Buddha's Gotta Get Paid

If your goal while vacationing is to see the most sites possible that the town or city has to offer, then a guided tour is the way to go. If you don't mind exploiting the history of the town by taking pictures in front of monuments that you have no clue about, get on the charter bus. As I decided to take a tour of Shanghai, just to say, "hey I've been there," I knew there would be some level of exploitation that we would encounter. Exploitation comes with the territory when you're a tourist. If you've been site seeing anywhere whether it be to the Statue of Liberty or to the Egyptian Pyramids, you've played a part in the commercialization of some historical monument. In Egypt, I paid to walk into a pyramid to see nothing, and then just walk back out. I've been to the Colesseum in Rome where men stand outside in gladiator costumes charging 5 Euros to have your picture taken. My favorite was in Costa Rica on a trek through the rain forest, where we met "indigenous people", who go down in history as the "Copy-Copy people". All of these sightseeing adventures were at a cost of exploiting the cultures for a buck. Are tourist victims of local opportunist who willingly exploit their cultures, or did these entrepreneurs just supply the demand? The top of my list to date is my visit to the Jade Buddha Temple. This temple is a place of solitude and peace, but how can that be? If daily it is disrupted by tourist snapping shots of people praying and honoring the "enlightened one", when do the monks experience their awakening? I'm guilty of taking in my 2 cameras and snapping away. Taking photos with hopes of adding one more Buddha statue to my collection. However, I can't help but feel a since of guilt as I snapped shots while a family was sending off a love one to Nirvana. One of the family members yelled to the tourist who were taking photos as ashes flew wildly, to stop and leave his family to say farewell to their relative. I know that tourism is a huge part of keeping economies flowing, but does it have to be so cheesy and over the top. I mean is nothing sacred? The monks were pushing their own tea.

I swear once, you've been on one guided tour, you've been on them all. Unless I've been choosing the wrong tours, they all lack creativity or originality. The guides speak very fast as if they've memorized the script. Each visit to a site is rushed. They always take you to the typical sites to see in the town, and they always take you to see how something is made. Like in Shanghai, after visiting the Shanghai Museum and the Jade Budda Temple we ended the day at the Shecy Pearl Company, where we learned how to determine a brilliant pearl from a fake. Then comes the handshake, the part where you expected to purchase something cheesy that screams, "I'm a sucker tourist." I admit, I bought some pearls, and I don't even fancy pearls. As matter of fact I think they scream, "I'm a boring chick who wants boring status." No offense to "cool chicks who rock pearls." Whatever the tour entails just know that no one is innocent in preserving the historical value of a site of interest.