No grudges here either.

With the “Night Soil” point, I considered it to be a non-issue, you raised it, so I did some further research, including asking my friend, who is as close to an expert on the field as I know. She posted a reply, I thought it was a done deal. If she was incorrect, I was hoping to get further points from you, but since you did not, I assumed it was a done issue. Apparently it wasn’t for you, since you still hold a grudge.

I wonder, if you think that sites like this are all full of the same type of people, then why did someone like Matt (who also writes for this site) post the most intelligent and challenging argument against what I said? Also, I wonder which on-line community you think best defines you, because I would love to go and read that one.

People here do not all agree on everything. I first took a more active roll in this site after reading Ryan’s post on The Humanaught concerning his atheism, I generated a series of posts disagreeing with him on his central thesis, yet I respected him as an individual enough to not tell him to stop writing, because that would be, you know, rude.

Also, if you think that I am not writing with the facts, then I gladly welcome any comments, I do have the ability to moderate the comments here, but I have not deleted any of them that challenge my point. If I do feel challenged, I will do some extra research. I think that makes me less pompous than other people in this strange ex-pat on-line world that we inhabit.

As for being pompous – I may be, but you make a strong case for kettles and pots. I understand that self-importance is a component of any blog — whether in comments or posts — as to sit down and clack any opinion out takes a certain level of assumption that your opinion is important enough to do so.

And I’ve yet to see any restraint in this area on your part. You seem to have an (almost always negative) opinion on whatever the topic of the day is. In fact, you go so far to end your last comment with “write something with the facts or don’t write at all.” What the fuck? Pompous doesn’t cover it. You seem to think we’re all hear to entertain or educate you in some way.

As for why you would want to write for this site – you seem to love to. Should I go to the effort of counting the number of comments you’ve left on a site you seem so at odds of being counted as a part of?

My offer stands. If you want to submit a post, send me your post. I wont promise to run it, but I will promise that if I do, I won’t edit it.

@ Glen – you just proved to be aware of what you blog about after the fact again. Either write something with the facts or don’t write at all.

@Matt: Well said.
@Glen: Well replied.

@Nedzer: Do you own a shirt with the number of years you’ve been in China? Anyone who’s lived here a while sees your point, but it really doesn’t stop you from coming off as a prick. That you’d bring up your argument about night soil as some proving point that Glen doesn’t know what he’s talking about seems a bit paradoxical. The comments in the OP and the few people I’ve asked since have all indicated it’s, as Glen said above, a non-issue.

Add to this that your comment attacking Glen is full of bark, but no bite, I’m not sure what you’re even disagreeing with.

As for the experience level of blog writers here at Lost Laowai – if you’d like to contribute more than flame-bait attacks, you’re more than welcome to.

For starters, thank you for reading and commenting on those two posts, it’s nice to have such an avid reader. Secondly, I hope you appreciate the hypocrisy and irony in you saying that I am be condescending in my post, while you then go on to ramble about how I am not qualified to comment on such things in such a negative way. I hope that the irony was intentional, if it was, well played.

I will never, ever claim that any post is not a reflection of my own beliefs, and biases, that is the very nature of a blog. A place to post an opinion, of course I try to back it up with facts, but I am not going to be so thorough as to footnote every single thing that I say, because quite frankly, I left that behind when I finished my degree in history (actually, as a double major in history and math).

I am well aware that as someone who has not been here for even a year my knowledge of China is limited. I make no attempt to hide how long I’ve been here, it is for everyone to see if you look at the top right of the screen. I fully expect any readers to take that into account when judging the opinion of my writing, I never claim for it to be gospel truth, merely my opinion on the topic, as every other blog post is. If you want things to be more academic and fact related then you should read The Economist or JStor articles more than blog posts.

