 Okay, this is Crystal and Kwok Toh. Today, we're gonna be talking about travel in Asia through colonial lens. Now, what does that mean? First of all, I am still in Hong Kong and Hong Kong was colonized by the British, if you didn't know. And, you know, in reference to Hawaii, of course, you all know, I hope, that we were colonized by the good old USA. So what does that mean for travel? You know, back in the colonial times, what did it mean for the Westerners to come to Asia? And, you know, how did that affect the cultural diversity or the tensions or the bonding, whatever you'd like? So I've got a wonderful guest today to share all that historical information with us. So let me introduce my lovely guest. Vijay Raghis is a journalist, editor and entrepreneur who began his career as a newspaper reporter in New Delhi before spending the last 40 years in Hong Kong traversing the region with various travel, business and news titles. He relaunched the business traveler Asia Pacific as editor and publisher before starting his own regional magazine, Holiday Asia. And he went on to found the first Asian online travel agent, Smart Travel Asia, which turned 20 this year. Congrats, Vijay. So yes, not only is he a very well-versed in traveling, he's a music guy, you know, photographer, designer, writer for many papers. And so really, really a pleasure to have Vijay here to introduce traveling in Asia with us today. Welcome. Thank you. Nice to be with you, Crystal. Yes, it's nice to be virtual and yet in the same city together because, you know, in these most part and post-modern times, I have to throw that word in there. You know, yeah. I know she is curious about that. You know, when we used to travel, I used to use such a huge, grand McNally road access. You know, we used that to navigate it. And now we're using Google Maps instead of WhatsApp. Yeah. Right. Nobody knows about our read-a-map anymore. I'm old enough to remember something through the maps in the car trying to figure out where we're going. So we need to go way further back than that, right? So, Vijay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But maps is where it's all starting. I mean, I need a map to get my bearing wherever, whenever I travel to New Jersey, I'll open the map and I get a fix on my hotel at the point and I'll take the fix. So I know where I am within a certain grid or my space. And maps is where it all started, you know, from ancient navigation maps. So maps is described drawn on parchment paper by the early travelers, adventurers, navigators. So people started following those routes. So the routes of commerce along rivers and across oceans and then across continents all started with maps. And these were physical maps because unless somebody had been there, nobody knew whether it existed or not or whether it was fake or whether it was real. Because travel was mixed up with so much mythology in those days. Of course, nowadays life is all mythology. There's nothing real anymore. But in those days, travel was part legend, part the abode of the gods, you know, you're gonna fall off the edge of the sea, fall off the map. Right. But when you say they, who are they? I mean, when we're talking about the first colonial travelers to Asia, are we assuming the West as in Europe and... Yes, yes, yes, broadly, broadly Western travelers. The travelers were traveling from everywhere. So for example, one of the early travelers was a Moroccan traveler. He would be called McGrady from the desert, but North Africa, even the Batusa. And if the Batusa wondered about it, about 13, 25, 30 or thereabouts, then he wandered through Asia, North Africa. He wandered through, he arrived in India. He went to Southeast Asia. And Marco Polo did something similar. Following in his father, Nicolaus roots and his uncle, he went with them. And that was in 1271 or so, when he met up with Kublai Khan. I mean, that period, 1231 through the end of that century. And he met up with Kublai Khan and came back with amazing stories about his journey as it is in the Batusa. And as the people traveling in those times, there was such curiosity in meeting foreign visitors that they usually had an audience with the king. They had audience with holy men and so on and so forth. And they were quizzed about their backgrounds, their lifestyle, the clothes they were wearing, the food they ate. But how did they, where did they stay? I mean, did they have a concept of a hotel back then? Or did they just stay with other people? How did the local people receive such travelers at the time? What do you think? Well, the hotel concept started a lot earlier with the person, most of the Chinese and with the Indians. I mean, the Mughals in India had these great roads, the Grand Front road which went from what's now Bangladesh to Kabul to Kabul. The Chinn Emperor had a huge highway that went from Shanti all the way north to Inner Mongolia. And the Romans were great road builders, as were the Persians. And as in the Mughal instance, I mean, the Persian instance, Iran that is, these routes had caravans to rise. To rise, obviously, it places to sleep and rest. And the caravans to rise then became drop-off points for the post, not quite the pony express, but a similar version in