jibi

...and it doesn't seem that the OP has any intention of returning and providing the "a few days later..." story. Yet another fly by posting on FT that spirals out 30 pages with no involvement from the OP. Someone should contact a TV production company and pitch a "Stories from FT" idea.

Here2party

I believe OP is still in Greece and hopefully will give an update when he gets back.

GUWonder

The OP has been an FTer longer than most people posting in this thread and replies to posts to some degree. That is not usually a way to get categorized as a "fly by posting" type.

Luxury hotel or not, hotels at this price level most certainly shouldn't be starting things off on the wrong foot with guests by assigning rooms with clogged bathroom drains and then ending the "service recovery" attempt with an eviction of the guest. Hotel fail.

Discussing the FTer's ethnicity (based on a name) to try to explain a situation and assign blame to (or otherwise disparage) the FTer on the basis of an ethnic name/ethnicity seems like a form of racism, no better than caste-ism. Hitherto, no one brought up that perhaps the OP got assigned a bad room because of possible racism on the part of the hotel employees/owner. Did you consider that too? I didn't even consider that possibility until this hour -- and I'd rule it out absent material indication of that sort -- for a variety of reasons including because it seemed like the hotel was making an equitable attempt at a service recovery after being flagged down by the guest for having assigned sub-par accommodations from the start. Why try to paint a picture of blame upon the OP based on ethnicity/national origin? As someone with plenty of Indian and other Asian relatives -- none of whom believe in any Orientalist-characterized caste system and most of whom live in the US or other OECD countries -- I consider the above attribution of behavior to be one based upon ethnic/national origin to be troubling.

Dr. HFH

While I am opposed to racism philosophically, there are many places in the world where it still exists, and places, as well, where it is acceptable. So rather than pretending that it doesn't exist, we're probably better off recognizing that fact. It is true that in places with a well defined caste system, some people do speak down to others and consider themselves superior because society considers them as such. Pretending that that is not the case gets us nowhere.

Flyingmama

To be fair to the hotel, we don't really know why the hotel owner kicked the OP out. We only have his version of events. Until the hotel's side of the story is made known, we can only speculate on the reasons. All we really know up to this point is that whatever happened, it made the hotel owner angry enough to evict the OP and refuse him transportation back to the airport.

I don't think that's an automatic "Hotel fail" scenario.

GUWonder

For a hotel at this price point and with its market positioning, assigning guests to a room with clogged bathroom drains is an automatic hotel fail from the start.

GUWonder

The OP is American. Trying to paint a picture based on the FTer's ethnicity or religion rubs like racism.

Would it be any better or worse to try to blame the hotel owner for something "Greek" when there are results like this in Greece? I would find such presumption unfair too. With results like that and a police force that includes a substantial proportion of members of that extreme group too, perhaps the idea of calling the nearest US Consulate/Embassy isn't all that far fetched. [It's not like the US Embassy in Greece hasn't warned Americans of non-European ethnic background(s) to beware of possible racism in Greece, even at the hands of the police force.]

scubadu

Of course the fact that FT'ers continue to be drawn these type of threads like moths to a flame, says as much about FT'ers, in general, as it does about the OP...

Regards

GUWonder

Perhaps. It probably speaks more about how posting any experience on an open internet forum may turn out to be an open door to being a target of internet sociopathy or even of offline sociopathy. The world isn't an entirely friendly place, but open hostility seems to sort of run into the open way more on the internet -- more so today when posting about bad hotel experiences than it did say in 2000 (when the OP joined FT) or 2001. Criticizing a hotel is apparently risky business around here -- more now than it used to be, more so for some than for others.

dsquared37

I seem to recollect the OP being upset with the wifi problems because they wanted to speak with parents.... at least one set of which were located in India.

GUWonder

Yes. Having parents in India -- or Indian parents -- doesn't make an American any less American.

"The OP is American. Trying to paint a picture based on the FTer's ethnicity or religion rubs like racism."

Dr. HFH

Sorry, I didn't see that the OP was American. Even so, however, as DS37 pointed out, at least one set of parents is in India, which historically does have a caste system. Doesn't mean that they're of Indian descent, I know, but it does at least raise that possibility.

As I said above, we can pretend that the world is other than it is, but that doesn't help us understand what's going on. I'm in a country where, from time to time, I see signs at the entrances of restaurants/bars which say some version of No Indians Allowed. I don't agree with that, but it's a fact here.


It's not about better or worse. It's about understanding the situation as it is. I'm in Thailand right now. Thai culture results in people tending to be non-confrontational, even when there are problems. It's not good/bad, better/worse, right/wrong; but it is something of which you need to be aware when dealing with Thais.


True, but if the OP (or spouse) was raised in India, moving to the U.S. doesn't automatically change values which have been inculcated since birth.

Also, I fear that we're straying pretty far OT; so perhaps we should consider bringing this conversation to a close lest we get dinged (justifiably) by a Mod.

GUWonder

The assumption that Indians are generally practicing casteism and that is some kind of explanation for the OP's way of complaining (however it was done) is patently ridiculous and bigoted. The "sins" of the parents are the "sins" of the son? No evidence of such, but that won't stop the stereotyping and applications of racist stereotypes.

Let's not assume that the values of parents are generally and necessarily the values of the children too -- children revolt.

The irony of the above is noticeable, given what has been going on in Thailand in recent years.

dsquared37

I have no opinion of which nationality OP adheres to nor do I care. There was mention of a set of paretns in India and there was mention of Silicon Valley. That I chimed in was solely to relate information the OP gave and nothing more should be taken from it.

Dr. HFH

Assumption? Please reread what I actually wrote.Are you suggesting that there is no casteism in India? Casteism has a long and religious based history. The Caste System. And it's still alive and well in India. Just recently, the parents of the girls who were raped and murdered accused the police of failing to respond more quickly because the families are of a lower caste. Ignore it if you like, call me bigoted if you choose (note that I didn't say that I agree with casteism); but it's reality.

We don't know where or how the OP was raised. I stand by my statement, -- parents in India raises that possibility.