Destination: Asia
‘Paris Syndrome’: The New York City Strain?
by Michael Yessis | 01.23.07 | 1:00 PM ET
The New York Post had some fun with a recent story about Japanese tourists in France who succumb to Paris Syndrome. The paper titled its piece Paris Leaves Japanese French Fried. Now the New Yorker’s Lauren Collins is on the case, wondering if there’s a New York City version of the syndrome that leaves travelers to the City of Light overwhelmed and in need of psychological treatment. An officer at the Japanese Consulate “does not believe in the existence of Paris syndrome, or, for that matter, a New York strain,” Collins writes, but she does report that Japanese visitors to the Big Apple do have certain traits.
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Yahoo! BuzzHonoring ‘Babel’
by Jim Benning | 01.16.07 | 9:41 PM ET
I’ve done a bit of complaining about some travel-related films recently, but I have no qualms with Babel. In fact, I was happy to see it win the Golden Globe for best dramatic movie last night. While it doesn’t depict world travel in the most favorable light—among other calamities in the film, Cate Blanchett’s character is shot during a trip to Morocco—it does movingly show how interconnected the world is becoming, and how that doesn’t necessarily make communication across borders (or even within families) any easier. Filmed in rural Morocco, Tokyo and Tijuana, it’s the kind of movie that somehow simultaneously shrinks the world and expands it. It’s ambitious, with a global perspective, and how many movies can you say that about?
Bangkok, Thailand
by Ben Keene | 01.12.07 | 6:44 AM ET
Coordinates: 13 45 N 100 31 E
Population: 6,604,000 (2005 est.)
Maps always have distortions and abbreviations: It simply isn’t possible to fit every place name and natural feature on a single page or sheet of paper. Of course, this may seem obvious to anyone who’s ever squinted at an atlas in search of his or her hometown. Arguably the best example of this is the city westerners call Bangkok. Called Krung Thep by the people of Thailand, the full name of the capital founded on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in 1782 is a whopping 43 syllables. Roughly translated, it means “great city of angels, the supreme repository of divine jewels, the great land unconquerable, the grand and prominent realm, the royal and delightful capital city full of nine noble gems, the highest royal dwelling and grand palace, the divine shelter and living place of the reincarnated spirits.” It would challenge a Thai T-shirt designer as much as any cartographer.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
Peru: It’s No Nepal
by Michael Yessis | 01.12.07 | 6:16 AM ET
Royal Nepal Airlines apologized to Peru for promoting Nepalese tourism using an image of Machu Picchu, perhaps the most iconic attraction in all of South America. How does such a blunder occur? M.B. Khadka of the airline said the mix up was caused by the printing agency in charge of making the airline’s advertising posters, according to news reports.
R.I.P. Momofuku Ando, Inventor of Instant Ramen Noodles
by Jim Benning | 01.09.07 | 1:31 PM ET
Oh instant ramen, how we love thee. You feed 100 million people a day, by some estimates. You have served as a worthy and affordable introduction to Japanese food for countless people around the globe. In much of Asia, you are standard dining fare on trains. And now, we learn you were invented by Momofuku Ando in 1958. Sadly, we learn, too, of Ando’s death at the age of 96 near Osaka, Japan. But we agree with everything Lawrence Downes writes in an eloquent tribute in today’s New York Times: “Ramen noodles have earned Mr. Ando an eternal place in the pantheon of human progress. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Give him ramen noodles, and you don’t have to teach him anything.” Too true.
Related on World Hum:
* Chinese Noodles Predate Marco Polo
Photo: jayceho, via Flickr. (Creative Commons License.)
New Rallying Cry in Boston: The Japanese Are Coming!
by Michael Yessis | 01.04.07 | 8:18 AM ET
Los Angeles leveraged former Dodgers’ pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii‘s popularity to help lure Japanese tourists to town. Seattle and New York rely on the Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki and the Yankees’ Hideki Matsui respectively for the same thing. And now Boston is looking to cash in on the latest Japanese baseball superstar to come play in the U.S., Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka. William MacDougall, CEO of Tourism Massachusetts, “expects Massachusetts this year will win at least 20,000 extra visitors from Japan, worth an additional $75 million in economic impact,” according to a USA Today story by Barbara De Lollis. “The new Japan connection could even help the city win non-stop air service between Boston and Japan.” After his performance in last year’s World Baseball Classic, we knew Matsuzaka was good. We just didn’t know he was winning non-stop international air service good. Impressive.
Driving Afghanistan’s Ring Road
by Jim Benning | 01.03.07 | 5:12 PM ET
Further evidence that some of the most compelling newspaper travel stories don’t appear in the travel section: Paul Watson’s front page account in the Los Angeles Times last week of his seven-day drive along Afghanistan’s Ring Road. “On the way,” he writes, “we managed to avoid a Taliban ambush, a potential kidnapper or highway robber, a suicide bomber and a gunman who fired close enough to take off one of our heads.”
