American Creature Comforts
A few months ago, I was speaking to a friend who had just returned from Argentina. He was singing the praises of Buenos Aires, and mentioned that he could see himself living there, or at least working there remotely for a few months. I expressed surprise, and told him that I had found Buenos Aires just a bit uncomfortable: a bit dirty and undeveloped. He argued for a moment, then said: “Chris, I thought you were born in China”. I told him I was but moved here at a young age. He nodded knowingly. “Ah, yes. You’re American now.”
I thought about this a lot in my subsequent travels. Discomfort didn’t make me averse to travelling: I believed that it was a small price to pay in comparison to what I stood to gain, as well as the price of everything else. This all came to a head during my most recent trip to Tanzania, which was the most expensive trip I’ve been on in recent memory, as well as the longest, and the most uncomfortable. The rooms were too dimly lit, things seemed a touch on the older side, I had a few insect bites, wet showers were not something I particularly liked, and I just never felt truly clean. Of course, you say, this is par for the course in Africa. But this is precisely where the dissonance laid: a safari was designed to be a luxury trip. Every accommodation we had stayed at had a pool, airport transfers were pre-arranged, the food was delicious, and we never had to touch our own bags. The staff had been trained to accept documents from Asians with two hands, sample pour wine, and make animals with our towels. I felt bad about my discomfort.
Then I realized that my friend was right. It was because I had grown up in North America. Not only was Canada a developed country, but I was also used to a what was perhaps a Puritan focus on cleanliness, and any deviation felt unacceptable. Everything is new in the New World. Most of North America isn’t humid. Metropolitan North America is especially developed and far away from any sort of offending nature. I was a spoiled princess.
There is very little that is old in North America. Infrastructure and city planning are not built around ruins as they are in Greece, or roads that make little sense, like in Paris. Every street in what is perhaps the greatest city in the world, is numbered. A fixation on development, a believe that glory lies in the future, separates North America from their European counterparts, even in the developed world. Old is torn down and rebuilt. Thus, we have seas of skyscrapers, cities filled with soulless glass monoliths. But that means the homes where we live, the offices where we work, and the other institutions we visit are sanitized. Everything is starkly lit, and most surfaces appear clean enough to eat off. With perhaps the exception of East Asia, everywhere else in the world would feel old by comparison.
Climate also makes a big difference: it’s possible to feel a different sort of cleanliness in the cool and arid environment than anywhere else. Nothing sticks, nothing smells. Mold is slow to grow, food remains unspoiled for longer, and crisps stay crunchy. Rain, though unwelcomed by some, doesn’t linger. Dust and dirt can be vacuumed and swept instead of needing to be wiped with a wet cloth. The most populous countries in the world are often located in places where there aren’t punishing winters. The trade-off of course, are the brutal humid summers, which can be a breeding ground for insects and other pests.
The distinction between urban and rural is also very pronounced in North America. Just as there are fewer bugs owing to the climate, and the cities are all of new materials, nature is less disruptive. Sure, there are rats and cockroaches as well as are park areas and streets are lined with trees, but no dirt roads or wet markets. Seasonal allergies don’t really flare up in North American cities because of how far removed they are from the land they’re built on. Even in Asian techno mega-cities, there are still farmer markets and flea markets; not overpriced for hipsters, but for price-sensitive and traditional locals. Good urban planning means a lack of real suburbs, but a dearth of nearby farms, not operated by machines and corporations, but by individual farmers.
Of course, all this isn’t to sing the praises of North American cities. Despite the standards that individual establishments can be held up to, and all the advantages that they have, they still manage to have distinctive and remarkably numerous issues, generally stemming from the hyper-capitalistic models upon which they are built. The streets, despite being new and free from organic debris, are dirty. They are filled with unhoused people, and the extent to which this is tolerated is also exceptional. Finally, the public transportation, even in cities with millions of people, is absolutely abysmal: North America is built for cars.
Still, having grown up in suburbia, North America has absolutely spoiled me. I’m used to a level of cleanliness that is often unrealistic, even in medium-to-higher-end establishments abroad. Even in many parts of Europe, the hotels feel just a little bit off: the lights too dim, the water pressure in the shower not strong enough, and a weird dampness about my skin, even with the air conditioning on. I’ve not let street harassment, the sleaziness of certain cities, and the attitude of certain people bother me too much while travelling, but I guess I really place a high value on having pristine accommodations at the end of the day.
None of this prevents me from travelling: discomfort was a small trade-off to everything that I stood to see and experience abroad. But I can imagine how for other people it would represent a bigger barrier, especially if they started travelling later in life, and have never been acclimatized to getting off a ten-hour flight only to arrive at an airport without air conditioning, being yelled at by taxi drivers in the pickup area, to end up in a manual transmission car without seatbelts, only to arrive at a hotel that felt just a tiny bit dirty. Perhaps this is another reason Americans get mocked for not travelling enough: their standards are just too high, and if they stay anywhere but a large Western hotel chain, they are often not met.
