Is it time to retire ‘Venice of the East’?

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But greater than a century later, these metaphors persist. Blog posts nonetheless dissect how locations “earned” the title of Venice, often for his or her canals or waterways, whereas Instagram has greater than 25,000 posts tagged #VeniceOfTheEast. At finest, such comparisons are outdated; at worst, they continue to be quietly reductive.

“Language doesn’t just name places; it shapes how we relate to them and treat them,” says Paul Meighan, a sociolinguist and researcher. “These metaphors, albeit used unintentionally at times, centre Europe as the benchmark for ‘civilisation’, framing everywhere else as derivative. They flatten specificity… a place isn’t allowed to be itself; it must be an echo or copy of somewhere else, many times decided by and reflective of a colonial power.”

Such framing, he provides, arbitrates what counts as “worth seeing”, sidelining native histories and understandings.

None of that is, after all, distinctive to Asia. Across continents, comparable language shapes how complete areas are imagined lengthy earlier than travellers arrive. Hedder Quispe Puente de la Vega, founding father of Machu Travel Peru, sees this play out frequently in his house nation. “Phrases like ‘lost civilisation’ or ‘untouched land’ make Peru and the Andes seem frozen in time, more connected to mystery than to everyday life,” he says. “These words spark curiosity, but they also simplify reality. Many [travellers] arrive expecting only ancient ruins, llamas or rituals, without realising that Andean culture is alive, modern and constantly evolving.”