Destination: India
Interview with Henry Rollins: Punk Rock World Traveler
by Jim Benning | 11.02.11 | 12:40 PM ET
Jim Benning asks the musician about his new book of photographs and how travel has humbled him
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Yahoo! BuzzMother Jones Goes to ‘Culture Training’ at an Indian Call Center
by Eva Holland | 07.15.11 | 10:02 AM ET
In the latest Mother Jones, Andrew Marantz has a fascinating story about his brief stint as a worker at a call center in India. Here’s Marantz on the mandatory “culture training” that workers undergo before they hit the switchboards:
Indian BPOs work with firms from dozens of countries, but most call-center jobs involve talking to Americans. New hires must be fluent in English, but many have never spoken to a foreigner. So to earn their headsets, they must complete classroom training lasting from one week to three months. First comes voice training, an attempt to “neutralize” pronunciation and diction by eliminating the round vowels of Indian English. Speaking Hindi on company premises is often a fireable offense.
Next is “culture training,” in which trainees memorize colloquialisms and state capitals, study clips of Seinfeld and photos of Walmarts, and eat in cafeterias serving paneer burgers and pizza topped with lamb pepperoni. Trainers aim to impart something they call “international culture”—which is, of course, no culture at all, but a garbled hybrid of Indian and Western signifiers designed to be recognizable to everyone and familiar to no one. The result is a comically botched translation—a multibillion dollar game of telephone. “The most marketable skill in India today,” the Guardian wrote in 2003, “is the ability to abandon your identity and slip into someone else’s.”
(Via Where Am I Wearing)
The Peace Corps Volunteer Inspired by Angelina Jolie
by Jim Benning | 01.19.11 | 2:01 PM ET
Sean Smith is leaving his job as a writer at Entertainment Weekly to join the Peace Corps. Why?
As he writes in The Daily Beast, he was tiring of his job covering the entertainment industry when he traveled to India to interview Angelina Jolie.
A reported 43 percent of Mumbai’s 18 million people live in slums, and the depth of poverty is soul-sickening. By the time I met with Jolie, I felt raw and rattled, and I was eager to learn how she coped with this kind of suffering in her role as a U.N. ambassador. She said it was painful, yes, but it wasn’t debilitating because she was active. Her work was bringing attention to crises in the world. “If I couldn’t do that, I don’t know how I’d be around it, because I’d feel helpless,” she told me as we drove through the city. “You know, we all go through stages in our life where we feel lost, and I think it all comes down to having a sense of purpose. When I was famous for just being an actress, my life felt very shallow. Then when I became a mom and started working with the U.N., I was happy. I could die and feel that I’d done the right things with my life. It’s as simple as that.”
As a rule, I don’t ask celebrities for advice about anything, save hotels and restaurants, and I didn’t exactly race home and quit my job. But Jolie’s insight stuck with me, and over the next few years, as my ambivalence about my career deepened, I realized that she had provided me with an answer. I had absolute freedom. If I was willing to make a few sacrifices, I could find my sense of purpose and engage myself in work that would feel meaningful to me and be helpful to others.
World Travel Watch: Hundreds Killed in Phnom Penh Stampede, Dutch ‘Coffee Shops’ Closing to Tourists
by Larry Habegger | 11.24.10 | 12:03 PM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
Photo You Must See: Prayers in the Yamuna
by World Hum | 11.08.10 | 1:36 PM ET
REUTERS/Jitendra Prakash Hindus pray in the Yamuna River in Allahabad, India, during the Bhai Dooj festival, which celebrates the bond between brothers and sisters
World Travel Watch: Penalties for Touts in Delhi, Tourist Tax in Lisbon and More
by Larry Habegger | 10.06.10 | 2:36 PM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
World Travel Watch: Commonwealth Games Concerns in India, Elections in Cuzco and More
by Larry Habegger | 09.22.10 | 12:46 PM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
World Travel Watch: Turmoil in Kashmir, Criminal Gangs in El Salvador and More
by Larry Habegger | 09.16.10 | 10:46 AM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
World Travel Watch: Mudslides in Guatemala, Bombing in Cancun and More
by Larry Habegger | 09.08.10 | 1:41 PM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
World Travel Watch: Flesh Fines in France, Medical Tourism Risks in South Asia and More
by Larry Habegger | 08.18.10 | 12:22 PM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
World Hum Travel Movie Club: ‘Eat, Pray, Love’
by Eva Holland, Eli Ellison | 08.16.10 | 8:49 AM ET
A big-screen incarnation of author Elizabeth Gilbert heads to Italy, India and Indonesia. Eva Holland and Eli Ellison go along for the ride.
World Travel Watch: New Trekking in Kashmir, Dengue in Venezuela and More
by Larry Habegger | 07.14.10 | 12:15 PM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
World Travel Watch: Violence in Guadalajara, Dengue Fever in Puerto Rico and More
by Larry Habegger | 07.07.10 | 11:48 AM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
World Travel Watch: Floods in China, Train to Machu Picchu Resumes and More
by Larry Habegger | 06.23.10 | 12:07 PM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
Naked, With a Passport
by Alison Stein Wellner | 06.10.10 | 11:57 AM ET
iStockPhoto Alison Stein Wellner considers her willingness to strip down overseas at appropriate moments as her "real traveler" badge of honor. But what's "appropriate"?
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