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Susan Orlean's The Place To Disappear

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In Susan Orlean’s essay “The Place to Disappear”, Orlean discusses the idea of dramatic change within Khao San Road by tourists destroying this once so cultural town, turning it into a ghost town of traditions and leaving an imprint of themselves. When a new culture starts to mix with a preexisting culture in the hometown, there are different ways the older culture can react to the changes. It can accept the new traditions with an open heart, leaving the identity of the old town to the history. It can mold some of the past traditions with the new traditions to create a combination of the both traditions, creating a new identity but still keeping the foundations of the preexisting identity. Or it can be resistant to change and build walls of …show more content…

This attitude will help determine what path the community is going to take regarding the change. In Orlean’s essay the change is portrayed horrendously, as if the change was the worst thing that could have come to the town, “It happened so fast! It was such a quiet place before. There were no foreigners. It changed, like overnight, and I never went outside again… Her parents were afraid of the backpackers…I asked her what they were afraid of” (Orlean). The tone of the quote gives an impression of being panicked and the way the sentences are structured gives the reader an impression that the speaker was traumatized by backpackers coming into the town, by the way the parents reacted. The parents’ enormous fear towards the backpackers illustrates how the community reacted towards the backpackers. Instead of embracing the new culture, the parents locked their houses and never let their children play outside, creating the fear of change in their own children. The negative outlook transformed from the Khao San Road, home of traditions into a place of impermanence. This town was in a state of limbo, not fully accepting the new traditions completely since the travelers never stay long enough to change the culture significantly but long enough to leave some imprint on this town which seemed to have lost its old identity. The town could have retained all of its past traditions instead of losing some to a new culture that seemingly had engulfed the city over night. A change of attitude could have made all the difference.

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