Where in the World is Garry?

Postcard from the Edge

I’m not a sex tourist

I sit having lunch at my post workout bar. Drawn to it not for its ambience and view but because it sells REALLY good coffee and does an egg white omelet. (Another pathetic example of my craving routine). There is a shaded terrace which looks onto the main road through town. Across the street are the cookie cutter local stores. Not the big chains but the independents who in their narrow store front sell either suitcases, CD’s, sandals, carved wooden kitsch (if you’ve always wanted a carved Harley Davidson, you’ve come to the right place), and of course T-shirts but never, ever, more than one of the aforementioned product lines co-exist. As if to punctuate the lack of product placement I am bombarded by the music from two CD vendors who are separated only by the T-shirt and purveyor of carved wooden gifts (about 20 feet). This cacophony in combination with the drone of the scooters which whiz by highlights my state of confusion. I see a white man walking arm in arm with a Thai woman and immediately I think sex tourist and prostitute. My programmed preconceived notions, my mental reflex if you will, brands these two strangers. Fortunately I am at least aware that this conclusion is possibly unfounded for these particular individuals. It is not knowledge based on fact or experience - I do not know these people. I have not questioned them. I am being prejudiced.

Unfortunately there are many examples in this world where people cannot differentiate between preconceived unfounded prejudice and one that has been validated upon fact or personal experience. What is even more frightening is the fact that as technology enables an even more paper less society, where paperless equals people less, we are gradually losing our social skills. I can buy gas, do my banking, shop for food and consumer durables and ‘meet’ people all without meeting people thanks to technology. If this is the case then when do I get the chance to interact with ‘real’ people from other demographic groups. Thus for many people their knowledge base for who people really are is based on what they see on TV, not what they glean from actual experience. Growing up in the UK I was exposed to a myriad of Amercian TV shows – mainly about cops and robbers where African Americans were always portrayed in a particular light, shall we say a light which was never really favourable. In England I was fortunate enough to grow up in ethnically diverse surroundings predominantly with people from East Asia. No African Americans. When I got to the states these images from TV stayed with me as I encountered people of colour. I remember early on in my stay walking back home through the Tenderloin at 3 in the morning. Nothing happened. I have since spent some time in the Tenderloin (woof) and nothing has happened and I have not seen anything happen. However, all these times I was a little uneasy. Why? Because of what I had seen on TV and not what was based on personal experience. Now this initial feeling of uneasiness was beyond my control but how I chose to act based on this feeling is well within my control.

“You cannot be responsible for your feelings, only your actions”.

In the same way that a baby learns that the fleshy object that flashes in front of his eyes are his hands, and that this hand can be made to move the way he wants it to, until eventually they can grasp things effortlessly; we have programmed responses to different external stimuli. This helps us function in the world at a reasonable pace, to make every day decisions with ease. In days of yore it could have been a matter of life and death not to have to think about running from the saber tooth tiger or asking “Look at that big pussy cat – I wonder if it will be friends with me?”

One of the founding principles of Bhudism is to be non judgemental. When I first read this I thought for a long time on what this could mean. The conclusion I have drawn thus far is that it really speaks to the point I am trying to make about prejudice. That sometimes we cannot help our prejudices but if we can recognise those which are not valid and need to be re-evaluated then perhaps there is hope for us and the world in which we live.

Unfortunately some of the programmed responses can get the better of us. I have a good friend here who met a woman in a bar, she worked for thai company, they are married now and have a baby. I would have thought the same about them if I had seen them walking in the street and didn’t know who they were. Mind you though, he is not a flabby fifty year old with a skin head and she doesn’t wear hot pants and high heels. There I go again – stereotypes. I happen to have a very nice skin head friend who wears heels, hot pants and a halter top, has a little paunch and a pooch to go with it, answers to the name of Mi, Mi. Not him, the dog, his name is Dennis but insists on being called Denise... but I digresss.

Back to the couple sat at the table next to me. In this particular case I think my first impressions were right. This holiday resort being what it is it is not unlikely that this is the case. This is where I think it is important to draw the fine line between being prejudiced and identifying with stereotypes. Although they could be in a real relationship (they sat at the table for an hour not saying a word to each other, him with his nose in the paper and her, well, looking at her nails), they just looked too different. Unconnected. As if separated by an ocean of incomprehension, the irony to be so close physically to being from different worlds spiritually.

Social Programming

In my early days I would dismiss out of hand the concept of brainwashing and conditioning. The former because I think it is so melodramtic - it implies to some futuristic procedure which has yet to be invented. However, now I am not so sure. Breaking it down like this it makes sense. If mass media shows us brainwashing to be some other thing that happens in other cultures by some other method then of course we are not going to suspect the more subtle method to which we are subjected on a daily basis. The more an image is allowed to wash over my brain the more I am going to accept it as the truth. And these images can be nothing more sinister than my favourite TV show.

September 11th has caused many to pause for thought. Myself included. The question that plagued me the most is the one of what if I was wrong? I mean, I could see straight away that America was not completely blamesless for what happened (assuming one believes that there was a character called Osama Bin Laden who wanted to draw attention to American Imperial foreign policy and the decadent lifestyle of capitalist Americans), however, I had never really questioned whether the way the West on a whole lives is the right way. I always assumed because it is the only life I have ever know that it must be the right way to live. A prejudice in favour of a particular lifestyle. But the arab world has the opposite prejudice.

Who is right?

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