the East and the rest of the world where the horses would go down. And the king's mail had to, his word had to be said. So the caravans to rise slowly became places for accommodation, looking after the horses, refreshments, picking up supplies and so on and so forth. So it started with that, a very rough rudimentary and it followed the road. When he went off the road, there was no caravan to rise. So the Romans also had this concept of howling and some of the go up to the jillies, the summer villas. They went up to summer villas in the hills. At other times of the year, they went up to villas on the coast. The Mughals in India, as the kings everywhere did the same. And some of them when it got too hot in India, they went up north into Kashmir. Right, same as the Chinese, right? The emperor had the summer jillies, they had all that. But these were within their own country. But for, we're talking about the westerners who came into these countries and how did that change and shift, the cultural dynamics between, wow, who is this new exotic person with different color hair and what kind of foods are they having and why are they coming and wanting to come to our women? All those things that come with that cross pollinating intersections. Well, travelers in those days were a rarity. Unlike now, now we've got to put them back. Don't take the language, don't change the thing. But you know these travelers were a rarity and people were curious. And... Women are mostly from the royalty then, right? They weren't like your local villager who would be able to travel. Well, when they were travelers and they were merchants, and as in the Bartholomew case, he was a merchant traveler. Right, okay. And in the Mughals case, he was a sort of a historian and a philosopher and wrote the book. And these caps then actually became a mystery of the various things they met here. And then they went off and further traveled as ambassadors. Marco Polo for Kublaika came to India, Ibn Battuta for Muhammad Tuglak, who was the main king of Delhi that went off as a mystery. I mean, that's how valuable they were and that's how trusted they were because knowledge was that a premium. And when people traveled, people realized that, wow, I didn't know this. And tell me more, tell me more, tell me more. Yeah, yes. The travelers were very welcome. And when Marco Polo and his dad and others, Ibn Battuta and Fanya and Huntang from China when they traveled, they stated the same caravans to rise. And the caravans to rise concept became a waypoint and in, I mean, sort of like motels of yours. Because if you followed the roads, you wouldn't find a motel that was not on a river or not on a road. They had to follow an activity of commerce. Right. And the motels followed the commercial routes. So when the colonizers came into, I mean, the travelers, you know, the Arabs were traveling well before, Chinese were traveling, Tunisians were traveling, they went on boats, that was commerce as well. They followed the monsoons, they followed the winds and avoid the typhoons. And basically that's how travel worked. I mean, in days of sailing ships, you could only sail a certain direction when the wind was right and in one year they'd sail that. So nobody thinks about that, traveling with the wind. It just sat down so. Traveling with the wind. With the ferry. But who were the most men, obviously? Were women traveling then too? Or when did the women start traveling with the men during the colonial periods to Asia? Women started traveling too, but they started traveling more as sort of, I think they were good in cattle, you know, they were looking after the upheavals, sorting out provisions. In the early days, merchants, adventurers, didn't take women with them because journeys were far too dangerous. Or they couldn't have their fun, like they do today, where the men travel on their own. I'm sure they had their fun and I'm sure they had stories to tell with me so never know. But. Because I want to insert that. I mean, these are centuries later, Vijay, but I wanted to just kind of insert that image of the traveler to Asia even today where a lot of Europeans and, you know, just Western travelers go to Asia to assume this exotic, erotic adventure, especially to places like Southeast Asia, right? And so how did that even become to be, you know, these images of the West? Was it because of the early colonists who came over, who brought stories of these, wow, think about these old, wonderful Oriental delicacies and delicate women. And then these stories kind of turned into what we still have as this concept of Asia today, in some sense. That was very true. I mean, obviously, Asians are sort of more, are slim and they don't belong with the age, very gracefully, you know, ladies have long, you can hear all the rest of that. So this was very of your age, the people who came from the West. Now, interestingly enough, among the first ladies who traveled into continentally, during the British run, the East India Company had to find a while for the people who were working with them, and the ministry staffers. Now, until the age of 30, the people working with the East India Company were not allowed to get married because work was too diabolically difficult and dangerous