National Geographic Adventure’s Top 2007 Destinations
by Jim Benning | 01.03.07 | 1:54 PM ET
Where to go this year? The world is wide open, but some countries seem particularly good choices now. For the December 2006/January 2007 issue of National Geographic Adventure, I worked with editors on a list of six countries offering compelling reasons to visit soon. Among them: China (now’s a great time to check out the new train to Lhasa); Morocco (for a major splurge before a visit to the High Atlas Mountains, spend a night at the historic, Winston Churchill-approved La Mamounia hotel in Marrakech, due to reopen this year after a renovation); and Brazil (TAM airlines is now flying nonstop between Miami and Manaus, making a visit to the Amazon easier than ever). To further stoke some wanderlust and inspire, the magazine celebrates the feats of a number of travelers, including the “new Magellans,” Colin Angus and Julie Wafael, who recently circumnavigated the globe by walking, cycling, skiing and, yes, rowing.
New Travel Warnings for Thailand
by Jim Benning | 01.02.07 | 3:03 PM ET
A slew of countries have issued travel advisories for Thailand after bombs exploded in Bangkok New Year’s Eve, killing three people and injuring dozens of others, including tourists. World Hum contributor Newley Purnell is in Bangkok and has been writing about the bombings on his blog. “The mood is calm in Bangkok today,” he reported yesterday.
Photo by Jim Benning.
2006: The Year of Mapping Dangerously
by Ben Keene | 12.21.06 | 1:00 PM ET
‘Tis the season to look back on the year that has passed and make lists, and those of us in the maps business are no less backward looking than others. Borders shift, populations grow or shrink, and place names are altered. The pace of change can be mind-numbing. So I thought I’d compile my own short—and consequently incomplete—list of some of the most noteworthy geographical developments of the last 12 months.
Nation Branding: What the World Can Learn From Spain, India and New Zealand
by Michael Yessis | 12.21.06 | 7:30 AM ET
They’re “universally acknowledged to be the crown jewels in the recent annals of nation branding,” writes John Cook in the January 2007 issue of Travel + Leisure, the latest publication to address one of our favorite topics: how countries present themselves in an effort to lure travelers. Cook recounts success stories—Spain’s transformation from a “sleepy low-rent vacation spot for the British and German working classes to a hip, cutting-edge cultural destination” and New Zealand’s capitalization on its starring role in the Lord of the Rings trilogy—but, more interestingly, also examines countries with branding problems. Among them: Serbia, Ecuador and Kazakhstan.
Study: Almost One in 10 British Citizens Is Living Overseas
by Jim Benning | 12.14.06 | 2:12 PM ET
Britons love the expat life. A whopping 5.5 million of them are living abroad, according to a new study, and many of them are young workers without families. The BBC has a compelling package of stories about the phenomenon. Among the highlights from the main story:
‘All Things Considered’ on the Future of Shanghai
by Michael Yessis | 12.14.06 | 8:18 AM ET
It’s a fast-growing megacity in a country on the rise, and as we’ve posted here and here and here, people around the world are wondering about the future of Shanghai, China, and what its impact will be on the rest of the world. This week National Public Radio’s ‘All Things Considers’ adds to the mix with a series on how Shanghai is handling its urban development. Almost 18 million people currently live in Shanghai. By 2020, that number is projected to rise to 25 million. Photo: Montrasio Media’s Flickr stream.
John Flinn on ‘the Coolest Six-Buck Souvenir I Ever Got’
by Jim Benning | 12.13.06 | 2:25 PM ET
San Francisco Chronicle travel editor John Flinn gets around. Not only was he recently on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, but not long ago he was in Nepal and was robbed by a Maoist rebel—sort of. As Flinn recounts in Sunday’s paper, he was on a bus from the Tibetan border to Kathmandu when the weaponless Maoist boarded and demanded cash. Flinn knew that rebels had been funding their insurgency by robbing visitors, and at the urging of his English-speaking guide, he turned over 400 rupees—less than $7. But it gets better.
Fifty Works of Art Worth Traveling the World to See
by Michael Yessis | 12.07.06 | 8:29 AM ET
Guardian art and architecture blogger Jonathan Jones asked his readers what 50 works of art are worth traveling a world to see? Or, to put it another way, “What works of art would you want to show a visitor from the Crab Nebula to prove humanity should be spared the interstellar death ray?” He’s posted the list 50 in no particular order. It includes Stonehenge, Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, Picasso’s “Guernica” and the Terracotta Army of the First Qin Emperor in China.