# Souvenirs for tourists



## PABLO DE SOTO

Here in Spain there are lots of souvenir shops for tourists.
These  shops are full of items a Spaniard would never buy, but these objects are supposedly typical Spanish.
The existence of these shops makes me think that there are people who buy them but many times I wonder who does it.
My question is , is it customary in your culture to buy in souvenir shops when you travel abroad?


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## TraductoraPobleSec

Mexican hats are the worst example of souvenirs here in Barcelona. We locals cannot figure out why would a tourist go back to his or her country having bought a Mexican hat in la Rambla here in Barcelona! As Pablo points out, we consider many of these items to be very tacky and would never buy them ourselves. However, I have to confess I buy little things when I travel to other places. The last thing I acquired was a piece of pottery in Lisbon, but then I made sure it was a genuine Portuguese item.
The tackiest souvenir I've ever seen was in the Republic of San Marino: Jesus on the cross all covered in shiny blue glitter. When I saw it I could not believe it and wondered who on earth would buy that.


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## scotu

TraductoraPobleSec said:


> The tackiest souvenir I've ever seen was in the Republic of San Marino: Jesus on the cross all covered in shiny blue glitter. When I saw it I could not believe it and wondered who on earth would buy that.


Some people collect "tacky" and are really proud of their success in finding the world´s tackiest thing. I can out-tacky your blue glitter Jesus. I saw a Jesus-on-a-cross wearing a Santa Clause suit (or maybe it was a crucified Santa?)

scotu


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## The Scrivener

I avoid buying tacky souvenirs.  My best purchases were in Mallorca - some beautiful hand-painted tiles and some small, oven-proof dishes for cooking individual starters.

Lots of Brits buy those attractive house number tiles (from Spain, I believe).  They are much clearer than the conventional metal/plastic numbers on the front door.

Example

The French enamel house numbers are popular too.


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## kelt

I have been always wondering why there are so many dwarf-sellers along the Czech-German borded and then I found out. Germans think dwarfs are traditional goods in the Czech Republic and Czechs, on the other hand, think that dwarfs are what German tourists want - so they sell them.
Wonderful how business can flourish sometimes, fueled by mutual misunderstanding...


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## cuchuflete

Lobsters.  Lighthouses. Moose.

My village attracts lots of tourists who buy all sorts of tacky items with those three things on them.
For local people, lobsters—the people who catch them call them _bugs_—are food, not cultural icons.  Lighthouses
are utilitarian.  Moose are a hazard to cars and people, and smell very bad up close.  The easiest way to get close to a moose is after it has jumped in front of a car.  That typically destroys the car and the moose, and the resulting bloody mess and twisted sheet metal are not items a tourist would find appealing.

Do people buy such nonsense because of good marketing of a local image, or because the buyers are tasteless and tacky individuals?  I don't know.  

Many tourists from my country buy similarly stupid, tacky items when they travel abroad.  I don't understand why. Visitors from abroad return the favor by purchasing inane garbage when they come here.  I don't understand that either.


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## samanthalee

cuchuflete said:


> Many tourists from my country buy similarly stupid, tacky items when they travel abroad.  I don't understand why. Visitors from abroad return the favor by purchasing inane garbage when they come here.  I don't understand that either.



For one thing, it is impolite to not bring back something for friends and family when returning from a trip abroad.
And given the bulldozing progress of globalization, the really useful stuff created/manufactured/invented in one part of the world will turn up in all other parts of the world within seconds. It will be rather weird to buy useful foreign stuff as souvenirs when the same said foreign stuff can be bought at the local mall. So we ended up buying the useless foreign stuff that no one in the right mind will import. 

I've no idea what tourists bring back from Singapore. Probably the little figurines of the Merlion and T-shirts that proclaim Singapore is a "fine" city.


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## Vagabond

It makes sense that tourists would buy stuff that locals wouldn't even dream of touching. Why would someone buy an item that only serves as a "been there, done that" from his own locality? Of course you've been there, you live there! 