and they had to be committed to what they were doing. And in England, a woman who was over 20 was considered on the shelf that is past the Selma Eitation. So the mothers were going to panic in England. So the East India Company in the 1670s of Erwa brought over 20 young women and gave them a title of 300 pounds, which is a fancy sum by today's money. We were 50,000 pounds. And they brought them for a year to go husband hunting in India. So while the husbands were hunting tigers, the women were hunting husbands, and they were caught on that. And they were known in poverty as the spitting fleet. The spitting fleet. Spitting fleet, they came spitting for husbands. So it's different to what the Westerners are doing in India today, finding a nation like that. So did they find suitable husbands on this shift? I think many of them did, and some of them just put the option because they didn't want to go back and be called returned empty. That was the term for them when they went back. But the spitting fleet became a very famous event where all the girls brought out the burritos, they would get the clubs, the balls, and you know, almost like taxi girls, they would have lots of girls in the massage parlours. But in more tasteful circumstances, they'd have ballroom dancing and they tried to fare off with somebody. So that's the tourism women who came. Some of them came in times and married men who sort of had a lifestyle like a Marat and they became like the Borneo, they were the white Raja, the Borneo. But the women came later. So I don't think they came across. You know, the East was very exotic for a number of reasons. I mean, not just the people, but for spices. Spices, of course, the trade. So in Banda, in Indonesia, the East of Indonesia, the island of Rang was the only place where nutmeg grew naturally. The nutmeg was such a pride commodity. The British actually had a store in Banda where the Dutch controlled Indonesia. And the British really wanted other things and the Dutch really wanted to control all of Indonesia. So they pressed the British to negotiate with them to give up Banda, islands and run. And they did a trade. And they gave the British manhattan in milk. Now you just think of the implications of that. And the British got manhattan from the Dutch and the Dutch got the nutmeg island. And that, I mean, that goes in his lovely book, I think, Curse of the Nutmeg or the Nutmeg Curse. He talks about how the West came to history and started what he called terraforming, that is turning history into a likeness of the West. Because that's what always happened with colonizers. You went back and you, I mean, it happened in the U.S. I mean, Europeans came across. And for them, the mountains, it was always, which took place. It was dangerous, it was hostile, it was, it was, it was easy. Yeah, it was fascinating. So they had to, that was, you know, the white man's burden that Shippling wrote about which everybody hates to talk. So what he meant was that they had a civilizing role and created a little Europe in the U.S. So what they did was they killed out the natives, they put them in reservation, the ecology trained them dramatically. They introduced the animals that were not a native to the U.S. Right, right. And this didn't happen in Asia where they started to... So wait, okay, so this is all this trade that has kind of brought the Western ways to foreign land. Well, all over the world, all over the world. All over the world. So we're concentrating on Asia. I just wanna say, you know, like I'm gonna just zip through like centuries just to compare to the past. So it sounded like back then, people were there for trade for curiosities of things that they didn't understand. But then at what point did it start turning into what we know travel as today? As in some people wanna just go and sit on a beach and go to a fancy resort and not care anything about culture, just stay in the bubble in the nice hotel. Versus back then when it was really kind of a genuine cultural experience because that was the way of travels to be... Yeah, yeah, that was happening all the time. So along this continuum, hotels were beginning to develop and so on so forth. But I think the big change that happened was in the period between the Napoleonic Wars in 1871 and the First World War in 1914, the belly pop in Europe when they had the first era of peace which was unheard of in Europe. At that time, the Swiss, I mean, the celebrities started traveling to Switzerland to enjoy the alpine air and stars and wellness and so on and so forth. And because celebrities wanted things to be just so, luxury hotels came into being in Switzerland and the Swiss being a perfectionist and wonderful hoteliers which they still are because they have the legendary hotels because things work like clockwork. So the Swiss took that and raised this to a totally different level. And this made people having to go to Switzerland to learn at Swiss schools to learn the art of hoteliering. And now over the years what happened is the Swiss and based on the options of the Germans and so forth, they brought their hoteliering knowledge and supplanted it in Asia. They planted it in Asia. So they might have discovered the case. They took over and they also