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Reading travelers: Find your historical context
"Can you share a travel secret?" asked an online travel site for women prepping its annual feature of tips from women writers worldwide.
"Read the women who went before us," I replied. "Or, read about them."
For this expat/archaeologist/writer/traveler, cultural wisdom pools at the intersection of women and travel. The romance and grit of historical travelogue connects me to the land -- and reminds me of travel's transformative force in the lives of women. Reputation-risking. Life-threatening. Culturally redeeming. Personally empowering. (My post about a related controversial history.)
Adventurous Women in Southeast Asia (Oxford-in-Asia), a selection of traveler sketches by historian John Gullick, gave my own struggling expatriate experience new meaning when I was sweating it out for 5 years in the Malaysian jungle. Playing an attitudinal extra aristocrat on the 1860s filmset of "Anna and The King" with Jodie Foster and Chow Yun Fat in 1999 (next to a pig farm during a swine flu outbreak, but that's another post!), I appreciated learning about the dark side of the iconic governess to the Siamese court. Foster may have played Anna Leonowens prim, proper and principled but actually the lady was a scrappy mixed-blood mistress of reinvention. There was hope for me!
If you plan a trip to Turkey maybe Cultures in Dialogue holds similar promise for you. The print-on-demand series resurrects antique writings by American and British women about their travels in Turkey (1880s to 1940s), along with surprisingly political writing by women of the Ottoman empire. Contempo analysis by spunky scholars Reina Lewis and Teresa Heffernan refreshes the context of a region in transition.
Next post, more titles which add new dimension to travel. Any favorite antique travel reads? What draws you to by-gone reports?
"Read the women who went before us," I replied. "Or, read about them."
For this expat/archaeologist/writer/traveler, cultural wisdom pools at the intersection of women and travel. The romance and grit of historical travelogue connects me to the land -- and reminds me of travel's transformative force in the lives of women. Reputation-risking. Life-threatening. Culturally redeeming. Personally empowering. (My post about a related controversial history.)
Adventurous Women in Southeast Asia (Oxford-in-Asia), a selection of traveler sketches by historian John Gullick, gave my own struggling expatriate experience new meaning when I was sweating it out for 5 years in the Malaysian jungle. Playing an attitudinal extra aristocrat on the 1860s filmset of "Anna and The King" with Jodie Foster and Chow Yun Fat in 1999 (next to a pig farm during a swine flu outbreak, but that's another post!), I appreciated learning about the dark side of the iconic governess to the Siamese court. Foster may have played Anna Leonowens prim, proper and principled but actually the lady was a scrappy mixed-blood mistress of reinvention. There was hope for me!
If you plan a trip to Turkey maybe Cultures in Dialogue holds similar promise for you. The print-on-demand series resurrects antique writings by American and British women about their travels in Turkey (1880s to 1940s), along with surprisingly political writing by women of the Ottoman empire. Contempo analysis by spunky scholars Reina Lewis and Teresa Heffernan refreshes the context of a region in transition.
Next post, more titles which add new dimension to travel. Any favorite antique travel reads? What draws you to by-gone reports?
Comment
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Comment by Anastasia Ashman on July 28, 2009 at 11:37am -
Not sure whose experience this might put into perspective: review of new book about ultra bad-girl expat in 1920s Colonial Africa -- Idina Sackville -- by her greatgranddaughter http://tr.im/urKG
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Comment by Anastasia Ashman on July 16, 2009 at 12:39pm
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Hi Laurie, thanks for the suggestion. Have heard of it, but not yet read it.
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Comment by Laurie Lico Albanese on July 16, 2009 at 6:48am -
Not an antique but women traveling alone may want to check out Mary Morris's NOTHING TO DECLARE: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone. Read it in my late 20s and was blown away.
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Comment by Anastasia Ashman on July 14, 2009 at 8:25am
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thanks for the leads Susan...I thought camels could walk 30km in a day -- the distance between two caravanserai -- slackers!
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Comment by Susan Barrett Price on July 14, 2009 at 7:30am -
Ella Maillart! She wrote "Forbidden Journey" about traveling through Chinese Turkestan (now Xinjiang) back in the 1930s. Peter Fleming was along and wrote his "Travels In Tartary" based on the same adventure. It's been so long since I read these, they are a blur. I just remember the excitement and inspiration (and the fact that their camels only walked 4 miles a day) as I prepared for my own trip into Xinjiang (even though my trip was from the opposite direction [Pakistan] and fortunately camels were only a photo op). Thanks for reminding me of these!
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