We met The Lonely Planet Guy in Cambodia. Travelers dream of this sort of meeting. Casually, over a beer, getting the chance to tell the guy who wrote the book a thing or two about what it's really like out there.
The Lonely Planet Guy had just finished up the new edition and was in Cambodia working on a project for the National Geographic channel. His coworkers were Pip and Liz, freelance journalist types who had lived in Phnom Penh "in the 90s" where they had had acquaintances kidnapped and killed by the Khmer Rouge and had participated, mildly, in the looting of the new airport during the riots in 1997. We had a mutual friend from Buffalo, and spent our evenings in Siem Reap drinking Angkor Beer and talking about their National Geographic project.
They were filming an episode of Worlds Apart, "a new adventure series only on the National Geographic Channel that transplants American families into remote cultures to experience authentic lifestyles firsthand." That's the official line, later, Pip called the show "National Geographic slumming it." Basically, it's a reality TV show that tries to create situations in which some members of the American family have meaningful, filmable, cultural connections with their hosts, while others freak out and demand to go home.
The Darwins from Nashville, Tennessee, were a typical nuclear family that had never left the continental USA and had originally thought they were going to Lapland to herd reindeer. That fell through, and Pip, Liz and the LP Guy were frantically trying to get a Cambodian village ready to host the family and TV crew for 10 days of filming. In the evenings, they would discuss the "story arcs" they were developing and initiating. The Darwin boy was a little punky, he played in a basement rec room kind of band, but he was basically a good kid. The National Geographic team headed to a nearby monastery and recruited a few young monks to befriend young Master Darwin. Ideally, the monks would persuade him to shave his head and don robes at around Day 8, creating a visual confirmation of his cultural progress. And something his band mates at home would probably appreciate. Mrs. Darwin volunteered for the Poison Control Center in Nashville. A shaman/snake charmer was conjured up from nearby and was installed with a village family. On the last day of filming there would be a village feast - perhaps Mrs. Darwin could help lay charms that would keep snakes away during the festivities. Mr. Darwin was a fishing enthusiast. He could very easily accompany the men on a fishing trip into a nearby swamp. The team debated whether or not he should have gators during this adventure. The Cambodians would be in plastic flip flops, but eels and snakes and bugs were a big problem, and National Geographic didn't want to factor snake attacks into their budget. When we left, the team was still debating whether or not to put Mr. Darwin in gators, which would visually reveal him to be just playing at village life, or whether to buy gators for all the fishermen, or to call off the whole "story arc" and begin again.
The gator dilemma reveals the problems the National Geographic team faced. They needed to present the American family with an "authentic lifestyle" that was radically different and hard to deal with. But they couldn't go too far. So while they were inspecting the house where the Darwins would stay, Liz asked if the blue plastic sieve (made in China) could be replaced with something "older." The woman of the house thought for a second, and then came back with the coconut shell punched through with nail holes that she'd used before being able to buy the sieve. Liz described the villagers as living right on the first rung of development: they had some modern conveniences, but they still remembered what they'd used in the past, and they seemed to know what the film crew wanted when they asked for "older" things, more "authentic." The National Geographic team went through the house and village "authentifying" everything and everyone. They built an addition onto the host family's house and a grandmother moved in to make the contrast with the American nuclear family greater. A palm sugar press was built in the host family's front yard, so Mrs. Darwin could participate in this element of the local economy. The villagers created a space underneath one of the thatched huts for the filming equipment. They hid the TVs and computers and the mini fridge filled with beer from the camera's eye by erecting a wall of palm thatch, and placing potted plants and an old wooden wheel in front of it. It was as if they were imitating a Conde Nast Travel Magazine with pictures of rustic South East Asian getaways.
The National Geographic Worlds Apart website has an online quiz: "Wonder how you might cope in completely different cultures?" For each question, a color landscape falls into place on the page and then black and white "natives" in traditional dress pop up in the foreground. Pip and Liz and the LP guy had to find that landscape and find those "natives" and present them on TV. A little boy wearing a used Penn State T-shirt and a mother washing rice in a blue plastic sieve weren't going to fit. A family proud of the TV they were able to buy last year wasn't going to fit either. The TV had to go to a relative for 2 weeks. One of the online quiz questions is "In western Mongolia, your roast marmot dinner gave you a stomach ache. What "traditional prescriptions" is the village doctor likely to offer for you pain?" The answer is woodchuck gallbladder, but the village doctor could just as likely pull out some Pepto Bismol tablets the last trekking group left and tell you you'll be fine in the morning.
Pip objected to National Geographic cashing in on the reality TV phenomenon, but it was the unreality of their preparations that seemed like slumming it to me. To temporarily make a Cambodian village seem poorer and less developed that it is, to fool the American family into thinking they could initiate cultural connections by themselves, all for a camera and an audience back home - that's slumming.
On the other hand, the host family now has a palm sugar press that will help them make extra money for years to come. They have an extra room already built for when grandma visits. There may be a group of Cambodian men fishing in gators somewhere right now. The crew did buy a pig and throw a great feast for the whole village on the last day of filming. And it's a great story. Maybe it makes a better story for the villagers than it does for American TV.