The Amazing (sic) Race
Story by Lehan Winifred Ramsay
I caught about fifteen minutes of the end of a television program. Perhaps it was called The Amazing Race. Contestants were racing around global point to global point peforming tasks of little significance to the game in order to receive instructions to the next global point and at this point they rushed to a Chinese city to dress up in glamorous ancientized attire and retrieve a fish icon by jumping from a height into the gloomy aerated pool of a huge water extravaganza.
My next dream brought me what I suppose was my own version of the water extravaganza Kyoto style. The Chinese one appeared more like a casino show, and mine was I think a logical extension of the existing shrine and temple show of Kyoto and is probably only interesting to me. It involved a visit to a vista of gardens and little tea houses that were inhabited by lovely little people dressed as lords and ladies, a foot bathe in a carp pond, all documented by a famed poet by diagrams on a paper fan for use in a kind of fortune telling.
I explain that only because I am thinking that we appear to be ushering into our public life an even greater level of Make Believe historicalization. People today can buy much more fantasy extravaganza entertainment for themselves than they used to: entertainment that glorifies poverty and makes wealth look ordinary.
One of the four contestant teams found themselves unable to retrieve a fish icon and I suspect it may have been a problem of contact lenses and grubby pools. Make Believeness may turn out to be what Europe is, was, we may adjust our nations system sideways into something very new.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
When I come in from gardening and I mention I have a previously neglected acre which is a Housing SA (Trust) rental property, for a few minutes I frequently watch If You Were the One, a Chinese dating programme on SBS. It really has a difference from the equivalent of ours I have seen. The male participants looking for love and offered a line up of beautiful women to choose from make videos that are shown intended to help the girls decide their attitude towards the man. It’s like an Amazing Race for love that is pitched for between the realms of Make Believe and Fantasy. Its addictive theme jingles the changes between the programme and advertising breaks. The hosts offer commentary on the participants.
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Hi Algernon, thanks.
I think it isn’t just that wealth looks ordinary. It’s partly that expensive is presented as standard. We lose our understanding of money and cost. Reading Emm’s travel stories has been really enjoyable.
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I agree Lehan they’re a great read. Where her with two of our young adult children. Youngest is 19 and a bit wet behind the ears. Its been a joy showing her the relative value of things. Today we bought some fruit; rambutans and snakefruit. We probably paid over the odds but the fruit is so sweet and the cost a lot less than we’d pay at home. The fruit seller probably only earns a few dollars a day. Our driver asked what we call rambutans in Australia. We said rambutans we thought he asked how much we paid at home and told him around Rp200000 (about $20) a kg. His eyes nearly fell out of his head. We paid that much. No a lot less. But the point was made.
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Bogan ersatz tourism, I reckon. Hand me a yellow envelope.
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Here in Bali there were these huge billboards advertising an Australia Day shindig at some resort in Kuta. Just what you want. Spend 26/1 with thousands of your bogan mates. Even had JJJ’s hottest 100. A day in and around Ubud was much mre exiting.
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Lehan I’m in Bali at the moment and watched The Amazing Race at one of the pay channel’s where we’re staying. This one was set in India. I can only agree with what you’re saying. At least on of the teams found the whole thing quite confronting.
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