but I remember the tears in his eyes, the smoky smell of that room, and especially that heavy sadness, the terrible feeling of something very special taken away. In a 2011 talk for Global Washington, Rick Steves said: “People have struggles, people have heroic struggles that we’re pretty much clueless about, and when you travel you gain an appreciation for that” (30:54).

Sitting with that Irishman in the smoking room, watching the soccer game was my first introduction to the harsh realities of the relationship between England and Ireland. Years later, for a project in a Nineteenth Century Literature class, I was browsing old copies of “The Times of London” looking for advertisements that shed light on the culture at the time. My eyes fell on one from June of 1846, nestled in the text of the ad was this: “No Irish Need Apply.”

When I went back to Ireland in 2010 with my husband, and pregnant with my son, we walked through part of the National Museum of Ireland – Collins Barracks. The “Soldier and Chiefs” exhibit tells many stories of Irish fighting at home and around the world, including letters, replicas, and Irish military memorabilia to show how war affected the lives of Irish people. I read so many of the letters on display, of men that knew they were going to die, but that THEIR Ireland was worth dying for – to retain their heritage, for honor and freedom. My Irish friend from the hostel flashed in my mind and I understood the letters so much more deeply than if I had never met him. In Debby Lisle’s book The Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing she argues that the very nature of travel writing is from a superior perspective, whether we are trying to glide graciously away from imperialist sentiments or not. “Think of it this way: travel writers must go somewhere else and meet strange people for their work to be considered ‘travel writing’ in the first place” (260). The core idea of travel writing assumes authority over those that are written about. She raises the question of why do we have the authority to represent them – “What right do I have to speak for others?” (269).

Some nations are proud of their heritage and their ability to rise from the bottom in order to recreate their identity – without outside help. In Sheikha Al Mayassa’s TED talk “Globalizing the local, localizing the global” she says: “Qatar is trying to grow its national museums through an organic process from within. Our mission is of cultural integration and independence. We don’t want to have what there is in the West. We don’t want their collections. We want to build our own identities, our own fabric, create an open dialogue so that we share our ideas and share yours with us” (5:52). They want to define themselves.

I have many stories to write of the travels that I have done over the years. I’m trying to situate myself in a way that is respectful to the people and places I visited, but showing a true depiction of the things I saw. I have opinions about them too, many of them have changed since first visiting a place. Sometimes digesting what has been seen after arriving home creates a better picture of what was actually witnessed. But in almost every case, I go home with deeper compassion for all people, knowing just a little bit more about other people’s struggles for honor and meaning.

Beneath the small daily trials there are harder paradoxes, things the mind cannot reconcile but the heart must hold if we are to live fully: profound tiredness and radical hope; shattered beliefs and relentless faith; the seemingly contradictory longings for personal freedom and a deep commitment to others.” Oriah, The Invitation

Travel Interview with my Grandma | Barbara Pavitt

04/06/2014 by Jamie 10 Comments

Juneau hike with my cousin Kanani, Aunt Bernie, Mom, and Grandma before her 75th Birthday.

My grandma, Barbara Pavitt, lives in Juneau, Alaska, in the same home she raised her family of 7. She still travels extensively, hikes the mountains in Juneau, and kicks my butt in yoga at 82. I did a phone interview with her yesterday afternoon about her thoughts on travel.

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Jamie: Why do you like to travel? What is your biggest motivation to take a trip?

Barbara: There’s so many other places in the world that I want to see. My motivation is usually someone says, “Hey, you want to go to India with me? or I hear about a local group that’s going somewhere. Just because places are there, is why I want to go see them.

Jamie: What was your favorite trip you’ve ever been on and why?

Barbara: I hate that question! I would probably say India with Road Scholars. It’s not just being a tourist, we heard lectures by local people about the culture and different aspects of the country. We visited the Taj Mahal. It’s nice because you don’t feel like a tourist, you’re more like a guest. We got to actually meet some women in the village and they talked to us about politics and education. They still have the caste system even though it’s illegal.

My Mom, Grandma, and Aunt Bernie at the Louvre Museum, Paris

Jamie: Were the Indian women what you expected or did what they say about politics and education surprise you?

Barbara: Well I didn’t have preconceived notions of what they would be like, so no. But I also realized it was a select group of women, not necessarily representative of all the women in India.

Jamie: How do multiple stories about a country change how we see them?

Barbara: It gives us a broader view of a country. We know with our own country there’s a lot of different cultures. You hear about hillbillies in the south, eskimos in the north. If you’ve never heard anything about a country, and you only hear one story you only get that one side, it’s incomplete.

