Travel, Liquidity and Order in Malaysian Modernity

Abstract The transition from solid to liquid modernity has led Bauman to suggest that nowadays people have come to be like tourists living from one moment to another. Addressing this behavior as the tourist syndrome, he proposes to treat the contemporary meaning of social interaction as inseparable from the consumption of sensations and looseness of ties. This is most apparent in the case of leisure travel where the organization of escapism is premised on the excitement of rapidly changing scenery and absence of belonging. In these scenarios of impermanence, order and regularity are overshadowed by the impulse for disengagement, flexibility and transience. Yet the fluidity of travel is not simply a metaphor for the fading of structured expectations, ordered modalities and patterned perceptions. Many people exposed to the asperity of being on the road do not want to be alienated from the familiar and the predictable. A description of Malaysian travellers on packaged tours suggests that their attraction to the liquid sensationalism of distant travels does not necessarily rule out the predilection for order and habitual attachments. As an aspect of Malaysian modernity, the popularity of packaged tourism reflects the attraction of the affluent middle class to the promotion of liquid leisure in planned travels that do not deny them their sense of order.