Apart from that - if I ever come to your native village, cuchuflete, I will probably be tempted to buy something moose-related; see, I have never seen a moose. To me, it is somewhat exotic (I use the word loosely). To you of course, it is exactly what you described above, it's part of your life.

People buy stuff I see as useless and ugly all the time in Greece. To them, it's something to remind them of the time they spent there, something representative of the place they visited. Of course, why people would buy Mexican hats in Spain, beats me.


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## ireney

Why would a Greek buy an ouzo in a bottle trying to look like an ancient Greek amphora? If he wants to see an amphora he goes to the nearest museum. And bringing one home to mom will probably result in her asking if he thinkgs she so decrepit she can't go to a museum 

In other words there are precious few non-tacky things that are cheep enough to buy for the whole family (and friends often enough believe you me) that practically scream that they come from country X. Now if you have enough time you can look around and find nice mementos to buy. If you don't mind giving long explanations or the people you are buying them for know a thing or two about that country they may not even be of the LOOK AT ME I AM FROM X kind  If not, you go for tacky I think. At least that's what I've gathered from personal experience (meaning my travels -it's not only from outside the country you have to bring back mementos you know- and from friends I've accompanied in shopping for things to bring home).


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## kinia22

souvenirs should symbolize the country which they come from. It is not to accept when we buy some souvenir and found it was made in China (and we didn't bought it in China!)...


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## TraductoraPobleSec

Do you know what, guys? This tacky souvenir business has not that much to do with the final buyer but with the makers and sellers: it's their fault they're available to buy! 

I told you about that Jesus on the cross covered in glitter I saw in San Marino: I am not a Christian myself but thought it was actually offensive. Same as the Santa that Scotu saw. And yes, as Ireney points out, there is plenty of nice things one can take back home. I always buy food when I am abroad and then enjoy it when I am back in Barcelona. Two weeks ago I bought the best cheese you could think of in Portugal in a real Portuguese store where locals go and do their grocery shopping. I love visiting markets and grocery stores in other countries, so that you get to learn the local food habits.

As for Mexican hats in Barcelona: again, it's the fault of those who started selling them... And of course, I have nothing against Mexican hats!  But it's like buying a kilt in New York and walking down Fifth Avenue wearing it.


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## The Scrivener

I've just remembered that in the UK a favourite purchase of holiday makers is the dreaded tea-towel, for drying the dishes. They are light and easy to carry home. They usually have a map of the area, or a printed picture of the place itself and bear the legend, "A souvenir of xxxxxxxx" or "Greetings from xxxxxxxxxxx". I have been given quite a few of these. As someone who lets the dishes dry naturally, I keep them tucked away in a drawer. However, should the giver announce that they are about to visit then out comes the tea-towel, dampened and displayed in all its glory.

Souvenir buying was very fashionable in the Victorian era when seaisde holidays became popular. The most popular item was "crested china ware". This came in all forms but was mainly miniature jugs or vases bearing the town's crest and motto. The most famous maker was W.H. Goss. Today these antiques are highly sought after and I have a fine collection of my own.


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## TraductoraPobleSec

Again, let me just point out that I consider the best souvenirs those things that you buy in regular stores where you know that locals go. I am a regular of Sardinia and would never buy pasta in the stores for tourists (I've even seen blue dyed pasta!) I go to the supermarket and buy it there. Same with coffee or cheese.

As for tea towels, dear Scrivener, you may let the dishes to dry, but you have to reckon they're not that bad as a souvenir since they have a use, unlike certain items.

It'd be cool to see a collection of tacky items, just for fun.


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## alexacohen

Hello everyone.
Freezing cold here and tackiest item for tourists only I´ve seen so far is the Eiffel Tower in golden plastic with a clock built inside it.
It´s everywhere, and is bought widely, or so it seems. 
I usually buy food at the local markets, but not fancy wrapped food. You are not buying pasta, or croissants, or watever, you are just paying for the wrapping paper.


