south africa
colonialism was always corporate
I’m back from South Africa! Today’s post will be a little bit different—more on the travel writing side. I’ve found that one of the more mystifying parts of life is figuring out how one likes to vacation and/or travel—after years trying out combinations of reading in various beautiful locales, partying, eating everything I can get my hands on, hiking, and solo/coupled/group traveling, I’m close to identifying what my perfect vacation looks like.1
And South Africa was pretty damn near perfect. Not just because it has gorgeous vistas of mountains that dive suddenly into the bluest waters, but because South Africa was like the dress. If you’re over the age of 20, you likely recall the dress that launched a thousand debates in 2015 over what colors a simple dress was—white & gold or blue & black? How could one dress evoke such discordant perceptions among people? And what the hell does that have to do with South Africa?
white & gold.
South Africa is home to both exorbitant luxury and stunning poverty. Out of all countries in the world, South Africa has the highest Gini coefficient, a measure of wealth inequality in a group. In a country where everyone has the same income and wealth, the Gini coefficient would be 0; in a society where one individual has all of the wealth and everyone else has none, the Gini coefficient would be 1.
South Africa has a Gini coefficient of 0.63—double that of South Korea (0.314),2 whose own income inequality gave rise to spectacular commentaries on class disparity through movies such as Snowpiercer and Parasite. If you land in Cape Town International Airport and take an Uber to Cape Town, you’ll drive by the populous townships where the apartheid government ferried non-white residents of Cape Town after designating certain parts as “whites-only” areas in 1950.
These townships are home to millions of South Africans, many of whom lived from birth under the oppressive apartheid regime until its end in the early 1990s. Living conditions range from formal brick-and-mortar houses to shacks built out of whatever materials are available—often wood boards, metal scraps with indents like crinkle-cut fries, blue tarp held down by bricks for waterproofing. Electricity and running water—which, yes, is necessary for flushing toilets—are not guaranteed.
Nathaniel and I had signed up for an “urban explorers” tour, expecting to see some notable graffiti and walk around downtown Cape Town. Instead, our group of five—me, Nathaniel, an older man from Cape Cod, and our two guides—biked through Khayelitsha, a township with approximately 3 million residents. (Despite its size, our guides greeted 95% of the residents who were outside at the time. “We started this company in my bedroom,” one of the guides explained, “Even though we live really close to each other, it still takes half an hour to walk because you have to stop and chat with everyone along the way.”)
In everything—the tours, the art, the street names—the history of colonialism weighs heavily on South Africa, and colonialism weighs heavily on South Africa still. First, there were the Dutch. Then came the British. And then apartheid. When I asked a guide whether he considered the United States to be a colonizer, he said, “Of course. America is like the Frankenstein’s monster of Europe. Coming in with their KFCs and McDonald’s where the marketplaces used to be.”
He’s not wrong. We often talk about the British colonies and the Dutch colonies of yore as if they were pure government expansion projects, but that’s not quite right. The Dutch colonizers of South Africa, for example, were affiliated with the Dutch East India Company—a state-backed corporation. The British colonized India through the British East India Company. It seems obvious when I say it, but I had somehow overlooked how much capitalism was inextricably tied with colonialism.
These days, corporate colonialism is all grown up—corporate offices instead of early settlements; phones and timesheets instead of whips; Excel spreadsheets instead of hand-drawn maps. Rather than explicit plundering of foreign lands, colonialism masquerades as “job opportunities,” enticed by the simple truth that poverty is big business. “The U.S.,” our guide continued, “They see us as consumers, a nation of consumers. They don’t see us as producers.”
blue & black.
The exchange rate between the South African rand and the U.S. dollar is 18:1, meaning that it felt like Black Friday all day, every day, for every thing. At a lush vineyard in Stellenbosch, a wine region east of Cape Town, I tried to order a glass of wine for 90 rand. The attendant looked at me, confused. “We don’t sell wine by the glass,” she said.
“You mean… that’s the price for a bottle?” I realize how dumb I probably sounded, but I had indeed found a dumb. $5 for an entire bottle of wine.
