![]() Sure, people go to the Pioneer Living History museum outside of Phoenix to see how early Western US settlers lived. That is, of course, totally nuts and wouldn’t fly in any more familiar setting. (Maybe if you’re really lucky, Western powers have been involved in a land war and there’s a war museum that merits mention among an itinerary that’s otherwise 98% dynastic pottery and disused temples.) ![]() ![]() Hip young artists reimagining traditional art forms and themes through graffiti? Nope, ancient Buddhist reliquary is the only thing that defines modern Asia. Where a guidebook or tour leader might naturally explore both the modern and the traditional in a city like Amsterdam or Copenhagen or London, proudly drawing the connections between the new and the old, there’s a tendency in Asian travel to pretend like it’s not 2020, like the Silk Road has been newly-established, and like nothing that’s happened in the last 1000 years is worthy of any consideration. This is particularly true in Asia, where centuries of Orientalist mystique have left Western travel writers speaking of even minor cultural differences as if they make East and Southeast Asians another species of humanity entirely. A mistake travel guides - and, subsequently, travelers - frequently make is to act like cultures never change or advance.
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