After every trip you will take, you will likely hear people back home asking you to tell them about your exciting adventures. But what is an adventure, exactly? The word sounds so positive and upbeat in English, but the actual definition of the word is “an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity” What? Hazardous? That’s right. An adventure, whether planned or accidental, is always a risk, and while a happy ending is presumed, how you arrived at it could vary widely.
I, for one, had my fair share of adventures, some minor, others pretty scary and unpleasant on many of my backpacking trips. I’ve had medical emergencies, physical attacks by foreigners, locals and animals, I’ve lost wallets, phones, keys, been a subject of scams – you name it. It’s easy to call them adventures after some time, but at the time they occur, they are more like mishaps at best, and disasters at worst. That is one of the reasons I’ve started this blog – to help you avoid my own mistakes and show you how to deal with various negative situations we would all like to avoid. In other words, unwanted adventures.
One thing I learned over the years of travelling is that at least when it comes to dealing with local people abroad in adverse situations, there are really three modes of behavior you can assume: “Friendly Foreigner”, “Dumb Foreigner” and “Angry Foreigner”. Let’s talk about each in detail.
Friendly Foreigner is actually what you should always try to be when you travel. Think of it as the default mode of conduct. There is a lot you can achieve with a smile and a friendly chit-chat, and I can think of no country, no culture, that will not produce a return smile right back at yours.
But what if you need an extra favour from someone? Maybe an upgrade to a nicer hotel room, or you would like to leave your luggage behind for no extra charge, or get out of a minor trouble? Well, you’d better crank your charm up a notch. Feel free to flirt with a person who has the power to do the needed favour, or give them compliments or just be friendly and ask them about their personal lives. People in most developing countries are actually quite gregarious and do not adhere to our western standards of privacy, so it’s perfectly okay to ask someone’s age, marital status, number of children and so on. You would be surprised how much more helpful a local would be after he or she talked to you about their family. Works like a charm. Of course, don’t pry too much – remember, you are not actually trying to be their friend, although I have seen weirder things than that happen. You have something specific you have to ask for, and you are working for it. This will come more naturally to the extraverts out there, but even if you are not a natural charmer, just give it a try. You’d be surprised.
Dumb Foreigner is the position you’d want to assume after you’ve done something you shouldn’t have, whether deliberately or not, and you got caught. Maybe you trespassed somewhere you shouldn’t have, or broke some traffic rules, or anything of the kind – we are not talking serious crimes here, obviously. You’ve tried the Friendly Foreigner, but your smile didn’t quite work this time. There are many people in 3rd world countries, usually men, who really cherish their own authorities, and they will sometimes go the extra mile to enforce whatever it is that they are positioned to protect. Your goal is to make them drop whatever beef they might have with you by pretending you simply had no idea of whatever rule you broke, you feel sorry, and moreover, you cannot even understand what he is talking about. Remember all those frustrating moments when you are in a country where people don’t speak English and don’t understand even your simplest questions? Well, turn the tables – you don’t understand them, either. Now, of course they can push it and take you to whatever authorities they see fit, especially if what you did was something serious, but chances are, if you play really dumb (you can even smile at your own stupidity) and make it impossible for them to communicate with you, you might be let go.
Basically, a Dumb Foreigner and a Friendly Foreigner are your best adopted personalities whenever you are a newbie in a given country or a situation you’ve never been before. But even if you have lived in a certain place for a while and still managed to get into trouble, you should put your best acting skills to a good use and pretend to be the same rookie noob you once was. And don’t overplay the “sorry” card, because once they sense your remorse, they will try to squeeze you out of a a lot more money.
Finally, when all else fails, you can turn into an Angry Foreigner. For some, that comes very natural, but I don’t recommend doing it without trying to play nice first. An Angry Foreigner basically means that all the niceties are dropped, you are now raising your voice – even shouting, and getting visibly agitated. This works best in a public place, but remember, this will NOT work in every country or every adverse situation. For example, when dealing with police, this might only escalate a bad situation into a worse one.
With the Angry Foreigner mode you are basically bluffing: you are creating a situation where the local in question can no longer control or predict your behaviour, and would rather back off than deal with the crazy tourist. That’s your bet, but just as in a poker game where a bluff is a calculated move, you have to make sure you control your anger rather than actually behave erratically, aggressively and loudly. There is always the fine line that when crossed, could land you in more trouble than when you started, so I would not recommend using the Angry Foreigner to anyone who already has a hot temper problem. And for heaven’s sake, do not engage in a physical confrontation, because while heated verbal arguments are quite common in most of the countries outside the Anglo-Saxon realm, a physical altercation is a whole other animal. In many Asian countries with the concept of “saving face”, you already lost face by raising your voice, and a physical fight will add a major injury to the insult, and that injury might very well end up being yours – quite literally. So know when to change gears, or you might end up with a black eye or a smashed forehead or worse, a stab wound.
So be sure to use “Angry Foreigner” mode with caution. When all else fails and your charm, stupidity and anger bring you to no resolution to the problem at stake, well, there is the universal remedy for just about any situation, and that’s the good ol’ cash. Preferrably, US dollars. And how much you will pay will greatly depend on your bargaining skills – something we talked about in one of the previous posts.