Lost in transit

beauty is everywhere a welcome guest

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from a woman who used to teach at the school that I first taught at when I got here.

"Some friends of mine are traveling through Eastern Europe. Can I give them your number?"

If you live in a tourist destination, you've gotten this question. People want to crash on your couch in New York, or take over a tatami in Osaka, or ... try the spare room at Tuckova (it's a nice spare room; do stop by sometime). And if you live in these places, then you have to decide what you think about this. Either you do not like guests, in which case you find a nice little hotel nearby and set them up there, or you remember the time that you were poor and traveling and wanted just once to see the inside of a home instead of the inside of a hotel room, in which case you keep clean sheets on hand and hope the people are decent.

So I said "Sure" because I can handle anybody for about three days ("fish and guests"), and because these people don't show up about 70% of the time anyway. This pair obviously did show up, though, or I'd have nothing to report.

Let me tell you why guests are often annoying. There are the regular guest problems: they don't realize that they're getting some orbs out of orbit; they don't like the entertainment provided but fail to provide their own; they comment on their accommodations as if they were paid, and on the local environment as if they were experts.

Guests in your foreign home also bring special annoyances to the table. They assume that you are interested in their travels; they feel compelled to make judgements of places they have visited briefly (including your home); they fail to recognize cultural differences that might affect their stay.

I am sorry to admit that after several years here and countless visitors, I tend to regard the average visit as a probable unpleasantness. You get enough good visits to make it worth the risk, but in general, at best: stressful.

These women blew me away. Not only were they not stressful: they were purely delightful. I think they were delightful simply because they were smart, funny, interesting humans. Not everybody can be smart, funny, and interesting all at once, but most people could be better guests. Therefore, for the edification of all future visitors anywhere, I will point to specific things they did that anybody could do to make happy hosts.

1. They did not talk about their travels, except in specific anecdotes. Not: "and then we had breakfast in this small town, which was just outside of this other big town we can't pronounce, and the waiter messed up our order and gave her the eggs and me the bacon, and we had to switch plates, and zzzz". Instead: "This weird thing happened in the hostel last night..."
What is different: The first example could happen anywhere and the details are so excessive that it's hard to know the point of the story; the second example is a complete story. Also, stories with masturbators are comedy gold. Think this way: Will this story be funny in a year? Because otherwise: your host is not your travelogue. That is why you brought that notebook.

2. They did not judge places they had visited briefly. I have heard stuff like, "Spain is the filthiest country I've ever seen. I spent three days in Madrid; that place is hell." Comments from our lovely guests were instead of the tone, "We had a bad experience in that place," or "I only met a few people, so I can't be sure what the usual experience is." And most of the stories were of positive experiences, beautiful places, interesting people. But all of the stories were "MY impression, MY reaction." Opinions, not judgements.
This is lovely: it shows an understanding of the pitfalls of generalization, and thus it frees the host to answer questions honestly, because they will be viewed as the host's opinions.

3. Instead of "These people cannot run things on time!" a nicer thing to say is, "Do the trains generally run on time?" Instead of "Why do these people do this?" it is better to say, "We noticed somebody doing this. Is that a regular thing?"
The world does not exist to be compared to your home country, and although such comparisons are interesting and natural to draw, it is wisest and noblest to keep them neutral.

And so: they were different, they were lovely, they were wise, they were noble. In short, the foreign guest behavior was fantastic. And then on top of that, they were excellent regular guests: They demurred on demanding specifics ("Oh, whatever you usually do") but also had vague suggestions to guide us towards their interests ("It might be nice to go for a walk...") . They asked before accessing any facilities, and they asked in a way where "no" seemed a possible response (not "Can I hop on the computer for a second?" while hovering anxiously next to the screen, but "Would it be possible for me to use your computer during the visit?"-- for a woman with two guest-provoked crashes, this is an important distinction). They asked questions that showed awareness of -and interest in- the answer and the answer-er. They thanked often and sincerely. They did dishes. They noticed the small nice things in the apartment (nice paint job!) and overlooked the flaws (so! spiderwebs!). They praised the good parts of the town (the architecture is gorgeous!) and ignored the drawbacks (smoky bars!).

Long story short: We had visitors! We liked them! I wish I could send them to you, so that you, too, could have a new extra-high watermark for visitors.

And now, the forum: What makes a good visit for you? What makes a bad visit? Tales from the front?

Posted by anne at November 28, 2005 07:23 AM