Tourism is something that can generate a feeling of repugnance within local citizens who really have a sense of belonging to their city/town/country, etc. Living in new york city then moved to DC, I have a similar feeling. The lousy new york city can be disorienting, yet money burning skyscrapers can be condescending too. White stone embellished buildings in downtown DC and iconic monuments can always be crowded with reverence and the not-so-classy selfie takers.
Walking either in downtown Manhattan or Washington, I often bump into tourists. They would stop me in the middle of the road and ask for directions, price of city rental bikes. If they were more energetic, they would ask me for places that I recommend them checking out. Knowing they were tourists, I often recommend the up-in-coming sleek neighborhoods, never anything like the monuments, white house, or anything the tourists would really want to go. I often provide them with these recommendations with the good intention to explore DC as native DC locals.
It wasn't till last time that I was being a tourist in San Francisco did I realize the dramatic difference in thought process between locals and tourists. They think differently, hence they do different things. The natural resentment towards tourists can be justified, yet the obnoxious tourist behaviors be justified even more. But ultimately, tourists do what tourists do, and we locals should just leave them alone.
San Francisco has always been a city that I wanted to visit, and potentially live in. With its artsy cultures, steep hills, heart beat views of the ocean, this city is easily a target of literary romanticization. I arrived in San Francisco wanting to see what this city was all about. First day in the city we started from financial district to Chinatown on foot. Relying on Maps app on the iPhone as our tour guide, I decided to walk from Chinatown to Japan town, while sight seeing the residential areas in between. Next day we again started from financial district to Chinatown, then up to Telegraph hill, hiking in parks, discovering hidden stair cases, and landed at the Pier ports. We walked everywhere, it was a great cardio. I was proud of our triumph - exploring the city without anyone telling us what to do. We only bumped into a couple of old-style tourists and a couple of Munis passing by. I felt as if I just moved into a random apartment in SF, exploring the city as a new local.
Then we shared uberPool with a stranger, whom just happened to be a SF local. Through our conversations, it was pretty obvious that it was our first time in San Francisco. I asked the stranger, Andrew (I think that was his name), for some places that he recommended us visiting. Then he goes -- The mission district for bar scenes, Fort Funston dog park for afternoon sunbathe, and the Castro is also a pretty chill place to hangout. Bar scenes? Sunbathe? Chill place to hangout? No, we only have two days in SF, no time to chill and lay in the sun. I was surprised how familiar did his recommendation sounded from my recommendations to DC tourists. I am just like him when it comes to recommending places, but for some reason Andrew's response sounded extremely inconsiderate. There are bar scenes in DC as well, and having a sense of belonging in DC, I think the DC bar scene is better than anywhere else. As for dog park, the bethesda trolly trail has a big yard with dog owners walking their dogs. And chill places to hangout for me are places in DC like Dupont circle or Metro center. Being a Washingtonian, I was pretty much convinced that there is no other place better than DC in terms of casual social locations. I'm familiar with, it is my hood. Of course being in a brand new city I have to see things that are so uniquely belong to San Fransico. There are bar scenes everywhere, parks everywhere, and a chill place to hangout is completely subjective. I considered Andrew's suggestions useless, because he was not answering my question. Instead, he was projecting his love and familiarity for San Francisco onto me. And for me, that special place is already occupied by Washington, DC.
There goes an opinion from a tourist. We go to a completely different place, we see something that is completely new from our everyday lives. We want to be stimulated, we want to see something exotic. We go to museums, galleries, monuments, or the place that has any signs of history. Of course we have to take photos, because we know that our days being in this new bazaar place only last a few days. We interacting with the locals for a short time, exchanging ideas, but bluntly aware of our geographical differences. We see the locals in a new environment as wrapped up candy in a candy shop. They are people, but they are also a representation of the an unknown place.
This new, fresh, exciting, dangerously unknown feeling is absent from that of a local. A local of any place, no matter how geographically or historically unique, focuses on the daily pleasures. Chill bars, leisure parks, and maybe location of which ethnic or organic food markets, are what defines the city in a local's mind. It is normal that a local new yorker has never visited statue of liberty. It is also not a big deal if Washingtonians do not go to the monuments on a weekly basis. Only the places that locals hangout most often make up the mental map of their living city.
The weekly mundanes of a local boil down to the same thing no matter where you live - go to work, shop for groceries, hangout with friends at a favorite bar, go see a baseball or football game. To devalue the excitement from a tourist and replace with our own accustomed routine almost sound like a moral crime.
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