In search of the authentic
However broadly you define it, traveling is a consumerist activity. It takes things like time and money to make happen, and sadly, the more you travel this world—especially where your currency is disproportionately strong—the more aware you are of people who cannot. These are people who for one reason or another are too busy making ends meet than to labor over the existential reimbursements of travel. And yet for those willing and able, the question of travel isn’t why, but how: How are we to spend our time and money in way that is meaningful? What makes for a meaningful travel experience and what does not?
While combing the internet for ideas on where to stay in Buenos Aires, I came across this in a travel forum. I paraphrase: I’m moving to Buenos Aires next month and looking for a place to live. Which neighborhood will offer me the more authentic porteño experience: Palermo (Borges’ old haunt) or San Telmo (the edgier, more bohemian cousin)? As it were, both are extremely popular neighborhoods for travelers and expats in Buenos Aires, offering much in the way of local attractions and culture—and both happened to be the neighborhoods Dacia and I were most interested in. Suffice it to say, one of those internet debates followed, with forum-goers championing their neighborhood as the finer, more 'accurate' reflection of porteño life. (Mind you all these commentators were, at least as far as could tell, not originally from Buenos Aires.) Despite the questionable assumptions made—which we’ll return to—what interested me was the sheer regularity of these questions on the internet and their demands for authenticity. What does it mean to have an authentic experience abroad? Is this, strictly speaking, even possible?
On the one hand it’s completely understandable. We all want something unique from our travels, and most of us would prefer, when we can, to avoid the peristaltic squeeze of tourist traps. Perhaps for this reason we begin to associate the genuine with the untailored, the meaningful with the unmediated. But on the other hand, it’s rather spurious to say that a place is more or less authentic when it is irreducibly itself. Both Palermo and San Telmo, despite their demographic differences, are equally parts of Buenos Aires and its bewildering, smothering plurality. For Palermo’s detractors, it was the barrio’s vanity—its upscale high-rises, its poodle dogs and Pilates studios—that became the mark of its cultural artifice, its waning porteño-tude.[1] San Telmo, however, was preferred by many—the majority in fact—because of its honesty. Its buildings were preserved in beautiful states of ruin, the parlor of history raw and crumbling. Its cobblestoned streets, not yet gentrified, not yet poodle-worthy, were full of artists and local merchants. Like its deteriorating facades, San Telmo seemed to expose a deeper truth that Palermo only covered up and made shiny, more expensive. Whether or not these are accurate characterizations is really a matter of perspective and preference, but what remained uncontested by forum-goers was if our presence as foreigners precluded the very possibility of a place being ‘authentic.’
Consider the ever popular Sunday fair in San Telmo, which is a great place to take inventory of all the tourists in Buenos Aires. Supposedly, in addition to its local artisan handicrafts (which are sometimes mass-produced and available everywhere down here), it’s a great place to catch authentic, porteño tango. It would seem that all of Buenos Aires is a musical just waiting to happen when you’re there, as local musicians and dancers are seemingly everywhere, ready to ambush you with their authenticity. But it’s like that tree falling in the forest phenomenon: would these musicians and dancers still be there if we weren’t?—meaning if San Telmo wasn’t such a heavy draw for travelers? It has all the trappings of a riddle, or a joke: How much Gore-Tex and hand sanitizer does it take until the chemistry of a place is forever changed?
If we speak of an authentic travel experience, we must already have some idea of what it is—and it’s this kind of essentialism, like that of art, that challenges us to give it form. It could be traversing Patagonia on foot or simply connecting with people from different cultural backgrounds. Regardless, the shape our experience takes depends largely on the way we choose to understand that experience: i.e., as immersive, as humanitarian, as adventurous, as personal, etc. And yet there is something about traveling that’s always approximating the idea of itself—an arresting image, an impression that at the time we don’t entirely understand, but it sends us gallivanting across the globe in search of it. In this regard, maybe all those gap-year backpackers have it only half right: it’s not that if you travel long enough you’ll find yourself, but rather, travel long enough and you’ll find out why you’re traveling.
[1] Speciously enough, a similar attack could have been launched against the people of Buenos Aires themselves for not being completely authentic, as a good amount—men and women alike—receive some form of plastic surgery during their lifetimes. But nobody risked such a polemic.
