Sunday, May 13, 2012

International Travel: The Generics, Part IV


Dress Code: What Not to Wear to Not Lose Your Wallet


            The Chameleon Operation

           
            When you go on a vacation or a walking trip, your first instinct is to pack comfortable clothing that you wear on vacation or walking—like jeans, tennis shoes, and t-shirts or tanks.  And most of the time, there’s nothing wrong with this packing strategy.
            What I learned from various websites, other travelers and common sense, however, is that if you look like a tourist you’ll get treated like a tourist. Everywhere you go, there will be people trying to sell you things, trying to take advantage of your lack of “inside knowledge.” I even heard somewhere that pickpockets target people in tennis shoes and jeans, because they know they’re most likely to be out of towners carrying lots of cash for souvenirs.
            Also, when travelling to foreign places you’ll encounter rules for entering and enjoying some of the most famous attractions around the globe: Cathedrals and churches. Most places of worship have rules about attire, especially for women: No bare shoulders, and in some cases nothing that shows the knees. I’ve been some places, like mosks, that hand out scarves for women to cover their heads and where all females were encouraged to wear either dress pants or skirts below the knee. If all you have in your bag is shorts and tank tops, you’ll be out of luck.
            When I went to Europe in 2010 we decided to make every effort we could to look as anti-tourist as possible. We were three women, early twenties, all on our own across an ocean. We didn’t want any trouble, and it was easier to just pack shirts that covered our shoulders and a mixture of shirts and capris rather than play around with a wardrobe change every time we wanted to enter a church or museum.
            It also pays off to wear clothing a little nicer than t-shirts and jeans if you want to be able to blend in with all walks of life. There were times we would ask an upscale-hotel concierge for directions—something I felt no problem doing, but a little guilty about since we weren’t staying at he hotel.  In that case, looking more put together than some random person off the street helped my confidence and made going into such a place feel more natural.
            Other times it paid off were when we were walking around in a crowd. Out of all the tourists, we didn’t scream “STEAL FROM ME, I’M FOREIGN” quite as much as the others. Like that man says to his friend in the woods while being chased by a bear: “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun YOU.” You may feel a kinship with your fellow tourists, but don’t let some mythical bond of travel-hood make you take a trip to the police or your embassy to report a stolen passport just because you didn’t want to look better than all the other tourists.
            Another, purely aesthetic reason for dressing better than the average tourist is that when you bumble along and ask locals for directions they look more kindly on a bunch of clean-cut, nicely dressed young women than scruffy jeans-wearing, tube-topped young women. In Barcelona, we had people in the more residential tourist districts actually offer their help when we looked lost. These offers came mostly from older people sitting around and people watching. One older man with white hair gave directions to my friend Alison, who spoke a little Spanish, and then told her she had beautiful eyes and to be careful before smiling and walking away.
           
            Now, I’m not saying you have to go and buy a whole new upscale wardrobe just to go abroad, but your nicer yet casual wear will go over much better than your most basic “roll-out-of-bed-put-on-t-shirt-for-class” look. What you DO want to invest in before you leave, or maybe after you arrive at your destination, is a scarf of some kind. Most churches will take SOME shoulder coverage over NO shoulder coverage, and if it is way too hot for short sleeves a scarf draped around the shoulders will do nicely, and can be tied around your waist or neck while not in use as a cover-up.

**Side Note**
            If you are travelling alone and a woman, never underestimate the power of a fake wedding ring, or any ring, on your left ring finger. It wards off unwanted attention, and gives the illusion that you’re probably not travelling alone. When pressed, you can use it as an excuse to leave; or you could say outright that your very tall, buff, manly-man husband who bench presses cows back home on the farm is waiting for your return. Either way, it may make your inner feminist cringe but some cultural cues are tradition in most of the western hemisphere; the marriage ring of “I’m TAKEN so LEAVE ME ALONE” being one of them.

            That about covers it for generalities. Unfortunately, all the tips I’ve just given you are “generalities” in that most westerners go to Europe for holiday, not Asia. Seeing as Japan is in Asia, my packing—while very similar to that of my European packing—doesn’t quite cut it. 

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