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## steffiegomez

cuchuflete said:


> Lobsters. Lighthouses. Moose.
> 
> My village attracts lots of tourists who buy all sorts of tacky items with those three things on them.
> For local people, lobsters—the people who catch them call them _bugs_—are food, not cultural icons. Lighthouses
> are utilitarian. Moose are a hazard to cars and people, and smell very bad up close. The easiest way to get close to a moose is after it has jumped in front of a car. That typically destroys the car and the moose, and the resulting bloody mess and twisted sheet metal are not items a tourist would find appealing.
> 
> Do people buy such nonsense because of good marketing of a local image, or because the buyers are tasteless and tacky individuals? I don't know.
> 
> Many tourists from my country buy similarly stupid, tacky items when they travel abroad. I don't understand why. Visitors from abroad return the favor by purchasing inane garbage when they come here. I don't understand that either.


I just saw this afternoon a car hit by a moose a minute before we passed, so I realised moose are not that fun, as I saw at many souvenir little shops all around the Maine coast. The lobsters and lighthouses are _Made in China_, not in Maine. The perfect souvenir is something handcrafted in the place you visit. As a strange example, you can find Virgenes de Guadalupe made in China when you visit the Basilica de Guadalupe in Mexico City...
Very hard to find nice, original, handcrafts that people will not throw away when you bring it to them as a gift.


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## Chaska Ñawi

That "made in China" label is ubiquitous here, especially on pseudo-native items.  You can buy little resin Sioux Indians in war bonnets (the only Sioux presence in Ontario was the occasional encroachment into Cree territory), dream catchers with day-glo chicken feathers, little plastic teepees, totem poles adorned with dyspeptic eagles, the whole sad works.  I live near the border in a tourist zone, so get exposed to a hideous array of Thousand Islands memorial junk, none of it made in Canada, let alone locally.  The T-shirts are the least offensive; I do send the odd one overseas.

One store in town, attached to a small museum, does sell artesanal work (mostly jewellery) and coffee table books produced locally.  It's an island in a sea of tacky tourist shops.  The entire town is a wonderful example of what happens when lack of vision is combined with lack of urban planning: the main road is lined for miles with motels, souvenir stands, mini-golf, and fast-food joints, all unconnected by sidewalks.


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## Sepia

TraductoraPobleSec said:


> Do you know what, guys? This tacky souvenir business has not that much to do with the final buyer but with the makers and sellers: it's their fault they're available to buy!
> 
> 
> As for Mexican hats in Barcelona: again, it's the fault of those who started selling them... And of course, I have nothing against Mexican hats!  But it's like buying a kilt in New York and walking down Fifth Avenue wearing it.



They do wear kilts at cops' or military persons' funerals, don't they? I think I saw that in some movie with Steven Seagal or Clint Eastwood.

Anyway:

Karl Marx did not believe what you say, and neither do I: If nobody would buy that stuff it would not be produced - those are not items that anone need and buy because there is nothing else available, right. 

I see that stuff several times a year where I go in Spain and somebody seems to be buying it. I have no idea who.

Same thing up here, only there is less of it. 

And you probably know the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen - the two sons of the artist who were lawyers did not have to do anything all their lives except collect royalties and sue those who did not pay them vuluntarily. Royalties of every post card and every stupid little souvenir with the mermaid on it. 

They were pretty wealthy, and it IS an important business. 

In Scandinavia tourists buy these stupid helmets with horns on them, although Vikings were never proven to ever have had decorations like that on their protective wear.


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## Horazio

It's the same thing all around the world !
I live in Venice, it's full of these shops ,full of these tacky souvenirs...

Tackiest item : *the (plastic) venecian gondola*     -  it's so tacky , it's not even funny, seriously


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## tinlizzy

I loath to tell people I'm going away on vacation because at least one person will say bring me back a shot glass. UGH!! 

How about the big green foam Statue of Liberty crown that you wear on your head.

There is the other extreme though where people take things they ought nought for souvenirs. Like coral, plants & seeds, fruits with non-native insects.....


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## TraductoraPobleSec

Horazio said:


> It's the same thing all around the world !
> I live in Venice, it's full of these shops ,full of these tacky souvenirs...
> 
> Tackiest item : *the (plastic) venecian gondola* - it's so tacky , it's not even funny, seriously


 
You're right, Horazio. Venice is no doubt one of the most beautiful places on earth and would definitely be much nicer without all the souvenir stores. I wonder what all the Dogues from the Renaissance or Vivaldi would say about all this. 