And in relation to my other post, I am impressed at your ability to hold a grudge. I had heard stories of “Night Soil” but did very little research into them, and just followed simple travel precautions and never once got sick. This meant that in my opinion it was not an issue, as such I left it out of my original post, and instead focused on the obstacles that a vegetarian would face in order to avoid being given meat (which are numerous) and offer some advice on the basics. This of course, was by no means inclusive, and was meant to be an introduction (thus the name of the post). When comments began coming about it (started by you) I did a bit of research, and asked my friend Carrie (who is studying her masters in sanitation) and asked her if it was an issue, and she made the response on the topic, essentially calling it a non-issue.

I am well aware of implicit differences between Thailand and South Korea (i.e. I have been to Thailand’s great beaches), and to say that I don’t understand that basic fact is more than a touch insulting, and borderline childish. I do admit that I did not explain that enough, and if I were to re-write the article (I won’t edit it out my flaws, that’s not very responsible I think) I would have used Malaysia instead of South Korea. According to Wikipedia, Tourism makes 6% of Thailand’s GDP, which is the highest of any nation in Asia. This can not be healthy, or sustainable, especially with the frequency of political unrest in recent years.

When posting a blog, the writer (i.e. me) needs to be aware of the desires of the reader. I felt, and I feel rightly, that a typical reader here at LLW would not be particularly interested in reading me drone on and on about economic theories behind inflation, and problems caused by the distortion of economies. I felt that any such discussions would arise in the comments, and I feel justified in that.

Speaking of which…

@everyone else:

At this point, I feel that it is important to look at the causes of inflation. Most economic theorist believe that it comes as a result of an increase in money supply. This creates an increase in the cost of goods. To a certain percentage (usually around 3%, depending on who you ask) this is good, and a totally natural phenomena.

Part of my initial thesis here is that in routinely paying too much money for goods creates too large of an influx of money, which can cause inflation to rise at a rate that is too fast for people who are not profiting from the tourist sector. If people are not able to afford essentials, they will obviously seek other employment in a sector that can they can earn enough in. For many places, this is most obviously the tourism sector. While this is economically beneficial, it certainly has social implications.

How can it be good for a country to have teachers paid little while tour guides make so much money?

Overpaying can lead to a distortion of the local economy, which has all sorts of far reaching consequences.

In doing a bit of research for the more constructive comments, I can across an excellent article called “Is tourism helping to alleviate poverty in the poor southern hemisphere countries?” by Daniel Peak (available here [pdf]) he raised an interesting point by saying the following:

“Tourism in LDCs also contributes to the informal sector in the form of “tourism services” such as taxis and personal guides and “street vendors” such as food and beverage and souvenirs. A study in the Gambia by the Overseas Development Institute found that 33% of discretionary spending was in the informal sector. Although a large source of urban employment, these small, mostly family owned businesses do not compensate as well as other sectors as they do not have access to capital in order to “grow” the business. For example: a souvenir street vendor in a LDC would probably not have the capital (or lending capabilities) to hold enough inventory to satisfy demand during the busy season, therefore the small enterprise would constantly run out of stock and therefore business would never have a chance to grow. Also, the owner may not make enough profit to pay another person to stay open late at night for the tourists. Therefore, it is often accepted that sons or daughters are to help out at a young age, which in turn makes going to school more difficult. Finally many participants in the informal sector are unregistered business which do not pay taxes (or cannot afford to pay taxes) hence they are not contributing money for infrastructure and long term development of the country.”

I find this to put all of us in an ethical gray area. Do we support large businesses and chains, or do we help small family run businesses, especially ones that have their children help run the business? Which I think happens far more frequently in China than I think any of us would like to admit.

Of course, many of you have already stated in the comments that you believe that ethics should not play any role in your purchasing, which I do not agree with but respectfully disagree with. However, should any of you be interested in some ethical tourist guidelines, I would recommend the ones posted by Haivenu at http://www.haivenu-vietnam.com/responsible-tourism-policy.htm.

We won’t all be perfect, but it’s got to be better than nothing, right?