Summer holiday
Which countries wring擰、擠 the most cash from each tourist?
AS THE northern hemisphere passes through the height of summer, millions of tourists are jetting off on holiday: international tourist arrivals last year reached their highest total yet of 940m, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation. Data gathered by the organisation, from national statistics, give France as the most common destination for foreign tourists, with 76m visitors in 2010. But the $46bn it makes from them is not enough for a place on our list of countries that make the most from each tourist. When calculated as the total of tourist receipts divided by the total number of arrivals, several geographically isolated countries fare well. This may be because holidaymakers度假者 will stay longer and fork out付錢、不情願的付 more on a long-distance trip.
The middle-class trapdoor
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The middle-class trapdoor
By Simon Kuper
In 2002 I visited Argentina during its freefall. The country had just devalued and defaulted, and the latest president, instead of merely resigning, had fled in a helicopter. Yet Buenos Aires – like Athens today – still looked like a middle-class city. People lived in apartment blocks with doormen and drove to restaurants in imported cars. At dinner one night, a photographer told me that just that day he had realised he’d dropped into the third world. When had it dawned開始? “When Amazon refused my credit card,” he said.
There are two basic ways to live: in the first world, or in the third. If the Greeks devalue and default, they might discover what it’s like when the trapdoor opens and you plunge from one world into the other. When you fall, your life changes in ways small and big方方面面的, and so does your worldview.
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Michela Wrong captured the divide between first and third worlds perfectly in her Graham-Greenesque book about the Congo, In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz. Stepping off the boat into the insanity精神錯亂 of Kinshasa, she experiences “that revelatory啟發性的 moment when white, middle-class Westerners finally understand what the rest of humanity has always known – that there are places in this world where the safety net … is suddenly whipped away, where the right accent, education, health insurance and a foreign passport – all the trappings that spell ‘It Can’t Happen to Me’ – no longer apply.”
In both Greece and Argentina, the middle class had always believed: “It can’t happen to me.” The Argentinian middle classes had lived better than Europeans. I remember a couple who ran a news agency in Buenos Aires. They were enthralled吸引住 to discover that I lived in Paris. They gave me blow-by-blow鉅細靡遺的 accounts of their Parisian holidays. They knew they would never go back.
a blow-by-blow account, description, etc. (of something)
Every day in Buenos Aires I heard stories of middle-class people who had fallen through the trapdoor. There was the former architect who now sold eggs from her kitchen table. There was the British immigrant who regretted having chosen Argentina 40 years before. There was the 71-year-old once-rich businessman with a second home in the Uruguayan resort of Punta del Este who was now earning $120 a month as an exterminator. (He aimed to be financially self-sufficient again by age 80.) And there was my Argentine friend who lost her mother. The mother, a nurse, had fallen ill, deteriorated, and then died without ever being diagnosed. Afterwards, my friend deduced that she had had a brain trauma. Being a nurse, the mother had apparently diagnosed it herself, decided that treatment would be too expensive, and quietly died.
All these people felt disbelief. This couldn’t be happening to them. It turned out that there was no safety net, no benevolent state.
When you fall through the trapdoor you tend to lose your belief in capitalist values like hard work and saving. Many Americans still believe that if you work hard and save, by the age of 50 you could be a millionaire. But in Argentina if you worked hard and saved, then at 50 you could be destitute貧困的. In Congo, you could be dead of cholera瘧疾.
Christabel Bielenberg, a Briton who lived in Hitler’s Germany, recounts講述 in her memoir The Past is Myself the archetypal story of a man who dropped through that trapdoor. Her gardener, Herr Neisse, had come home from the Great War and then spent years saving enough money to marry his Hilde. He often half-starved himself, writes Bielenberg, “and thus miraculously after some years he had put enough by to consider applying for a little allotment小塊土地;分配量 plot”. But in 1923 hyperinflation wiped him out徹底消毀. “With my savings,” he later told Bielenberg, “I was able to buy just one cup and saucer, which I gave to Hilde.” After the crash of 1929 wiped him out again, he became a Nazi.
I’m not suggesting Argentines or Greeks might become Nazis. However, many people who get pushed through the trapdoor by some hidden force do become conspiracy theorists陰謀論. Intellectually there are two sorts of people: those who don’t believe conspiracy theories (mostly white middle-class westerners) and those who do (mostly poor people). Thus most white middle-class westerners believe that the US killed Osama bin Laden, whereas most Pakistanis seem to believe his “death” was faked as part of some conspiracy. In 2002 most white middle-class westerners believed that Argentina had collapsed due to absurd economic policies, whereas many Argentines blamed a conspiracy led by the International Monetary Fund. Herr Neisse blamed the Jews.
Greece isn’t in the third world yet. But if it defaults, the Greek author Takis Michas told me, “then yes, we will end up in a third-world situation. In this kind of situation, the danger of violation of human rights and of property rights is paramount.”
Few Greeks can imagine the trapdoor opening. Let’s hope it doesn’t.
The return of the Turniermannschaft
Grit
Having won over many neutral fans during the 2006 FIFA World Cup with their attacking football, which continued as Germany became the first team to book their place in the 2008 finals, it seemed business as usual in the opening 2-0 win against Poland in Klagenfurt. But four days later at the same venue, Croatia triumphed 2-1 and the Germany side that emerged from that match and made their way to the final did so with grit rather than élan. It was the return of the Turniermannschaft – the ‘tournament team’.
