“Can you share a travel secret?” asked an online travel site for women prepping its annual feature of tips from women writers worldwide.
“Read the women who went before us,” I replied. “Or, read about them.”
For this expat/archaeologist/writer/traveler, cultural wisdom pools at the intersection of women and travel. The romance and grit of historical travelogue connects me to the land — and reminds me of travel’s transformative force in the lives of women. Reputation-risking. Life-threatening. Culturally redeeming. Personally empowering. (My post about a related controversial history.)
on set of "Anna and The King"
Adventurous Women in Southeast Asia (Oxford-in-Asia), a selection of traveler sketches by historian John Gullick, gave my own struggling expatriate experience new meaning when I was sweating it out for 5 years in the Malaysian jungle. Playing an attitudinal extra aristocrat on the 1860s filmset of “Anna and The King” with Jodie Foster and Chow Yun Fat in 1999 (next to a pig farm during a swine flu outbreak, but that’s another post!), I appreciated learning about the dark side of the iconic governess to the Siamese court. Foster may have played Anna Leonowens prim, proper and principled but actually the lady was a scrappy mixed-blood mistress of reinvention. There was hope for me!
If you plan a trip to Turkey maybe Cultures in Dialogue holds similar promise for you. The print-on-demand series resurrects antique writings by American and British women about their travels in Turkey (1880s to 1940s), along with surprisingly political writing by women of the Ottoman empire. Contempo analysis by spunky scholars Reina Lewis and Teresa Heffernan refreshes the context of a region in transition.
Next post, more titles which add new dimension to travel. Any favorite antique travel reads? What draws you to by-gone reports?
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Anastasia M. Ashman
2010 Capital of Culture monthly feature of best Istanbul links
Here are some suggestions I received at Facebook, on Twitter and at Shewrites.com, the new network for women writers:
Add to the list Isabella Bird’s Unbeaten Tracks in Japan says Deborah Davidson, an American blogger and translator in Japan.
I recall Bird’s 1883 opinionated writing on the Malay Peninsula, The Golden Chersonese, also published by Oxford-in-Asia, was skewered as pompous/over-positive by later travelers like the irascible Emily Innes who was featured in the Gullick volume above. Innes published her own wry companion Chersonese with the Gilding Off — which resonated with my suburban Kuala Lumpur assimilation trials a century later!
Pilot Beryl Markham’s African autobiography West with the Night , suggested by EscapeArtist.com travel writer Robin Sparks, also has its controversies.
“Ella Maillart!” effuses Susan Barrett Price, the author of Passion and Peril on the Silk Road, a thriller about the international antiquities trade. Maillart wrote Forbidden Journey about traveling through Chinese Turkestan (now Xinjiang) back in the 1930s, says Price. “I remember the excitement and inspiration (and the fact that their camels only walked 4 miles a day) as I prepared for my own trip into Xinjiang (from the opposite direction [Pakistan] and fortunately camels were only a photo op).”
Not sure whose experience this might put into perspective: review of The Bolter, a new book about ultra bad-girl expat in 1920s Colonial Africa — Idina Sackville — by her greatgranddaughter
Great post Anastasia – I’m not certain that this would classify as an antique read, but I always keep The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton handy – since I travel so much (like you) I actually bring it with me and also read it before and after I go on a trip. But I’m happy to add to that library – and you’ve given some great ideas. Thank you!