Going on tours is a must-do for me in summer or winter vacations. There is somthing profound in this tourist mentality.For one thing, the meals in airplanes signify the desire for the control over space. In Roland Barthes’ words, “the methodical filling of stomachs”off ground is to claim “the triumph of freedom over necessity.”(The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies, 142) Indeed, we can do without any meals on planes if the trip takes a couple of hours only. But it becomes a rule for passengers to be fed on planes. The image, in Barthes’formulation, is ridiculous yet precise: The meal is merely a series of discontinuous takes: we ingest, we wait, like ruminants in their stalls, passively fed according to a series of mouthfuls which sweating keepers busily and fairly distribute down a long service corridor. .”(The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies, 143) So, we as passengers are like pigs waiting to be fed by our dutiful keepers, the flight attendants. How cynical a comparison! What lies behind this is the sense of insecurity. Each time we detach ourselves from the ground, we require the guarantee of a house. Each time we travel, we experience the sense of displacement, which, in turn, engenders the the denial of constraints and desire for the freedom to control space. Therefore, traveling manifests the human illusion of transported immobility.
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