Efficiency
Needing a point to reach the last eight, co-hosts Austria were beaten 1-0 in Vienna in a cool display of efficiency that would not have looked out of place in the 1980s. The 3-2 quarter-final defeat of Portugal in Basel showed how Germany’s physical attributes could overcome more technically skilled opposition, something France had discovered in the 1982 and 1986 World Cups. And the semi-final victory against Turkey by the same scoreline and at the same location, was down to determination and cool finishing. Germany were finally bested by Spain but the mood was not downbeat. “I have to compliment the team for a fantastic time over the last 45 days,” said coach Joachim Löw. “We have had a lot of fun and enjoyed it, but we were very ambitious and dealt with people with respect, in and out of the team. Of course the players are disappointed now. But reaching the final is something special.”
Ballack stength
Maybe Michael Ballack would beg to differ. Having tasted defeat in the UEFA Champions League and English League Cup finals with Chelsea FC, the Germany midfielder suffered another such reverse at the Ernst-Happel-Stadion. Ballack was clearly struggling with his calf injury during the final, but that did not stop Löw praising him: “I wouldn’t like to comment on individual performances but it was good to have him there. He was a leader for our team – he represents the team and Germany very well.”
Lehmann frustration
At 31, Ballack and midfield partner Torsten Frings are well aware that time is against them ahead of the 2010 World Cup, something also on the minds of forward Oliver Neuville, 35, and 38-year-old goalkeeper Jens Lehmann, who produced his best performance of the tournament in the loss to Spain. “I am very disappointed about the final,” said Lehmann. “It was most likely my last EURO. These are my thoughts: ‘What could we have done better?’ Bad displays were followed by good ones, but unfortunately we could not keep that rhythm going into the final.”
Future
What, then, does the future hold for German football? If the stalwarts are ageing, bright talents such as Bastian Schweinsteiger and Lukas Podolski have again shone on the big stage even though their club form since the 2006 World Cup has been mixed. Striker Mario Gómez, by contrast, was unable to reproduce his goalscoring heroics for VfB Stuttgart, though at 22 he should have more opportunities. The same goes for 19-year-old playmaker Marko Marin, who just missed out on selection. Löw’s men now meet Russia, Finland, Wales, Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein in World Cup qualifying, and Löw mused: “This defeat is going to be an incentive to work hard over the next two years. Looking at the last few tournaments, we’re right at the top in Europe and the side in recent years have learned a lot. They have developed well but we know we must not lose energy and strength – we must go on working and improving.”
Fascinating duel on the flanks.
Germany’s Philipp Lahm, the consummate attacking full-back, capped his fifth outing at UEFA EURO 2008™ with the last-minute winning goal that secured his country’s place in their record sixth UEFA European Championship final.
Worthy opponent
However, his direct opponent, Turkey’s adventurous right-back Sabrı Sarıoğlu, produced an equally deserving display on the night. In the end, Germany’s extra power and quality made the difference in an encounter of fine margins. But injury and suspension-stricken Turkey, and Sabri in particular, certainly proved worthy semi-finalists in what was, for the most part, a blow-for-blow match.
Wing play
Sabri’s lukewarm 63 per cent pass completion rate told only a fraction of the story of his impact on the match. Turkey’s opening goal, on 22 minutes, emanated from some cavalier forward play by the Galatasaray AS right-back when he crossed to Kazım Kazım, whose strike hit the crossbar before Uğur Boral forced the rebound past goalkeeper Jens Lehmann. Later, when Turkey levelled the match at 2-2 with just four minutes remaining, it was another Sabri delivery that set up goalscorer Semih Şentürk. On both occasions the surging Turkey right-back — who covered 9.88km in the match — got the better of Lahm, deployed on the left for Germany with Arne Friedrich on the opposite side of the defence.
Magnificent Lahm
However, the diminutive FC Bayern München player reaped his revenge when in attacking mode himself, and was a threat every time he crossed the halfway line. Only covering marginally less ground than Sabri, 9.56km in total, Lahm’s economy in possession was impressive. Only centre-back Per Mertesacker played more passes than Lahm, who registered a 76 per cent success rate, well above average for his side. Furthermore, the 24-year-old full-back delivered more balls to lone striker Miroslav Klose than any other Germany player, with three in all, including the enticing cross from the left wing that resulted in Klose heading his side 2-1 up eleven minutes from time.
Finishing touch
But it was Lahm’s final contribution to his team’s cause that mattered most. In the 90th minute, with the match poised to go to extra time and, perhaps, a penalty shoot-out, it was another Lahm foray — peeling off the touchline to weave his way into the Turkey box, play a one-two with Thomas Hitzlsperger and subtly lift the ball into the net — that sealed the fate of Sabri and his colleagues, and booked Germany’s place in Sunday’s final.
6/16 Österreich vs Deutschland Kicker 預測先發
Kicker 預測先發
Österreich
Macho -
Garics, Stranzl, Pogatetz, Gercaliu -
Aufhauser, Leitgeb -
Ivanschitz, Korkmaz -
Harnik, Linz
Trainer: Hickersberger
Deutschland
Lehmann -(我想要Adler…)
A. Friedrich, Mertesacker, Metzelder, Lahm -(耶是左路!!!)
Frings, Ballack -
C. Fritz, Hitzlsperger -
Klose, Podolski
Trainer: Löw
—
本來想畫圖的可是….
我真的讀不完了<囧>
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