BootsnAll Travel Community

RE: http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/05-07/yak-butter-tea-tidrum-tibet.html

I loved this story, particularly the focus on yaks, and the unusual setting for the introduction. I'm a vegetarian and I've wondered how I would cope with being offered food that I wouldn't want to eat, so I can sympathise with your predicament!

Solbeam, you are by far my most favourite writer on BNA. Bringing across "human warmth" in your stories, is something you do best.

The writing I thought was plenty fine, but the event described represents a certain closed-mindedness that is the antithesis of the traveller's spirit. It smacks of a package tourist being intimidated by a guidebook (of all things) from experiencing Tibet for what it is. It reminds me a lot of my brother's whining about how he doesn't like St. Petersburg because the guide says "that isn't safe" and "those people are bad" all the time. Without a guide planting these ideas into my head, my experience with that city has been the exact opposite.

I looked forward to butter tea and tsampa, not because they were expected to be culinary revelations but because they're the true tastes of the Tibetan people. When the opportunity to try butter tea was presented to me, I jumped at it. How could I not? It wasn't that bad, a little salty and strange and certainly not to the Western taste.

An open mind may not have made butter tea taste better, but at least it would have stood a fair chance. Going into an experience like this fearing the worst will inevitably result in a bad experience and if that's going to be the approach, the person in question may as well just stay home and go to their favourite restaurant instead.

quote:

Originally posted by Slip:
WriterJosh,

With complete respect for you interpretation, I feel the author reveals a sense of the honest. People traveling abroad do not know all things about all subjects and thus rely to a certain extent on what they read, hear, or assume. To do so is normal and not harmful in anyway. The key is if they let those assumptions or prejudices influence what they are willing to try, and what a person does when they encounter something that conflicts with their assumptions or social mores.

Here Solbeam shows that she grows beyond not only her trepidation about yak tea, but also about the role of personal space in her own society. She drank the tea while enjoying an enriching social exchange.

Lastly, I encourage you to read more from Solbeam and her blog. She has been around quite a bit and it seems to me that she would be the last one who would just stay home and go to their favorite restaurant. Her experience abroad eclipses many people on these boards, so read a little deeper before making off the cuff remarks.



Dustyshoes, can you elaborate more about what you mean by “human warmth”.

I think to suggest that I'm being off the cuff is a little, well, off the cuff. I wasn't critiquing the total work of this writer, merely something I found in one article that I didn't agree with. Trying to diminish my opinion because I don't agree with the writer or yourself is silly. Best to attack the point, not the point-maker.

As for the point, you may feel that prejudices and letting other people tell you what to like and what not to like is perfectly acceptable but that doesn't work for me. And for the record, the relative level of one's travel experience really isn't a measuring stick I care for. One's approach, and as you said, their reactions, can stand on their own whether the person in question lives on the road or has never left their hometown.

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