"Mama Bekin" and I in traditional Kazakh dress
Yes, I’ve talked about it at length. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kazakhstan from 2002 to 2003. I count it as one of the best experiences of my life. The Kazakh people treated me better than I deserved, and the experiences could not be duplicated by any reality TV series. And yet, “The Amazing Race” tried to prove me wrong. They failed.
I do not watch the series regularly, so I don’t know whether the show treats all foreign countries as disrespectfully as they treated Kazakhstan. They took the cast of characters to Almaty, the largest city in the country, but they ignored the modern shopping districts and state of the art telecommunications infrastructure. They chose instead to send the contestants to an open air meat market…. dressed in cow costumes.
Kazakhstani 10th graders dressed as they normally do for school
The bulk of the Kazakh people seen on screen were shown in ceremonial attire which is worn, at most, once a year. The majority of the time, people in Kazakhstan (the women in particular) dress for success, with an eye towards the latest fashion trends… even in small villages.
The contestants went to the falconry, one of the most awesome places in Kazakhstan, but the majesty of the birds was not sufficient. No, they had to be tacky and dress up the bird experts to look like Mongol warriors. To frame that in its proper racist context, that is akin to dressing up a black man as a spear-chucking cannibal.
The REAL traditional Kazakh delicacy
What amused me was the little bit of revenge the Kazakh people gave to those Americans who celebrate the “humor” of Borat. They sent teams of contestants to a restaurant where they were forced to eat bits of a sheep’s ass, which was purported to be a native Kazakh delicacy. Actually, a boiled sheep’s head is the delicacy (I should know, I sampled four of them in the first two months of my visit in the country), and the Kazakh people have an ornate ceremony wherein they divide up the head and give certain sections of it to honored guests. If memory serves, I ate cheek twice, a part of an ear once, and some brains… yes, they tasted like chicken. Sheep’s ass is not a delicacy anywhere I’m familiar with, so score one for the people of Kazakhstan.
I could go on and talk about the irony of the chickens and their relationship to George Bush (drumsticks are called “Bush legs” in Kazakhstan), but it’d be overkill. Frankly, this installment of “The Amazing Race” disturbed me. When I have had the rare opportunity to travel abroad, I have always tried to respect the native cultures and traditions. If this episode is any indication, the series delights in crapping on native cultures and traditions. How sad that we choose to present others in such a negative light, but that pales in comparison to how sad it is that we present America the way the producers and contestants did on “The Amazing Race.”
on Nov 18th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Are you on crack, or what?
on Nov 18th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Well argued, Jerry.
on Nov 19th, 2008 at 9:16 am
The asnwer to your question about how the Amazing Race treats other countries is well enough that many are clamoring to be visited by the Amazing Race for the tourism publicity it gives. Although I agree with most of your points, I bet that Kazakhstan is happy to have been chosen for an Amazing Race episode. With your thoughts about Amazing Race 13 in Kazakhstan, you’re going to love (NOT) Amazing Race 14 currently filming. There is going to be an episode in an Eastern European country with a totally fake village populated by actors. I think that’s much worse than what was done in Kazakhstan.
on Nov 19th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Now see, assuming that is true, what is the point of that? Were there no real Eastern European villages for the contestants to visit? Do they blow up the village or set it on fire or something?
I think I just need to accept that, to me, the premise of the series is inherently flawed. Others watch it and enjoy it, but I don’t need to.
on Nov 19th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
As a fan of The Amazing Race (for what it is, not for what it is not), I have to say that you’re way too quick to leap to the charge of racism. You show yourself dressed in what is presumably some form of traditional Kazakh dress, along with a woman not dressed for success. I’m curious as to why that isn’t racist. Because it’s not in Almaty?
Having people race around the world only dressing and behaving in ways that would be typical of the often Westernized cities, or at least modernized, cities of the world would be like watching paint dry. The Amazing Race goes for what is culturally distinct about a country, even though that might represent something that is dying out as common practice. It’s not really a good way to view foreign countries, really, because the “race” aspect of it makes it anything but a documentary on foreign places. They just don’t have the time to go in depth.
But racist–please.
More often than not the people looking ridiculous are the American contestants, not the locals. The editing of the show is actually pretty merciless toward contestants who really are ethnocentric and ignorant of the world, let alone racist.
Fior the record, I’m a person who travels abroad with my wife, and my wife and I do respect foreign cultures; we almost always get the same in return. I see no disrespect here. I just see somewhat who was expecting a lot of in-depth coverage of a country he is very familiar with from a reality TV show. Not gonna happen.
But if the Amazing Race is not your cup of tea, that’s fine. The racism charge crosses a line, setting yourself up as the good guy and others who disagrees as the bad ones.
on Nov 19th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
As you say, you don’t watch the series normally. If you were a regular watcher you would realize that what you saw wasn’t meant as a slight but is much of the point of the race. Modern infrastructure is modern infrastructure, period. Change the language, change a bit of ornamentation and it could be pretty hard to tell where in the world you are. It’s the traditional culture that’s interesting and what they show. If a destination is modern the task is almost certain to either be scary or involve a sport favored by the country. (Exception: The final leg generally does not follow this format as it’s mostly in the USA and there’s not a lot of local color to add.)
I can’t comment on the food they ate other than to say that what you describe would not be suitable for the race–it has to be a task where the speed is under the control of the racers, a fancy banquet would be unsuitable. Did they perhaps choose a secondary dish for this reason?
on Nov 21st, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Like or hate it, The Amazing Race is available and watched in most countries in the world: there was even a local version of The Amazing Race in Brazil and The Amazing Race Asia just completed its third season. The producers for The Amazing Race go to the countries in question and scout for suitable locations: as Loren said, modern infrastructure is not what they are looking for. They are looking for something interesting to show on TV. And as Rick pointed out, the local people are more than happy to help them out: The Amazing Race is shown, as I said, all over the world and its ratings beat any travel show on Discovery or any documentary on National geographic. The same day that The Amazing Race Asia showed contestants visiting Oman, there was a full page ad in the Taipei Times advertising holidays in Oman.
You said that dressing up Kazakhs like Mongol warriors was “akin to dressing up a black man as a spear-chucking cannibal” but that’s not quite true: the Mongols invaded the area in the 13rd century AD and, according to Wikipedia, it wasn’t until the 15th century that “a distinct Kazakh identity began to emerge among the Turkic tribes, a process which was consolidated by the mid-16th century with the appearance of a distinctive Kazakh language, culture, and economy” so it seems that Kazakhs have a dual Turkic / Mongol heritage. Perhaps they just wanted to display both. Similarly, both The Amazing Race Asia and The Amazing Race (proper) have shown “Maori warriors” dressed in traditional costumes and, seeing as how The Amazing Race Asia did it first (so I’ve been told) and that was locally produced, it’s hard to cry racism when Americans then go ahead and do the exact same thing.
Martin