“Happy to see that American tourists have been annoying for over 120 years.”

Craig Mod, commenting on a 1896 travel account called Mountaineering and Exploration in the Japanese Alps:

In fact, a different passage from Weston’s introduction really knocked me back. Tourism in Japan has increased some 10x in the last five years, bringing with it a sense of being crushed. One of the weirdest COVID corollaries has been remembering what pre-tourist-crush Japan felt like. Many of the tourists only spend a few days (two nights, three days is very common for many tourists from Asia), rush from Instagrammable (Wechattable?) site to Instagrammable site, taking photos, hopping on overnight buses to save time and maximize “trip value.” And so, to see this in Walter’s 19th century introduction was a shock:

A Japanese writer has, not without justice, somewhat bitterly complained of the numbers of foreign tourists who come to his country, and after rushing through it “at the rate of forty miles an hour” (though the average speed of the express trains is only about half that pace), then hurry home to record their impressions and pose as authorities on what they have only glanced at along the way.

Nothing changes, ever; now is not unique; tomorrow will also not be unique — this seems to be the wisdom to be gleaned here.

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