Jamie: In my Travel Writing class we watched a TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie “The Danger of a Single Story.” She says: “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story” (12:57).

Barbara: Yeah that’s what I said!

Jamie: In your travels where did you get most of your information on the local culture?

Patisserie in Viralet, France with local hostess Irene Hecht

Barbara: I’d like to say talking with people but It’s usually from the tour guides. You’re kind of shielded from the people when you’re on a tour. I did this backpacking trip in Switzerland, we were on our own, the four of us. That time we stayed in hostels so we talked to people that worked there and other travelers, met people on the way. It’s more personal and interesting when you actually meet people and exchange names.

Jamie: Why is it important that we listen to different stories or go to different countries?

Barbara: Well I think the more we know about other cultures the more we can all get along. There’s more understanding, we’re less likely to think of other people as enemies when you go those countries and you’ve met them.

The house of friends who hosted her in Viralet, France

Jamie: Is there anything else you want to share about your travels?

Barbara: I went to France [80^th birthday trip] and stayed with people that knew the area, met some locals. One day your Aunt Bernie and I took a couple busses and went to a little café, sat there and watched people, it was fun, that was the way I thought it was going to be in the first place [before scheduling all the sightseeing tours], doing whatever we wanted to do.

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Lunch after a hike to neighboring village in Dordogne, France

When I reminded my Grandma this morning that I wanted some of her photos from her travels, she said she was getting ready to leave for a hike so she would send them later today. I hope I am that active throughout my life!

There used to be a time when women were not the normal travelers, it was a break in the norm. Mary Suzanne Schriber said “Travel rewrote home in new and more appealing terms.” I think for me, my reasons for travel usually involve wanting to break out of my normal routine and see something new, so that I can come back home with fresh eyes. But I suppose if someone said “Hey, you want to go to India with me?” that would be a good motivation to travel, too, right Grandma?!

Modern advances now allow travelers to enjoy comfortable accomadations throughout most of a journey, allowing for both young and old to travel extensively. In the 19^th century things were very different, and that’s just one of the reasons that women didn’t often travel. Here’s an account from “Traveller’s Tales: North America” of Isabella Bird (1831-1904), an English woman traveling to the American West. Here’s an excerpt from her travels:

Wagons with white tilts, thick-hided oxen with heavy yokes, mettlesome steeds with high peaked saddles…There, in a long wooden shed with blackened rafters and an earthen floor, we breakfasted, as seven o’clock, on johnny-cake, squirrels, buffalo-hump, dampers, and buckwheat, tea and corn spirit, with a crowd of emigrants, hunters, and adventurers; and soon after re-embarked for Rock Island, our little steamer with difficulty stemming the mighty tide of the Father of Rivers [the Mississippi River].

Honestly, if that’s the way I had to travel now, I would just turn my suitcase into a flower planter and never look back. Luckily, even the cheapest modes of transportation available now are far superior to riding wagons pulled by oxen while snacking on squirrels.

More photos coming soon… as soon as Grandma is back from her hike!

Update: Grandma made it back safely from her hike and sent me pictures as promised :)

Grandma and me reading a book on her boat – Juneau, Alaska 1989

Iolani Palace, Waikiki

28/05/2014 by Jamie 16 Comments

The Iolani Palace in Waikiki is a beautifully restored building where old Hawaiian royalty used to live. Surrounded by towering monkeypod and banyan trees that have been growing for generations, the palace was built by King Kalakaua and passed down to his sister Queen Liliʻuokalani. The atmosphere is somber and respectful; the Hawaiian flag ripples high in the sunshine.

Yesterday I visited the Iolani Palace in Waikiki for the first time. Hawaii’s history is long and complicated, and the people here really connect with it. THEIR history, not necessarily American history in the broader sense. The inscription outside the palace says: “Iolani Palace is a living restoration of the official royal residence for the Kalakaua Dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1874 to 1893. King Kalakaua, who reigned for 17 years, built the palace in 1882 as a symbol of Hawaii’s civilized and enlightened leaders as well as its sovereignty.”

There were some interesting books for display at the museum gift shop, which has been converted from the palace barracks. Among other Hawaiian memoirs, historical fiction and non-fiction, there was a book titled: “The Betrayal of Queen Liliʻuokalani, Last Queen of Hawaii 1838-1917: A woman caught in the turbulent maelstrom of cultures in conflict.”