I've been to the Veneto region a few times and it's surprising how different Venice is from Treviso or Verona, let's say, where stores are of much higher quality.


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## Chaska Ñawi

PABLO DE SOTO said:


> My question is , is it customary in your culture to buy in souvenir shops when you travel abroad?



Many of us, including yours truly, forgot Pablo's original question and went off on a tangent about tacky souvenirs.  I'm sorry, Pablo - I'll answer your question now.

Yes, indeed, Canadians seem to haunt souvenir shops.  Our family receives way too many tacky souvenirs at Christmas from family members who've been travelling.  We may hate souvenir shops in our own towns, but we'll be sucked into souvenir shops to buy postcards and it seems that the rot sets in from that point on.  Where the souvenir was made doesn't seem to be as important as where it was bought.

Some souvenirs become cult items.  A milk co-op in Prince Edward Island started up an ice cream store called Cows.  After a while they began selling T-shirts with cute puns.  By now it is de rigeur to buy a Cows shirt if you travel to PEI, whether or not you buy an ice cream cone; and you can now buy your Cows shirt in several other North American cities if you need to update your collection.

(When I was fifteen I bought a lurid lime-green polyester scarf in Stratford-on-Avon, with loudly coloured pictures local buildings in each corner.)


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## Etcetera

I love souvenirs, magnets and other trinkets - and I always buy something to remind me of my stay in this or that city. In our flat in Moscow, there are also several souvenirs from our home city - St Petersburg. 

When my friends travel abroad, they always buy a lot of souvenirs, not only for themselves, but for relatives and friends as well.


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## Horazio

I don't think that buying souvenirs is culture-specific.
Maybe the way you give the gifts or the quantity or maybe the occasion...


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## alexacohen

Horazio said:


> I don't think that buying souvenirs is culture-specific.
> Maybe the way you give the gifts or the quantity or maybe the occasion...


 
Yesss.... My grandmother was Polish; my first husband half Portuguese half French; my first cousins are Australian and English; my aunts are Belgian, Dutch, English (again), Moroccan, Unitedstatesian. My godaughters are Irish. My best friend, Argentinian.
All of us bring presents for everyone else whenever we go somewhere. Irish breakfast tea from Ireland, for instance .
Just my family?
Maybe.
But you have to acknowledge there is a whole bunch of cultures in my lot...


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## avok

Vagabond said:


> It makes sense that tourists would buy stuff that locals wouldn't even dream of touching. Why would someone buy an item that only serves as a "been there, done that" from his own locality? Of course you've been there, you live there!


 
I totally agree with you. "Souvenirs", as its name indicates, are to remember. They don't have to serve as anything other than "been there, done that", if they do, that is even better. 

By the way not all souvenirs are tacky, I bought a coffe cup on which there is one of those art works of Gaudi, while I was in Barcelona and I still use it and it still reminds me of my sunny Barcelona and the Catalan spirit within.


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## Naule

The same as for Mexico hats in Barcelona, goes for matroshkas in Riga. This is something completely Russian and I sometimes wonder what tourists think about them. But- amber, linen and those "dolls"are very populear, although we use something very different here and never buy from souvenir sellers/shops. (maybe except amber)


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## badgrammar

And every trip to Turkey inevitably results in several souvenirs feauturing "nazar boncuk" - the blue eye that "wards off evil", and is so famous in Turkey.  You find everywhere, and although probably few Turks today really believe in their power, you will not find many Turks who don't have atleast one or two, in some form.  Usually I'll buy one large eye, or bracelets or necklaces of the small nazar boncuk beads, or tiny ones on safety pins (traditionally you pin them inside your clothing or on a baby's undersirt to protect him).  This time I also bought  disposable lighters  with  the eyes on them, and one red one with the Turkish flag!  Maybe it will protect me from lung disease !!!

