A whiter shade of fake

Back in Kota Kinabalu for a few days, I find myself confronted more - though only a little bit more - with western tourism. In Tawau, you can imagine that you aren't actually a tourist, and in a sense I'm not a tourist when I go there, being there more to visit friends and volunteer at the school. Now, in KK, it's different. I'm here on holiday, and for much of my first two days here I did not see anyone I knew and was left to my own devices, wandering around with my back-pack on my pack and the streams of sweat pouring from my pasty-white brow showing that I was very much "not from around here".

There are other westerners in KK - not many, but more than you'll find in Tawau. Granted, that isn't saying much. But if you go to certain key tourist spots - Jesselton Point, for instance, or the overly expensive bars on the waterfront - you'll see them. They probably won't want to look you in the eye, because they will want to pretend that they are the only white people there (see this post on Stuff White People Like for an authoritative confirmation of this theory). Most of us are quite good at deluding ourselves about how others see us; when white, travelling in a sea of non-white faces, we can imagine that we blend in; that, because we can use chopsticks and feel authentic because of how much we are sweating, we must surely look like locals by now. Only, there's one problem - the whiteness of our faces. Seeing other white people exposes this for us; it shows us what everyone around us can already see: that we are white, not Asian.

Of course, I can think cynically about these things, and I have lived here, so from time to time I can fancy that I am somehow superior, that while they are tourists, I am somehow something higher. The only problem here? Almost everyone thinks that. If you're white, you are either determined not to be a tourist (while still going on frequent overseas holidays) or you are completely comfortable being a tourist because you didn't even realise there was an alternative. I find the latter group offensive because they draw attention to themselves and blunder ignorantly into situations they do not understand. I find the former group offensive because they show me up for what I am.

Is there another option? A third way, perhaps?

I think that, so long as we are looking solely at ourselves, trying to modify our own actions, trying to ensure that we are different, that our actions make us purer and higher than those around us, then we will fail. We will remain wannabes who redeem themselves by their own tolerance and by how much chilli they can eat. If instead we do everything with the love of God in our hearts, seeking to honour Him and to love His people, then I think a better way will open itself up without our even noticing - a way that is better than all the rest, because it is inspired by and rooted in love.