We had a seminar earlier on When in Rome, should we do as the Romans do? This is also closely related to our life. Should we do as the Romans do when traveling? Most situations in which you do as the Romans do are friendly and fun . But if the thing gos differently, How should we accept different ideas? Travel, people go to a different place, see different people and the wider world. But when the local culture there, the three views do not agree with us. Are we going to change that? Or turn a blind eye, or look at the specific situation.
How far should we respect foreign ways of doing things that we may find abhorrent? I remember many students mentioned that we should try to keep a friendly and distant sense. after all, a phenomenon must have a cause and an effect. Because this is a place you are not familiar with, the annoying customs may be caused by some problems. For example, the behavior mentioned in the teacher’s courseware of paralyzing the baby with drugs and pretending that the baby is dead so that tourists can donate money to them. Which we can see the poverty and lack of resources behind it. As a passenger you can hardly solve all these problems, you may even get involved in danger.
There’s also some students believes that you have to follow the moral standards of the society, so do people in other regions. We always need to do our best to stop those who do bad traditions. It’s actually helping them and helping people who are deeply troubled by the problem too.
During the discussion, I also noticed that some people said that in fact, the probability of local people actively cooperating in the process of help is not very high. Because customs and traditions are always born and spread in societies and groups. For example, China bound the feet of women, they do not doubt that this is wrong, they feel the pain but also feel that they should go through this process, because everyone around them believes this, their brain must agree with the public’s thought. How can this psychological feudalism be changed? It’s actually very difficult.
The last question is:”Should local problems be ignored as being none of the visitor’s business, or do visitors have a responsibility to help solve local problem when they travel?” Everyone expressed similar views on this issue. In most cases, it’s not about the tourists, so don’t bother, because the process of changing their bad will also cost you money, time and emotions. But it’s okay if you’re willing to pay for it.
So I still think most of the time it’s about understanding the differences in the world. it also has to do with one’s sense of responsibility and morality and boundaries and judgment.
I learned a lot from this seminar