But the other things I saw in souvenir shops that the naive traveler might think of as Turkish are the same items you see in similar shops in India, Morocco, Mexico...  Such as (fairly nice) glass lanterns or cloth lampshades or narguile (water pipes).  But of course you can buy all sorts of very tacky items as well if you really want to!

In Paris it's always the ubiquitous miniature eiffel tower or the "I love Paris" t-shirt/sweatshirt/umbrella/mug.

I agree with the person who wrote that the best thing to do is go to a local grocery store, a street market or even a pharmacy, and you can buy tins of specialty foods, soaps, and not-too-expensive creams/oils/lotions that locals use (that have a special "exotic caché" simply because the labels are written in the local language). You can also find lots herbs, spices, ambergris,  handmade pillowcases or shawls...  

I guess with all the great and interesting products you can buy in almost every country, I really cannot understand why folks take home stuff that is made only for tourists and that no one in the country would ever use???. 



avok said:


> I totally agree with you. "Souvenirs", as its name indicates, are to remember. They don't have to serve as anything other than "been there, done that", if they do, that is even better.
> 
> By the way not all souvenirs are tacky, I bought a coffe cup on which there is one of those art works of Gaudi, while I was in Barcelona and I still use it and it still reminds me of my sunny Barcelona and the Catalan spirit within.



P.S. A Gaudi mug is probably very nice, and I would not put that in the category of tacky souvenirs - now if it said "I (Heart) Barcelona", that would  be another story!


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## alexacohen

avok said:


> I totally agree with you. "Souvenirs", as its name indicates, are to remember. They don't have to serve as anything other than "been there, done that", if they do, that is even better.


 
But souvenirs are better found in non-souvenir shops for tourists. There is one tee shirt with a slogan: "My friend went to ..... and the only thing I got was this lousy T-shirt".
I saw it first in the shops for tourists in Santiago de Compostela. I saw exactly the same t-shirt in Paris, Athens, Jerusalem, Brighton, Galway, Monastir, Amsterdam... these shops are made for people who don't really care about either the country they're visiting, or the people they're buying the present for.


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## Black Opal

I seem to remember that no home was complete in Britain in the 1960s without a Spanish dancer doll. My grandmother had one. She also had a Matador and a bull to complete the set. 
I have no idea where she got them, as she never went to Spain.
This leads me to believe that someone brought it back for her. 
Indeed, Spain was a popular destination when the package tour first started, and the Spanish dancer doll did seem to be the most popular item.

Now of course we are more sophisticated  and mostly bring back wines and hundreds of digital memories, which keep us busy for a few hours when we get back.

Having said that, I  just came back from Alberobello in Puglia, and brought back two small replica trulli, both packed and sealed in two boxes. 
Both had broken en route  so I was very pleased that I also brought back a silver trullo for my charm bracelet.

I think it's a nice custom to bring something characteristic back with you. From Venice, for example, it doesn't have to be a naff plastic gondola that plays 'O Sole Mio' (which is a Napoletan song anyway); it can be some very beautiful handblown glassware or beads, or lace.

Whether a souvenir is tacky or not depends a lot on the taste of the buyer/giver.


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## Número Uno

The point of buying a souvenir is to have it as a memory of the country you were in. You're not going to go on a holiday and bring back a vacuum cleaner or something uncharacteristic of that country. This is why the majority of souvenirs are objects which are stereotypical of the culture of that country e.g. the gondola for Venice, the Eiffel Tower for France, sombreros for Mexico. Let's face it, tourists use stereotypes. Tourists aren't in a country long enough to spend time learning about its culture and realising that not everyone in France has a framed picture of the Eiffel Tower hanging over their toilet, and not everyone in Ireland has a Guinness glass in their cupboard. Of course natives aren't going to buy these 'typically French/Spanish/X/Y' things, why would they?

It's just how tourism works, it's business. I know stereotypes aren't 100% true but they exist for a reason, so they must have some relevance to culture, and this is what makes tourists believe that when they purchase a fridge magnet of a bull or a towel with a map of Italy on it, they are buying something authentic. I'm not defending the occasions when it is taken to the extremes, however e.g. when someone said they saw a souvenir of Santa nailed to the cross :-/


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