hired Western people to run those top-notch hotels. To reinforce their comfort. Right. They wanted the knowledge and the work of the professionals. They brought in the people from the West. And also because most of the travelers were the Western privileged people so they're catering to that, right? So then that also reinforces the discrimination against the non-Western travelers who happen to be there who may have probably, I imagine even today when people of color go to certain fancy hotels, there is still that lens on okay, well can you pay for this? What kind of background, you know, there is that kind of discriminating instinct in a lot of top-notch hotels. So can you tell us a little bit about that and how kind of that Western privilege kind of played into that whole concept of this hierarchy of travel? Well, the first great hotels in this part of the world, maybe there was the Grand in Calcutta. This was in the 1800s, early 1900s. And then there was the ENO started by the Sartes Brothers in Penang. That was the first great Grand hotel. The Arminian Brothers. And then they went on to do the Strand in Yangon and the Raffles, Singapore. And you guys got the hotel. The Singapore thing and that's still an iconic drink, I mean. Yes, yes, they go to the long bar. Was they cook a long bar? At the long bar. Yes. So that's when these great hotels came in. And all these hotels were managed by Swiss officers, Germans who had gone to the Swiss school and they did it with Swiss quick. And in a sense, what was happening was they brought with them prejudices. I mean, I won't say prejudices or discrimination, it just happened that way. It was a touch-proof difference. They had a different way of observing things. It became a prejudice at a later point and then they crossed over. And essentially what was happening is that the precision of hoteliering, like much as their watches and so on and so forth, came into Asia and then it married with Asian hospitality, which was very warm. And that created something in Asia, the Asian hospitality ideal, which is something the world tries for because hoteliering and Asian hospitality is unrivaled. It's unrivaled, both in terms of the quality of the product and the quality of the service. I think even till today. But around that continuum, that continuum, as you went from the early arrivals going up to the great hotels like the peninsula in Hong Kong and great hotels in Hawaii, they were slowly adjusting to the Asian or the non-Western milieu. Now I've met several hoteliers over the last 40 years, they find hotels, all they nice people. But in the early days, in the 70s and the 80s, whenever you spoke to a hotelier and say, where did your guests come from? You said very proudly, my guests are all German and American and English. So the idea was I had no brown people at my hotel. Of course, the owner was very happy because as you said, these Western eyes or the Western travelers brought money. They were money starters, so they had the cash. So the hotels followed the cash, not necessarily the color of the skin. So exactly, so look at Hawaii now. It used to be Japanese, but now the Chinese are coming in. And so they're the ones who are spending money and it's a very interesting kind of a reversal. No, yes, it is, I mean, in other places, I mean, the Japanese became number one, then the Koreans became number one. I remember flying through Guam at one point in the 80s, maybe, and Japan was obviously the top customer. And the Japanese would be ripped off left, right, center. So it was just money. And the duty free at the airport had English certain prices. On one side of the island, the other side is Japanese and all the Japanese ran there because of the Japanese. It's still 30% more or 40% more. I mean, it's blatant, blatant. And we were laughing because Japanese just buy here and they pointed the sign in Japanese and they woke up to it. Southern people have treated people of all color and all nationalities to sign in memorials, even in Marco Polo style. Yeah, but even today, can I share a small story? But when I used to travel to China with my husband, we both have US passports, but at that time, there were an increasing amount of local Chinese women who were catering to the Western guests who were traveling to these hotels and they're trying to crack down on these women who are going into these rooms with these men. So here I am looking Asian and I go in with my husband to check in. They see our passports but they still say, I'm sorry, she can't check in with you. So, it's really interesting because their assumption is seeing me as an Asian as a potential maybe prostitute because that was the norm of these Asian women who are hanging around these nice Western hotels, right? So during that, that lends on that kind of cultural expectations from the local side of what the Westerners would bring in or might want to indulge in. I don't know, I think it's really interesting. Well, that's practices dying out, I'm glad to say. Obviously, you don't look like a lady of the night by any means, you're part of the business so that's lovely as you are. But even in Vietnam, and I understand your China example but things like that have happened with me, I walk in with staff