Homi Bhabha, a professor at Harvard University and an expert in post-colonial studies, suggests that crafting a perfectly fashioned history of a nation is “gained at the cost of those ‘others’ – women, natives, the colonized, the indentured and enslaved – who; at the same time but in other spaces, were becoming the peoples without a history.”

I have lived here in Hawaii for a little over 2 years and I’ve had many encounters with local Hawaiians: at the grocery store, my son’s preschool, doctor’s appointments (Auntie’s going to take your temperature!) Most encounters range from very friendly, especially to my son, to quiet passiveness. Being from the Pacific Northwest, this is comfortable for me.

Drivers tend to be relaxed here and often seem to be in no hurry – aloha time, all the time. Someone will often let you in while driving in traffic, and if you get cut off the driver usually throws up a shaka to show his thanks (or in some cases an apology). In my experience, the fastest way to piss off a local Hawaiian is to be in a huge rush to get something done, and make a big fuss of entitlement for the urgency. I asked local Hawaiian Chalynn Domingo-Panoke (21) if she agreed with that statement and she laughed and nodded her head yes. “It’s hard to explain, but sometimes they just act like they think they’re better than people here.”

I have heard stories of local Hawaiians being less than kind to non-locals (especially white people), being aggressive and calling them names, among them “haole,” which has varying definitions, most of them derogatory. This has never happened to me, and maybe that’s why I don’t have any negative feelings towards local Hawaiians. Perhaps they have called me haole behind my back, but I wouldn’t deny them this harmless way of feeling connected to each other as a culture, as long as they aren’t actually mean to me.

Being the last state to join the union in 1959, many of the older generation here in Hawaii have the unique perspective of being able to remember Hawaii’s status as a U.S. territory that held on to many of its customs. I recently spoke with a 27 year old white male (who wanted to remain anonymous) who has married into a Hawaiian family. His in-laws are in their early 50s and he says, “They don’t hate all haoles, but mainly military, white people have come here with entitlement and give all haoles a bad name.”

Domingo-Panoke, whose family has lived in Hawaii since well before the time of Hawaiian royalty and sovereignty, recently answered a few questions for me:

Jamie: How do you feel about the Kingdom of Hawaii being taken over by the US?

Domingo-Panoke: Well, I don’t know the whole story, but I don’t know why they did that, why they locked the Queen in her room.

Jamie: What are your thoughts on Hawaii becoming its own nation?

Domingo-Panoke: Only native Hawaiians want that.

Jamie: But you ARE native Hawaiian! Did you grow up somewhere else?

Domingo-Panoke: No, I grew up here. I guess I just meant the HAWAIIAN Hawaiian people want that.

Jamie: Do you indentify with HAWAIIAN Hawaiian people or no?

Domingo-Panoke: I kind of identify with them. I wasn’t raised that way.

Jamie: “Raised that way” as in it’s a bad thing?

Domingo-Panoke: No, my parents just never really talked about it. They aren’t into Hawaiian politics.

There seems to be a divide between the younger and older generations of Hawaiians. Some older local Hawaiian’s feel anger towards the U.S. for essentially taking over. Although there was no bloodshed as with many Native American take overs, it was a group of mainly American and European businessmen that overthrew the monarchy in 1893, imprisoning Queen Liliʻuokalani in her own home, the Iolani Palace, for months until the provisional government was established. What if the Hawaiians that were loyal to the monarchy had fought? Every choice, whether that of an individual, or of an entire society can affect the course of history. But that choice created their history, their choice of being peaceful.

Sheena Iyengar’s TED talk brings up interesting differences in how Americans and other cultures view choice. She says: “When it comes to choice, we have far more to gain than to lose by engaging in the many translations of the narratives. Instead of replacing one story with another, we can learn from and revel in the many versions that exist and the many that have yet to be written” (19:16).

There has been a growing movement since Clinton’s 1993 apology to the Hawaiian people for taking over, that is trying to make the kingdom of Hawaii an internationally recognized nation state again. this movement seems to be more popular with the older generations of local Hawaiians. My anonymous source said emphatically that his in-laws “are all about it.” But clearly not all local Hawaiians feel the same way. With the younger generation feeling somewhat disconnected from the past wrongs that the U.S. committed to their people, I wonder how much longer the movement to regain Hawaiian sovereignty will last?

Bhabha suggests: “The scraps, patches and rags of daily life must be repeatedly turned into the signs of a coherent national culture” (145). It seems that a new Hawaiian culture is emerging, one that may not mind being American, but still honors the traditions of its ancestors.