Tourism and Identity

Edinburgh
I had eaten haggis the night before, a minute's walk from the train station, and took a photo to prove it, to remember what it had looked like. The next day, walking through the bustling streets of Edinburgh, I desired to escape the American teenagers on vacation and masses of heteronormative white families with 2.5 children in tow. I wanted to hear the different sounds of native Scots, the daily grind of familiar faces at bus stops, and the whining children that exist anywhere in the world. In Edinburgh, the single mothers shopping, tired fathers taking kids off to school, and the people just enjoying a lunch break outside had all been seemingly swept away by a simulacrum of loud Americans looking for the nearest tour bus stop. And there I was, living in that simulated environment, after visiting the Scottish National Archives to learn more about the construction and communication of the Firth of Forth bridges; after discussing the transition from preserving original documents to creating digital copies. There was a strange contrast between the day before, spent learning about the construction of the Forth Replacement Crossing by looking at models as well as the cable-stayed bridge under construction, and the recognition that Edinburgh was a different type of construction as a tourist destination. Perhaps it was the lack of scaffolding at the tourist sites that made it different, something Amelia discusses in one of her posts this week.

Perhaps this strange desire for separation was also a shift in my desire to document, which may have been influenced by my lack of camera as much as my attitude toward the place. The tangible proof of my journey lies not in pictures, but in the whisky and rum from Cadenhead--the drinks themselves unique only because their origins are untraceable beyond geographic regions. But my motivations for buying the spirits weren't to prove that I existed on Scottish soil; I bought them because I wanted to try them, affordably. But such motivations are often invisible, indistinguishable from the gawking tourist who simply wants to take it all in and try new views and experiences to say, "I went to Edinburgh! I was there!" Yet I didn't want to have the same Edinburgh pictures as the 500 other people staring at the same thing, despite my recognition of the absurdity of trying to distinguish myself from the generations of locals, travelers, visitors, and tourists that have come before me and who looked at the same things. Perhaps it was as simple as wanting to walk into a store without being instantly labeled as a tourist; not wanting to defend my identity as an American non-tourist-student-researcher-3-week-resident; not wanting to deal with the assumption that I had only arrived that morning (because why else would I visit Edinburgh, I guess?), or that I was only there to tour the castle and overlook the rest as too real. I didn't want to be labeled as just an-Other tourist, someone to be easily dismissed as temporarily existing, with limited value, and not to be taken seriously. I just wanted to exist and enjoy the experience without being judged, says the American white guy in Scotland doing research towards his PhD and buying alcohol for the experience.