Green IslandThe Difference between Africa and Asia - a traveller's perspective
August 26th 2008 06:57
Functioning chaos in Africa seems more disfunctional than in Asia
When I tell some people where I’ve been travelling and the places that I really love I can often guess what they are wondering which is, “Why the hell would anyone want to backpack around Africa?” And that’s sort of what this article is about. It’s about what is special about Africa and how it is different to Asia.
Now of course many people do travel around Africa often in the comfort of tour groups and overland trucks (to a lesser extent of comfort), and people go to see the pyramids or go on safari but how many go to Africa with the idea of staying there for a while and getting to know the place? Consider this: why is that that old travel cliché, ‘The Round the World Ticket’ hardly ever features any of Africa? Young people and those who’ve sold their house to go traveling invariably do Asia, Australia/New Zealand plus Pacific islands, South America and either North America or Europe depending on where they’re from.
Sublime man made achievement demonstrates the supreme control Asia has over nature (although it's falling into the Yamuna river slowly)
The answer is obvious: they consider Africa a wash out, a failure, stricken, unsafe and menacing. Conrad and Paul Bowles both understood the complete inadequacy of European and American visitors to fall into step with African culture. The Heart of Darkness and The Sheltering Sky are definitive studies of people getting quite simply fucked up and fucked over by Africa. And although brave and entrepreneurial Chinese and Indians have settled in Africa, Asians I suspect also fear Africa. It’s the birthplace apparently of humanity and for many I fear this well known notion has lead many to invariably think, if only secretly to themselves, that makes Africa the wildest and most primitive place; a place of ‘massives’ – massive animals, massive human conflict and massive human disasters; and massive spaces of inhospitable desert and jungle.
And that brings me to my main point of difference between Asia and Africa: nature seems more massive, more impressive, more demanding and more unforgiving in Africa compared to Asia.
Nothing says huge to me like “Sahara Desert” - that great living entity that is slowly encroaching on green Africa. Rural Africans struggle in a perennial fight to gain sustenance from the land. Plagues, famines, debt and first world connivance not to mention poor leadership keep your average villager on or below the poverty line. In comparison Asians have tamed vast portions of the nature under their possession. Rice is the great success story of Asia that has allowed huge populations to spring up. Combined with that is the instinct many Asians have towards business and ownership. There must be literally millions of noodle shops and kiosks in China and like in India and Pakistan a dizzying list of services and products that street vendors and micro-businesses can compete in providing. My impression of lots of Asian cities is wondering along amazingly industrious streets where often just one thing is sold. I’ve walked down streets in India only selling electrical sockets and I’ve been to a street in Wuhan, China only selling plastic bags. You can’t help thinking that the chaos that is often Asian cities is a celestial experiment in laissez faire capitalism whose antidote is Buddhism.
Buddhism the antidote to Asian freneticism
Nevertheless millions are kept alive by rice and for many living in Asia life’s great promise is the prospect of a slow generational progression upwards (that’s why ancestor worship is so big perhaps). Anyway my point is that in Asia you feel they have largely conquered nature or have plans to - for example that big dam in China and that railway to Lhasa. Japan is the sad forerunner in Asia. It has firmly seen nature off with an impressive assault of cleverly engineered concrete. It seems everywhere you go in Asia people seem to show no sign of letting nature alone. The burgeoning masses of Asia with their industriousness have inevitably largely tamed nature and most of the ground below anyone’s feet in Asia has a lucky owner.
Whose path is this?
Whereas in Africa roads and railways and villages and even cities seem like outposts compared to the vastness and treacherousness of nature. Between the villages lie areas only tribals and nomads and pigmies can survive in. Places where numbers of people rise slowly; places where only oil men and loggers dare to go. If you hire a vehicle in Africa and break down in your journey from A to B then you are in trouble. In India it seems you’re never far from a lad with a hammer and screwdriver who can botch something together for you. Furthermore, Africa is the only place I know that if you want to go to some spots you have to hitch-hike because nobody is selling you any tickets for a bus or pickup or even bicycle rickshaw.
We score some bananas
In stark contrast to Asian cities, African cities often don’t sell much (excluding Northern, Arab influenced Africa); there are few vendors on the street, not a lot of choice on offer on how to spend your money other than on beggars, booze, food or accommodation. Where are all the whallas, single fag sellers, the watch repairers, the typists, the fortune tellers, the snack shops, the rag and bone men, the rat killers, the butcher hole in the walls, the bread men? I once arrived in an African town by bus and found a taxi driver idling by his car and asked him where a hotel was. To my astonishment he pointed behind his taxi and continued to chew on a toothpick. How amazing to encounter a lethargic and honest taxi driver. For seven days in Zanzibar I ate cold chips and calamari for dinner because no where else sold food in the village. I gave up being a vegetarian in Africa because often it was meat and corn mush or just mush. Even in remote spots in the Himalayas I’ve rocked up and found some basic built accommodation; whereas, in Africa without a tent you can be a bit screwed. Some places not even a credit card can save you from sleeping outside. And that’s what I’m saying - man hasn’t conquered nature in Africa whereas in much of Asia nature seems submissive to the demands of its human inhabitants. You cannot imagine creatures as big and strange as those found in Africa existing in Asia. If they ever existed I imagine that they long ago got turned into delicacies and potions.
So what I’m saying is that ‘nature’ is what differentiates Africa and Asia for me. It’s a very impressionistic conclusion which I’ve backed up with some very sweeping statements that are easy to deconstruct and contradict. Indeed stereotyping and over generalizations leave me open to accusations of racism, bigotry and naiveté, but what I hope even my potential critics must concede is that my attitude to Africa is not one of fear, rather of respect and a respect that invariably makes me wonder why Africa is such an unpopular destination. There are many so called ‘2 ways’ of looking at the world – haves and have-nots; Easterners and Westerners; those who vomit in the toilet when they are really drunk and those who vomit where they lie or sit; those who wash their arses and those who use toilet paper; in the sixties it was those who had been to India and those who hadn’t. Virgins and non-virgins; people who like Elvis and those with no elvis in them; oh my, how the list can go on. So here’s my ‘2 ways’: those who are drawn and those who are repulsed by Africa.
Inhospitable soda lakes - refuge to the hardy
All images are scans from my photo albums.
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I'd love to travel in Africa, though!