>>1040244>>1040260You know, I actually kind of agree with this post.
I lived in New Delhi for a while, working in tourism and occasionally doing articles for a national magazine. I didn't have a whole lot of money in the bank, and I wasn't earning a lot, either. I don't think my financial situation has been that desperate since I was an unemployed high school student.
But the thing is, no matter what kind of perspective I think I got, I'll never pretend that I "understand" what it's like to be a poor Indian. No matter what kinds of friends I made or what cheap food I was eating, I had an American passport. I always knew that, if I got into an emergency, my family or the embassy could help me out. While I was genuinely poor at the time, I had lifetime access to a first-world country full of resources and more opportunity than an impoverished South Asian can likely imagine.
And I honestly think this is a very important point to remember. When we're in impoverished countries, even on a very tight budget, we still have a passport from a European country or the United States or Canada or Australia or wherever. Even if we're hardly middle-class back home, bear in mind that a black guy in the ghetto on welfare can afford more luxury in some ways than a middle-class person wherever we may be.
Traveling can definitely change a person's perspective and point of view, but I definitely agree that it's very snobbish to think that, by being on a budget or staying exclusively with locals, you are being granted full and unprivileged access into a new world.
You are definitely learning, but you don't know what it's like to be them.
I lived in India for close to two years and I don't know what it's like to be trapped there and unable to even get a passport. I always knew that if I was fucked, I could probably just get a loan for a ticket from my bank. They don't have that opportunity.
>>1040264I agree with what he's saying, too.