and they're not only you, I say, hang on, we're going to a meeting. This is my team. All in Vietnam, where Asian women manage to Westerners are barred, lift and told home, you have to register, you have to pay, you know, I'm the wife. So there's all sorts of thinking about business. But that's dying out because that was the local characters beginning to figure out what's happening. But all this is done with the hotel's connivance because all the ladies in Piffon and flipping in and out at night at all times, it's all done with the hotel's connivance. I mean, we make them register separately and they turn a blind eye, they don't judge you for a night, all that happens. And that hotel's made money. You know, I'll give you an example. So I don't know the name hotel but let's say the Grand Hyatt of Singapore, which is a hotel everybody knows, now the Grand Hyatt of Singapore, it's not a naughty hotel, very nice hotel, it's just come to a remake, it will be launched next year. But it's fabulous space. But one of the things that brought business transfers to Grand Hyatt of Singapore, and this is through many places, you know, there's lots of hotels, Shangri-La and others, there has to be a night club. And Grand Hyatt had the brick which has rhythm and blues music and very good music. And we all went there after our pre-work to have a drink and socialize and move on. But then these places attracted working ladies. Of course. I wish you would refer to them as, having quite well-dressed and speaking as well. And they're coming for a drink and these clubs don't mind if ladies come because when the ladies come, the men come through with it. And when men come, they're then prefer to stay at a hotel close by if not this hotel itself. Through the cycle of action and interaction, they said normal women were getting tough at brick. They shut it down, they drop women. And you know what happened? What? The guest of the hotel plummeted it. Right, I was going to say, it's directly sex, desire, pleasure, travel, intercultural mixing all comes together under the name of capitalism. Like everybody, it's all about the business, isn't it? I mean, that's how we, that's what hotels started, right? It's all about the business. So here's- So your challenge is very big for that. And unfortunately still, because there's so much more to talent. But I mean, that has become a big thing. I mean, everybody goes there for a bachelor party. Yeah, no, the sexual industry is a very interesting, another topic that I would love to indulge in that for just a whole nother show, right? Maybe we could put it up for a good time. But in our short couple of minutes left, how was your, if we're going to bring it back to context to today's travel? You mentioned off air before that even the management is slowly shifting. You see people from their own countries representing higher management now, which wasn't a case before. So how do we kind of look at travel in Asia and how colonialism has impacted how we see travel today? Okay, again, partly it's the passage of time when people are more educated, we've grown up and we know more about our work. And partly it's capitalism, again, price is constant. So if a hotel can hire a deeper DM, they will. And at one point it was fashionable to go to local countries or other parts of Asia because you could get someone deeper than a Swiss person or an Austrian or something. I mean, I'm not saying that that is policy. I mean, that would be rude and presumptuous to me. But ultimately, just as in hotels, all of a sudden you've got Asian servers and all of a sudden Singapore suddenly, local people don't want to work as waiters or waitresses. So you employ the Filipinos and there are such good hostesses and they're terrific. Then the Filipinos become expensive or the Chinese are cheaper. So they bring in mainland Chinese because they speak the same language that they fit in it. But those ladies are also like the fitting police are looking for a husband. They come into Singapore and they come, everybody but they all have an agenda. And suddenly everyone was a boyfriend or a boss. So that interaction is happening everywhere. But in hotels in Asia, with the advent of Asian general managers and not just Asian general managers, maybe women's general managers and maybe general managers have completely changed the tone of things because they operate in a very different way. They brought issue to the operation and hospitality is all about relationships and about people. And what the Westerners were very good at doing was keeping their cool and managing the time. AJ, sorry we're to break you off but we're out of time but you have just mentioned so many important aspects of the evolution of travel and how you incorporated the different kind of communities, different cultures, different genders that have kind of modernized the concept of traveling. So I appreciate all your insights into this and hopefully we have another chance to talk about other aspects of tourism but really appreciate this conversation. I hope people take away this kind of boundary breaking historical changes of the concept of tourism with a colonial perspective. So thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for having me on. Thank you.