So the question was, am I buying the idea of Old Hawaii and therefore exploiting out of it any authority or authenticity it might still have, or am I merely exchanging my cash for its capital, simultaneously enriching me and giving it the means to preserve itself? (The hula dance performed by scantily clad, attractive semi-Polynesian women being Old Hawaii's equivalent of the Sacagawea dollar?)
Or maybe I was just too cheap to pay the $100+ asking price of a luau ticket.
Either way, the same thoughts started rattling around in my skull as we cruised through Paradise, PA in Pennsylvania Dutch country, pointing out (inside the confines of our closed car) "Amish!" each time we passed a horse and buggy (though Thomas said it "Armish!" and Sethie, not knowing what we were doing, had to shout, "Garhlajg!" a few seconds too late). The idea of the Amish is for sale everywhere around here, on restaurant signs ("Jakey's Amish BBQ!") and country kitsch stores ("Authentic Amish quilts for sale!") and in amusement parks ("The Amish Village: Live like the Amish! Until You are Tired of It!") and for buggy rides. The weird thing about it is that it seems to be the Amish neighbors who are selling this idea. Imagine if an entire industry grew up in Salt Lake City of non-Mormons holding pretend Sacrament meetings and offering "missionary bike tours" where tourists can put on a white shirt and name tag then ride two by two down the streets.
So Lancaster county is a type of Williamsburg for Amish-style experiences. Here's where the comparison breaks down, though: Williamsburg offers authentic old world living to its modern day tourists and Lancaster purports to offer the same, except for the fact that the Amish aren't "old world". They're this world. Like I said, we motored past all numbers of them on the roads, our car shimmying around their clip-clopping horses with the "slow vehicle" triangle on their backs. One farm along the road would be ploughed by tractors. The next farm over, ploughed by horses.
So the truth is, you can't really live like the Amish. Oh, you can do their chores, and ride in their buggies, and try out their German dialect, but you can't ever experience what it is like to be Amish surrounded by tourists trying to do your chores and ride in your buggies and sound out your words. The colonists of Williamsburg can only haunt the giddy tourists who ogle with amusement the hard life they used to lead. The Amish are constantly surrounded by slack-jawed outsiders like us.
And then it really gets weird because in Lancaster both Amish and Mennonite people dress very similarly, but the Mennonites seem to be eager for the outsider interaction. They run furniture stores and restaurants, as well as drive cars and shop at grocery stores. I stood behind a fellow in very traditional Amish attire at a little roadside stop-n-shop who was buying, of all things, Klondike bars. Over time, we played the "Amish or Mennonite" game. The plainly dressed woman pulling up to a restaurant in a minivan? Mennonite, I'm guessing. The man standing at a bank's drive-through window while his wife and kids waited in their horse and buggy off to the side? Who knows?
So here I am complaining about the tourist industry set-up to ogle the Amish while simultaneously participating in it. Welcome to the Amish paradox...er paradise. The truth is, we didn't do much Amish-ogling after all. Not only did I feel a little weird about it, but we had a five and two year-old to entertain and doing chores in faux villages, Amish or not, is not their idea of a good time. Instead, we took them to the National Toy Train museum and the Choo Choo Barn in Strasburg and later we ended up at Cherry Crest Adventure farm, which is one of those tourist farms I wrote about last fall. The kids had a great time and only occasionally paused to ask for "snacky packs".
I later mentioned to Nate my Amish-ogling moral quandry and whether or not it was acceptable to pretend to live someone else's life just for the fun of it. He replied, "That is what tourists are. That is why tourists go places: to do and be things they can't at home. If it's a problem here, it's a problem with any tourist attraction, anywhere."
So I'm curious what people think: is being a tourist inherently exploitive, or should we be grateful that the natural curiosity of other human beings makes living a plain life possible, even profitable? Does it just depend on whether or not the Amish woman who made your souvenir quilt actually saw some of the cash you paid for it?
In the meantime, here are some pics of our adventures in Lancaster:
A sign hung in our room at Rayba Acres. Cute or weird for a B&B?
