To follow up on my bureaucracy blog post from last Sunday: I noticed that in Italy, even the lowliest bureaucratic grunt takes no tips or bribes. I tried numerous times to round up little fees, and they strictly refused any extra money.
A crowning example of bureaucratic stupidity: Once we’d manage to get a paper giving us permission to film, we’d routinely need to find a tobacco stand, so that we could buy a tax stamp to make the paper official. Spending an hour of our precious filming time, and €10 on a taxi ride to pay €8 for a tax stamp ‘ all as a way to pay the tax for another piece of paper ‘ tried my patience.
I enjoyed a Florentine guide’s philosophy that “Good guides need to understand the unexpressed needs of their clients.”
I’ve noticed that a bag of carrots has become my favorite hotel room snack: cheap, crisp, tasty, and light after all the cooked restaurant food.
Many old Italian women cringe at the sound of a pope with a German accent. And many call Pope Benedict “The German Shepherd.”
While the casual visitor wouldn’t notice, I heard that in small towns a lot of jealous rivalries fester among relatives who are disgruntled about not getting a fair shake in a family will. Because of inheritance squabbles, the restaurateurs of Monterosso (in the Cinque Terre) are considered some of the best clients of the lawyers in nearby La Spezia.
American travelers may be notorious for traveling too fast, but they’re turtle sightseers compared to Japanese big-bus tourists. I was running around with Paola, a guide friend of mine in Assisi, until she had to meet a Japanese bus group for a tour. Paola illustrated how fast they blitzed her town by making the Road Runner cartoon sound while her hand zipped by like a rocket. Just for fun, I followed her as she worked. Getting off the bus first, the Japanese tour escort greeted Paola by saying they had 65 minutes. Paola bowed, said “konnichiwa,” and off they went. The tour leader translated Paola’s commentary through their whisper system (now standard among bus tours ‘ a guide talks into a mic, and the entire group hears her in their wireless earpieces). Barely stopping on their rushed march through town, entering nothing but one church, they motored through Assisi, managing to finish up well within their 65 minutes.
Paola said Japanese groups prefer to hear their historical information without dates ‘ they’d rather just get the era (Baroque, Gothic, Renaissance) and the numbers (a town’s population, how many meters high a tower is). She opined that the groups often speak better English than their translator, and noted that the women laugh freely when in pairs, but much less when they are with their men. And they are extremely polite, she says. How polite? On a famous wall designed for graffiti, along the Cinque Terre’s Via del Amore, Japanese tourists love to leave notes, but are loathe to deface the wall with actual graffiti ‘ so they scrawl on Post-it notes.
We can laugh at people from different cultures struggling to experience far-away places. But whether we are American, Turkish, or Japanese, it’s almost always a constructive exercise. Even on a blitz tour that gives Assisi just 65 minutes, even for people who seem to do little more than mug in front of famous monuments with their giddy peace signs and seemingly mindless smiles, travel teaches lessons and leaves memories that will contribute to a broader perspective.
Reminds me of our Honeymoon 20 years ago. We`re sitting on the shores of a lake (Valley of the 10 Peaks) in Alberta, Canada. We watched bus load after bus load of Japanese tourists come in, unload, take rolls of pictures, reload on the bus and drive away. We wondered if they go home and sit through a slide show to see where they`d been. We spent the better part of 2 hours just sitting on the rocks, watching how the lighting changed with the sun movement. It was beautiful and we were sad for those who were moving too fast to appreciate it.
Think the Japanese are fast? Try this interesting report on Chinese tourism: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/18/110418fa_fact_osnos
I highly recommend the New Yorker article cited above. A Mandarin speaking American reporter tagged along on a lowcost blitz tour. Loved their commment about “bad Chinese food” as one of the major complaints about European travel.
But younger (20 – somethings and especially girls) Japanese can be rude and intrusive in my experience. Their assertiveness might ruin a trip. Brace them. And guides who sense their clients` unexpressed needs (facial expressions, grunts, ughs) are few and far between. Many are preoccupied. Those who are intuitive should be paid very well.
No such thing as a “German Shepard” in Europe! The dog is called an Alsatian.
Hi Rick, my family has been reading your blog for quite some time now and I just wanted to thank you for all that you do! My husband, myself, and my three daughters (all teens, heaven help me) have all of your DVDs and quite a few travel books as well. I was born in Germany and we still have family there so we travel there as often as finances allow. I had to smile when I read your thoughts on Japanese tourists – the last time we traveled to Schloss Neuschwanstein, Japanese tourists almost knocked one of my daughters down in their rush to get off the bus at the top of the hill! That being said, most were very sweet and even took pictures of my blond daughters on the Marien Brucke (it seems they were quite fascinated with these blond-headed children!). Again, thank you and may God bless you and watch over you on your journeys! :)
My husband and I were in Rome last weekend. We might even have been gawking at the Victor Emanuel Monument at the same time that you were there. Regarding the Pope, we noticed that just about all the signs and things for sale featured John Paul II, no doubt due to his beatification. Still we didn`t see much featuring the current pontiff. We used your Rome book for our tour of the Furum, and found it more enlightening than the audio guide that we got at the Colleseum. We also did the night time walk you mapped out. Your tip to get the Roma Passes saved us lots of time and money! We look forward to seeing your Italian shows next year.