Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness – Mark Twain.
Anthony Bourdain is one hell of a guy.
Bone marrow, testicles, eyeballs, beating hearts – this is man who spits in the face of culinary reserve, a distinct individual who is unpretentious about what he likes or dislikes and wholly willing to look beyond preconceived notions. A classic world citizen. A revolutionary.
Most travel hosts put on an act of advertisement. They go to a place, brief over some facts, find a glitzy place and bam – a show. And that’s what it is: a glossed over, boxed up product devoid of intellect or cultural empathy. Past their smiles and peppy personas and happy airs they are salesmen, milking money from human restlessness to traverse. They want you to go “oooo” and “aaah” and “woww” at their clipped version of life; they want you go desire something beyond what you already have, to escape to their white bread version of travel and culture.
Not Bourdain. He grimaces, swears, smokes, drinks, insults without hesitation. He’s imperfect, flawed and unwilling to pretend otherwise. Comfort reserve is a foreign idea, and that’s what makes his show exceptional – the complete lack of ethnocentrism.
When “No Reservations” first broadcasted in 2005, there was something immediately different about his presentation. Bourdain was the host, but he wasn’t the focus: the scenery, the people, the culture, and by God the cuisine – it’s shamelessly food porn, cinematography and all. Ingredients, preparation, technique – absolute desire. Scrumptious. Delicious.
“No Reservations” is more of a documentary than a travel show. Bourdain makes no pretense of how he feels or who he is, something that so many travel hosts avoid. The “wow’!” and “amazing!” and “yum-o!” and “how bizarre!” – they’re nowhere to be uttered. He’s self-referential, self-aware of his own knowledge and lack thereof.
Most importantly, he plays by the rules of the areas he visits. Breaking away from all comfort and familiarity, Bourdain dives into the heart of cultures: without the self-delusion of “exterior wisdom” he goes straight to what is true of the places he traverses to, to learn and narrate to us what is beyond our own notions of opulence.
This is not a show – it’s an education, a grand execution in presentation and production, an unflinching look into normality that is specific to every culture and its respective history.
It’s the kind of mentality that I, as an ethnic minority, can’t welcome enough.
More than once I’ve encountered peers who express shock or disbelief at certain habits or tastes of mine. No shoes in the house? Different ways of preparing tofu? You don’t refer to parents by their first name? Sticky green rice and mung bean? Gigantic bowls of phở with meat bits and red with Sriracha chili sauce? Blasphemy! they’d say, or What the hell is that?!
It’s all fun and games, but when it comes to traveling and depicting different cultures, it’s this sort of reservation that renders international locales into caricatures, exotic freak shows that lure the otherwise apprehensive white bread loving individuals fortunate enough to even travel. By presenting what is normal and empathetic to others as something “bizarre” or “exotic,” the final product is invariably ethnocentric and shallow.
I don’t watch Andrew Zimmern’s “Bizarre Foods” for this reason. The name and premise are big ethnocentric billboards, tag lines to entrance viewers into watching a “freak show” of ethnic cuisines and practices. Maybe he’s just trying to get viewers, maybe he’s just trying to make a name for himself, maybe he’s just trying to present different cultures with a different style – regardless, I can’t support a show that posits itself on such terms.
Bourdain and his production team shares my sentiments, and it shows very clearly in how everything is shot and focused on. Bourdain is a narrator, a familiar voice that we come back to as the camera captures scenes of passing cars, working locals, colors of flora – a portrait of what we are unfamiliar with. The people, neighborhoods, cuisine – these are the stars of the show. In a sea of culture, history and emotions, Bourdain is no disconnected commentator nor guffawing, baffled visitor who “knows better” – he’s human, a individual who understands that these are people’s lives he’s presenting, that they too have incredibly human stories to tell and share.
So toss out your nutrition labels and calories, your paved roads and air conditioning, your shopping plazas and towering malls, your PETA and McDonalds – in order to see beyond the familiar, you have to willingly disconnect yourself from the familiarity – the breaking point of ethnocentrism and gateway to world citizenship. It is the ultimate awakening to a greater understanding of our own mortal and universal condition of being human.
Bravo, Mr. Bourdain, bravo. I’m sure you’ve Mark Twain quite a run for his money.