While combing the internet for ideas on where to stay in Buenos Aires, I came across this in a travel forum. I paraphrase: I’m moving to Buenos Aires next month and looking for a place to live. Which neighborhood will offer me the more authentic porteño experience: Palermo (Borges’ old haunt) or San Telmo (the edgier, more bohemian cousin)? As it were, both are extremely popular neighborhoods for travelers and expats in Buenos Aires, offering much in the way of local attractions and culture—and both happened to be the neighborhoods Dacia and I were most interested in. Suffice it to say, one of those internet debates followed, with forum-goers championing their neighborhood as the finer, more 'accurate' reflection of porteño life. (Mind you all these commentators were, at least as far as could tell, not originally from Buenos Aires.) Despite the questionable assumptions made—which we’ll return to—what interested me was the sheer regularity of these questions on the internet and their demands for authenticity. What does it mean to have an authentic experience abroad? Is this, strictly speaking, even possible?
On the one hand it’s completely understandable. We all want something unique from our travels, and most of us would prefer, when we can, to avoid the peristaltic squeeze of tourist traps. Perhaps for this reason we begin to associate the genuine with the untailored, the meaningful with the unmediated. But on the other hand, it’s rather spurious to say that a place is more or less authentic when it is irreducibly itself. Both Palermo and San Telmo, despite their demographic differences, are equally parts of Buenos Aires and its bewildering, smothering plurality. For Palermo’s detractors, it was the barrio’s vanity—its upscale high-rises, its poodle dogs and Pilates studios—that became the mark of its cultural artifice, its waning porteño-tude.[1] San Telmo, however, was preferred by many—the majority in fact—because of its honesty. Its buildings were preserved in beautiful states of ruin, the parlor of history raw and crumbling. Its cobblestoned streets, not yet gentrified, not yet poodle-worthy, were full of artists and local merchants. Like its deteriorating facades, San Telmo seemed to expose a deeper truth that Palermo only covered up and made shiny, more expensive. Whether or not these are accurate characterizations is really a matter of perspective and preference, but what remained uncontested by forum-goers was if our presence as foreigners precluded the very possibility of a place being ‘authentic.’
Consider the ever popular Sunday fair in San Telmo, which is a great place to take inventory of all the tourists in Buenos Aires. Supposedly, in addition to its local artisan handicrafts (which are sometimes mass-produced and available everywhere down here), it’s a great place to catch authentic, porteño tango. It would seem that all of Buenos Aires is a musical just waiting to happen when you’re there, as local musicians and dancers are seemingly everywhere, ready to ambush you with their authenticity. But it’s like that tree falling in the forest phenomenon: would these musicians and dancers still be there if we weren’t?—meaning if San Telmo wasn’t such a heavy draw for travelers? It has all the trappings of a riddle, or a joke: How much Gore-Tex and hand sanitizer does it take until the chemistry of a place is forever changed?
If we speak of an authentic travel experience, we must already have some idea of what it is—and it’s this kind of essentialism, like that of art, that challenges us to give it form. It could be traversing Patagonia on foot or simply connecting with people from different cultural backgrounds. Regardless, the shape our experience takes depends largely on the way we choose to understand that experience: i.e., as immersive, as humanitarian, as adventurous, as personal, etc. And yet there is something about traveling that’s always approximating the idea of itself—an arresting image, an impression that at the time we don’t entirely understand, but it sends us gallivanting across the globe in search of it. In this regard, maybe all those gap-year backpackers have it only half right: it’s not that if you travel long enough you’ll find yourself, but rather, travel long enough and you’ll find out why you’re traveling.
[1] Speciously enough, a similar attack could have been launched against the people of Buenos Aires themselves for not being completely authentic, as a good amount—men and women alike—receive some form of plastic surgery during their lifetimes. But nobody risked such a polemic.
posted by This is borrowed time at 10:15 AM
2 Comments:
Arguably, authors of posts about authenticity are biased based on their own experience and desires. To take the argument closer to our current home, is a more authentic experience to be had in the Lower East Side (well gentrified at this point) or in Soho (where the young, rich artists and yuppies live)? Is the Upper East Side truly reminiscent of the old blue blood or is Chinatown still best at holding onto the feel of dirty NY?
We would all have different opinions about that and these translate into our travels. I'm sure the guy who pays through the nose for his soho loft would find the luxurious and boutique Camper hotel in Barcelona indicative of life in Spain whereas you or I might find the most pleasure and authenticity from a small, rented apartment where you do your own wash and cook some of your own meals.
hey tim! what a beautiful way of blogging. love reading it. when you're in town, give us a call. my number is still the same. we'll be in az from 12/20-12/27, but hopefully we can get together.
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