Manello's Space

Vanishing Cultures

Last year I went on a trip to Southeast Asia. I enjoyed the exotic countries a lot, especially the cultural differences to our western lifestyle. Tasting fruits you have never heard of, having meals you've never seen and smelling completely new odors. Watching the people living their lifes, the way they chat, the way they work and dress. Everything can be so different in far countries, so that even religion can become magically interesting out of pure curiosity.

However, just because a country is far away doesn't mean that the experience will be vastly different from European, American or any western lifestyle we all are used to. I think countries in the future will become even less exotic.

I want to show you what I mean by comparing two countries. But before we get there, let's quickly take a look at how I travel. After that you might be able to identify with my thoughts.

The way I travel

As a kid I always enjoyed stories of travelers, especially from times where traveling was still an adventure and had its challenges. One of the books that absolutely catched me was "Around the World in Eighty Days". I fantasized about traversing across far countries, where nobody speaks your language, everything is foreign to you. You are on your own, navigating a completely new world. Truely a new world, since the cultural difference is so big that you have never seen anything like it. What a spectacular feeling this triggered in me!

This fascination sticks with me to date, thus you will often find me in less known places. I dislike places crowded by tourists and for the most part I don't need to go sightseeing to some overhyped locations. I want to experience the local culture and the nature of the country I am visiting; Get a sense of how life is there, a life so different from mine.

As an example, in Vietnam we decided to go for the countryside instead of the busy tourist areas near the ocean. We didn't see any non-Vietnamese people for two weeks. We were able to get close to the local life, have a glimpse at people's homes and got invited by local monks to join them for a drink even though we didn't share a language.

This kind of traveling might not be for everybody; But it is true fascination for me. For people that feel the same: Be warned, the cultural diversity we like to experience is reducing drastically!

And even those who are fine with a more shallow taste of cultures: Read on, maybe you'll think a bit different about the globalization ;)

Two Countries

Vietnam is really one of my prime examples of countries in change. In most regions of Vietnam, especially southern ones, you can still see a huge difference to our western culture. This is rapidly changing. My last visit to this country 10 years ago was even more exotic: People started using cars a lot, which was super rare in 2015. Also, some supermarket chains started to become popular, thus many young people go there instead of the street markets. Drug stores started to exchange many of their products with western ones; People wear hip clothes instead of obeying to traditional dressing standards.

Just a couple of hundred kilometers away is Thailand. A country where you can already see heavy changes. Many cars, restaurants set-up like in Europe, a lot of non-native food, most people speak English. Thailand is a step ahead of Vietnam: You can see that all the changes that just start to take off in Vietnam are already in place in Thailand.

It feels less exotic, less adventurous. And to some degree a bit less original. The price a country pays for modernizing; or rather adjusting to another culture which is praised as modern.

Comfort, Modernization, Globalization

One can't disagree that having a supermarket offering everything you need is more comfortable than having to organize everything on a street market. A car is more comfy to ride than a bike or bicycle, etc... It would be totally unfair to gatekeep, or to expect them to refrain from these modern commodities. But this still heavily changes the feeling you get in such a country.

Global companies also play a role in this. They are setting the newest trends and most of them are either western or westernized in order to sell more products in western markets. Aggressive marketing tricks people into thinking that their traditional things are outdated and whatever people from NA or EU have is more desirable.

As materialism is becoming way more popular than ever, even in originally spiritual countries, people start to think that a more western lifestyle is desirable. In the end, western lifestyle is accompanied by the reputation of wealth and progression. And so many poor countries see the west as a role model. (We should think about the definition of progression. Is wealth and technology really the only progress?)

And of course, the Internet. It sped the cultural interpolation further up by showing people what is trendy and desirable in other parts of the world. When you see things all day that you don't have and which claim to make other people happy: it makes you want it, too.

Politics: Diversity & Immigration

Diversity, of course culturally speaking here, can be a good thing. However, too much diversity does bring a homogenization of multiple cultures. Two things are mixed, they adapt to each other and in the end have more in common than differences. Yes, I agree that this leads to a more peaceful living together. However, on the negative side this heavily inflicts originality.

Here in Germany, I have seen many people who are unhappy with that. Usually these are people very keen on traditions and sadly often in the far right political wing. I strongly refrain from identifying myself with them. However, I understand their thoughts of losing culture, traditions and in the end also identity. I don't know how or if anyone can do something against this cultural homogenization and I don't want to dive much into politics here, as it would be a topic on its own. But I wanted to point out that this is the same process which makes other countries less original.

Culture has always been evolving over time. However, the evolution of a culture on its own is a completely different process than what I am trying to point out in this article.

Outlook

Currently there are still many countries with a fairly different lifestyle, only slightly affected by global trends. However, many of them are rapidly changing. So if you are one of the people saying "I wanna travel the world when I am old": Rethink your statement.

Change is speeding up and the world won't be the same when you retire in 35 years. I predict that the world will be culturally a lot more homogenized in a few decades. Up to a point where many local values, identities and traditions are completely lost.

Unless.... countries start to focus more on themselves and hold up local and national values. This scenario is probably unlikely, but who knows, history always had its surprises.