Comments on: Friendly Villagers Get News from Foreign Lands: Tourism in Brazil

By: Christiano

Christiano — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:16:28 +0000

I’m brazilian, but living in São Paulo (the largest city in Brazil and the world’s 7th largest metropolitan area. by Wikipedia), and i completely agree with you.

The same thing happens in Rio de Janeiro(2016 Olympic City). Where a company make some agreements($$$) with the drug dealers that own the favelas (slums) to let them get in the favelas with some tourists to take a ride in the slums. So they can see what a really poor and afraid community looks like.

Some people say that they like to go to the favelas because you can’t feed the animals in the zoo. But that is just us laughing at our own disgrace.

Sorry for the por english….

By: Kim

Kim — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:35:54 +0000

I enjoyed this article, but have read many that are similar, as a person who is always having these types of conflicts while I am working/traveling abroad, I’ve been frustrated by the invasive influence of cultural tourism, ethnic tourism, voluntourism, etc. you ask about whether the discussion of the ethical issues will arise, but what are those issues? who will discuss them? how can we proceed with this conversation, now that we realize there is something “wrong” with this…what do we do? what can i do?

after all this thought I often just find myself going back into the car, or going back onto the boat, away from these places back to our normal lives…

By: md

md — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 01:42:16 +0000

Yes, I thought that line was pretty condescending too.

By: Bagelsan

Bagelsan — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:04:23 +0000

They seem to understand

And that shit is word for word how I’d talk about swimming with dolphins or training a dog or playing with a pet rat. Sure, it’s not human so there’s no way to know what it *really* thinks but it does come to me when I offer food and US dollars!

By: Bagelsan

Bagelsan — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:01:54 +0000

Creepy. When I read this bit: “One particular girl attracted the crowds with her beautiful, magnetic eyes” my first thought was “hey, in a few years you could totally come back and have sex with her! ‘Cause she’s a tourist attraction, not a kid!”

By: gwen

gwen — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:56:32 +0000

The other question is if they’re “aboriginal” at all, or have simply adopted some things associated with natives of the Amazon and assume that as long as they’re sort of dark skinned, most tourists won’t question the authenticity.

By: gwen

gwen — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:55:30 +0000

Oh, thanks!

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:15:36 +0000

And yet Manaus itself is a fairly significant city. Not without its poverty, or contrasting rich areas. But not all the adjacent communities are either poor, or aboriginal. And the river is quite busy with commercial traffic of all kinds.

When I was there (business) I didn’t see as much of the surrounding jungle as I would have liked. But we got out onto the river several times, and saw plenty of communities that were no poorer than I’ve seen on the Mississippi, or in parts of Mexico.

It’s as if they sought out some poor abos for the especially rich tourists to see…

By: Tintin LaChance

Tintin LaChance — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:58:06 +0000

I think you’ve got a dropped sentence at “And it was very clear that”.