Still, some things in South Africa were every bit as pricey as I had come to expect from the U.S. After hearing so much about how we needed to do safari while in South Africa, I booked a safari lodge recommended by a friend—clocking in at a whopping 11,000 rand ($611) per person per night. It was the most “reasonably priced” lodge in the area, according to my friend and the lodge itself. (Sir Richard Branson’s private game reserve lodge nearby, Ulusaba, would have charged approximately $783 per person per night for the “smallest” room. In between oohing at a sleeping leopard in a tree and aahing at a days-old baby elephant running after their mom, we drove past Ulusaba’s private airplane tarmac.)
Upon arrival at Inyati, we received lemonade served in champagne glasses and an itinerary of daily events. Lunch was available whenever we were ready, and tea would be served at 3:30pm before the 4pm evening safari. We’d get back at 7, change for a three-course dinner at 7:30, and go to bed. A staff member would knock on our doors at 5am the next morning to wake us up for the morning safari. (Their job is to keep knocking until you wake up.) At 5:30am, pastries and yogurt and tea and coffee would be available. From 6-9am, we would be driven by our guides through the bush, getting within twelve feet of flirting lions (it was mating season for the two we found) and buffalos whose bodies were adorned with tiny birds eating the ticks and bugs off of them.3 Breakfast—a hot breakfast buffet along with made-to-order plates upon request—was promptly served at 9:30am before guests had “free time” before lunch and the start of another cycle.
Nathaniel declared the safari lodge to be “adult daycare.” Our schedules were meticulously planned out, and the staff reduced what little frictions remained. Basic wine and alcoholic beverages were available without charge; meals were included and didn’t require advance ordering; the restaurant manager even took issue with the fact that I had picked up my empty plate to hand over to him. (“Oh, please don’t do that,” he told me, and I put the plate back down only to have him pick it up and whisk it away.)
At every snack time and meal, I tried to guess what the other guests did for economic work, such that they were able to afford this extended stay in adult daycare. At dinner, a British couple asked us what our parents did for a living before complaining about Cambridge and Oxford not admitting “qualified students from private schools” in favor of “someone a little less qualified from a [public] school.” I wondered if the other guests could smell that we were frauds in the unique way that the extremely rich can quickly suss out outsiders:
Why? Because she’s brought a ludicrously capacious bag. What’s even in there? Flat shoes for the subway? Her lunch pail? Greg, it’s monstrous. It’s gargantuan. You could take it camping. You could slide it across the floor after a bank job.
- Succession 4x01
We quickly confirmed our Bridget Random-fuck status to everyone the next day by checking out after one night. We had exhausted the “splurge” part of our vacation, in more ways than one.
🔖 open tabs
The proposed TikTok ban is about much more than just privacy or data security. This PBS NewsHour is a great (and short!) summary of the situation, and I give my own take on the proposal in this week’s episode of Sense & Sensitivity (Apple). The Congressional hearing last week with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was, as with most Congressional hearings related to tech, embarrassing for Congress. And even if the ban does get passed, there are serious legal obstacles to implementing the ban, such as the First Amendment.
I’ve always admired comedic writers (probably because I don’t consider myself funny at all), and Caity Weaver’s account of a a millennial-focused package trip promising to build “meaningful friendships” cracked me up. It’s hard to get travel writing right—it risks veering into excessive navel-gazing—but Caity has clearly gotten the artform down.
So much good TV is back on!! Yellowjackets, Ted Lasso… I have been living for the Succession memes, and here’s a favorite from the one and only:
For now. I suspect that, like all other preferences throughout life, this will change several times over the course of my life, particularly once I have kids.
Apparently vehicles resemble moving rocks or trees to most of the animals, so the especially ferocious ones aren’t tempted to attack. If we stood up or reached a limb out, though…
this is amazing cece. i loved this. keep writing — you're an absolute joy to read
I like the piece! when you publish the book, consider doing a audiobook version too :) i'll listen to it 😁