Yi-Fu Tuan - Dear Colleague

December 21, 2004

Dear Colleague,

In 1970 I flew from Sydney, Australia, to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where my father manned his last diplomatic post before retirement. After many hours of uneventful flying over the Pacific Ocean, it was a relief for me to see land again--land that loomed as the tall Andes, then as the flat Pampas, and then as the shores of the Rio de la Plata, the outline of which I knew so well from looking at the school atlases. I couldn't quite believe my eyes that these geographical features actually existed, that they were not just figments of a cartographer's imagination. For you see, I was a good student; I knew my geography from a diligent study of books and atlases, but in the depth of my being I never quite believed them. Skepticism came naturally to one raised in a highly literate culture. I rebelled against its confident claims to knowledge, and doubted not only the existence of places shown in atlases but also texts that gave me a picture of human nature that seemed too pretty. I doubted, in particular, ethnographic reports of the gentleness and kindness of people who led the simple life--fishermen and farmers, for example. So imagine my surprise when... Well, let me begin at the beginning. I was in Panama in 1959, studying its coastline. I needed to get to a sandbar separated from the mainland by a stretch of mangrove swamp. I waited for the tide to withdraw so that I could find a path and walk over, a distance of a couple of hundred yards. Hours later, having completed my survey, I packed my notebooks, camera, and compass to make the return journey. To my astonishment, I found a wholly unfamiliar landscape. High tide had covered the swamp in one to two feet of water. Must I wade through this muck? A fisherman came toward me, pushing an old bike on the handlebar of which was a row of fish, which he no doubt intended to sell in the mainland village. His gestures told me that I was to sit on his bike, with my feet raised to rest on the handlebar along with the fish, and that he would push me through the swamp. Which he did. As soon as I got off the bike, I dug into my wallet for a few dollars to give him. But when I turned around, he was nowhere to be seen.

On another sandbar in Panama, I worked late until the last fishing boat that could have returned me to the mainland had left. I was forced to stay overnight. The villagers were celebrating their saint's day. There was much dancing and singing. I watched until I couldn't keep my eyes open. I walked some distance from the festivities, stretched out on the warm sand, and slept. I woke to someone trying to wake me. It was a woman. She wanted me to follow her, which I did. I was led to a large hut packed with laughing men, women, and children who struggled to stay awake. The woman showed me a bed and beckoned me to rest on it. I thanked her, laid down, and sank into deep sleep. A few hours later--although it seemed to me just a few minutes--I was rudely shaken by the shoulder. It was the same woman. She told me that the bed was communal, that I had used up my time share, and that I must leave. Well, dear friend, this was the sort of realism I could appreciate. I didn't usually find it in anthropological texts that were in vogue in the romantic '60s and '70s.

Best wishes,

Yi-Fu