[Brendinooo]

I'm not sure if I like this piece but it's interesting. I just come away with the sense that the author feels something is off and did the best he could to articulate it but didn't quite put the finger on why things are off.

I'm not sure I can do so either. Something about cultural and monetary pressure, how people respond to incentives for better or for worse. People crave the new and different and authentic, they find it, then too many people find it. Some kind of Goodhart's Law for tourism: once a place is deemed an authentic experience it ceases to be an authentic experience.

I was just on my phone in an Italian gelato shop in Belgrade not too long ago, looking up what "stracciatella" means in the context of gelato so I didn't sound like an idiot or struggle to communicate with the employee. It's not just a Pinterest fever dream for people? People do want to experience different cultures but of course there's really no way to do that without some kind of friction.

[petre]

You were in Belgrade looking up italian ice cream, so who cares? Just point your finger at it. You weren't reading menus in cyrillic trying to decipher the difference between regular and cheese filled pljeskavica while an overweight shabby guy was playing acordion to a couple at a neighbouring table and the waiter was trying to remember the English word for krastavitsa. Actual experiance in Skopje.

[Brendinooo]

Nah, turns out a lot of people in Belgrade speak English well enough, Claude translated Cyrillic, and, the last night I had dinner on the Danube in Zemun, a live band was playing American classic rock. Apple Pay or my Visa card worked in about 75% of the situations I found myself in; Apple Maps and international roaming meant I'd never get lost.

Plenty of places have smashburgers instead of pljeskavica now, and I had a couple of moments where I thought I had found some authentic cultural thing only to realize that young, progressive Belgradians have the same kind of regard towards historical stuff that plenty of young Americans tend to have as well.

All of that informed my reading of this article. The author laments the kind of changes that came to his land but we visitors don't necessarily want them either!

I think we're all wrestling with the downstream consequences of a shrinking world.

[petre]

> I think we're all wrestling with the downstream consequences of a shrinking world.

You should totally visit Skopje if you get the chance. Belgrade is a bit too cosmopolite. The bad is that they still allowed smoking in hotel rooms back before 2020 but otherwise I liked it a lot. Also I don't get the big statues and the anti Greek animosity. Should be anti Bulgarian by now.

[dfxm12]

I was just on my phone in an Italian gelato shop in Belgrade, looking up what "stracciatella" means in the context of gelato so I didn't sound like an idiot or struggle to communicate with the employee.

I understand the latter, but just as one datapoint, I would not think you sound like an idiot for asking "what exactly is this that you're selling?"

[Brendinooo]

I get that, but the opening paragraphs of the article go out of their way to point out that the Americans are in the way by asking 30 questions about gelato!

I think I just have a hangup in general about "acting like a tourist".

[kristjank]

I think there are two distinct type of "touristy" experience.

1. Culturally important experiences lean towards the prescriptive side. You enter, you are observing or being challenged in something, and it leaves an imprint on you. It is usually a bit discomforting in an exciting way that transforms a part of you in a infinitesimally small, but distinct and permanent way.

2. The unimportant experience is the conforming one, where zero friction is the preferred method of interaction, but it is universally loved in the way high-fructose corn syrup is; it's an economically sound decision to at least try and profit from it.

[actionfromafar]

Or "there's really no way to do that without some kind of fiction".