(Plaque reads: "For Maid Service, Ring Bell...if no answer, Do It Yourself")
For those who think Salt Lake City is too explicitly religious, check out these things from restaurants in Lancaster County, PA:
A place mat at our table
("The prayers of your faith are shown to assist you in saying 'Thank you'")
A wall-hanging across the dining room of the Shepherd's Psalm.
An advertisement outside the door that reads "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and Thou Shalt Be Saved"
The kids enjoy Strasburg's train-centric attractions
Thomas loves the LEGO display at the National Toy Train Museum in Strasburg
The "Choo Choo Barn" in Strasburg pays tribute to Old Glory as part of its 1700 sq. ft. tabletop train display. Sethie danced here to the playing of patriotic music.
A motorized circus display at the Choo Choo Barn
Sethie spends almost all his time at Cherry Crest Adventure Farm in the "wheat barn".
What can I say, he's a cautious kid.
Next up: The Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial
4 comments:
Wow. We went to Amish country a couple of years ago, and my only thought was buying a quilt.
I don't know that I would call it exploitive...when you exploit something, I always think of the person gain you get doing it, but in this case, I think it is more about personal enrichment...learning about another culture, maybe even trying to understand them.
Think of all the people who come to temple square to come and qawk at the crazy Mormons and look for their multiple wives...are the touists standing around trying to guess which wife you are?
p.s. Gettsburg is only 1.5 hours from where we live!!!! hint hint.
We even have a spare bedroom.
I agree with Denise, I don't think it's exploitive - after all, the Amish themselves profit from tourism; they get money, which they still need in our capitalist society, and it gives them the opportunity share some of their arts, culture, and values with the rest of us.
Allow me to digress to 2 Ireland stories:
1) We visited a living history farm that depicted farm life in The Kingdom of Kerry circa the 1930's. One of the museum workers, rocking next to the peat fire in the 1-room farm house, told us that they were thrilled to have just gotten some new butter churns and lanterns from the Pennsylvania Amish. It's the only place to get them, and the farm had been using, you know, their models from 1930. Understandably, these were getting to be a little ancient. They were also excited because the butter churns and lanterns mimicked the Irish style nearly exactly, despite being made thousands of miles and 80 years apart.
2) Sometimes the money from tourism goes towards Good. 50 years ago, Ireland had some really tough economic times. In the last 20 years, the tourism trade has helped Ireland's economy immensely. Yeah, it means there's a B&B on every corner, but it also means that they have jobs, money, etc. It also helps them funnel money towards causes outside of simple subsistence, such as preserving historical Irish culture and language - like the Historical Farms, and Gaeltacht communities.
I know, super long comment, and I have my own blog! :-P
I definitely see what you guys are saying (and thanks for the cool Ireland stories, grumpator. Dang, I'm so jealous you went there!). I think that I don't have issue with enriching the Amish monetarily for a chance to interact/experience their culture in any genuine sense. I think the thing that was irking me was that it seemed like the Amish neighbors--non-Amish--who were selling the Amish experiences and the Amish who were politely ignoring (or maybe not so politely. I don't know what neighborly friction goes on there) their enterprises. I got the impression that any direct merchandising was done by Mennonites, rather than the Old Order Amish we saw, but then again, I'm not an expert and our little Amish vs. Mennonite guessing game may have provided some entertainment, but not any answers. I suppose it's something to research a little more.
I just wondered how I would feel if I became famous somehow for the way I, say, take out my garbage and suddenly all my neighbors were selling tickets to watch me take out my garbage or to have their own "Mara-taking-out-the-garbage" adventure. Would I be ok with that?
Maybe the metaphor is weak.
This isn't exactly the same thing, but when we were in Germany we weren't tourists per se, we lived there for three years, but we and the rest of the American community pumped lots of money into local economies. The Germans gladly took our money and sold us the "European Experience", but by and large they despised us. They enjoyed our money but not the cultural exchange. I can see how being dependent on an outsider, the tourist visitor, would create some resentment. So exploitive or not, it makes the world go round.
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