Bribing and twisting rules is "a thing" in some places that is part of the normal functioning of society. Is anyone _REALLY_ going to be shocked in Khazakhstan?
The article is a nice contrast to his dehumanizing police experience in SF.
But I can't help but now wonder if his mere being just triggers vastly different things in people unfortunately (such as instant hatred of "tech elite" by SFPD cops in the San Francisco piece he wrote).
But after the rest of the story, those guys helping him, drinking with him, showing him a good time (probably because life can be boring there and hanging out with a foreigner was an enervating experience for them too?) and greasing a few wheels for him (the "lenient judge" and possibly some other things he doesn't know about), I felt a bit different.
He was carrying $160 all the time, while Irlan paid for everything (probably not very much in dollars, but still). Some guy needed a spot for $6.5 to carry him to the end of the month, that says something about how far $160 goes in that country. At the end when Irlan said "it's gonna be boring without you", he knew he was free and could have wired himself another $200 later with relative ease (or maybe not? I'm not sure). I think at the very least he could have given Irlan some money/tip for all the effort, lunch, coffee, drinks? I mean, now that you know you're no longer in a complex negotiation / bribing situation with this person (so the cards are more open), he did go the extra mile, spent his own money even (while in the end, the author spent .. $0 ??? or did I miss something, he did say he got the $100 back). Say $50, that he'd otherwise spend on a single night out in SF, would mean a LOT more to this guy, so why not just do it? He'd earned it yes?
Could be some kind of cultural differences though. The author seems to know the culture of the area really well, so maybe it's something obvious. Maybe Irlan would be insulted getting such a large sum for just being hospitable. OTOH maybe Irlan hoped all this extra effort would earn him the $100 deal he couldn't fulfil earlier. Or maybe during all the "bonding" the author had been hinting he was a stranded student with zero money left and therefore they felt pity on him, so he didn't dare to break that character and suddenly producing $50 cash to give away (but Irlan knew he still carried that $100 at least).
Or maybe, the author's bottom-line thinking about this was, I did my best to stick to the (admittedly, draconian) rules, bad shit (aka adventure) still happened, so I really oughtn't face any consequences at all (except the part where he got free lunch, drinks and a tour).
Here's hoping the pictures won't show up in archived versions of the article.
Whole country is really gung-ho about modernizing, and modern tech is a huge part of that.
This is every Eastern European country.
guy got busted by some people who turned around and helped him.
now he's returning the favor?
Bribe culture is bad, but it's not something to dismiss in such situations, eg, here, it would get him into way MORE trouble just to put up a firm NO about bribing and social skills.
Being out of your main cultural context is pretty much about "going with the flow" and social engineering rather than enforcing your own beliefs onto an already established and deeply rooted status quo.
Do you think that this post will make a dent in corruption issues in Kazakhstan? That it will fix anything? The only thing it may cause is repercussions for the good people in this story. Which will leave the system even worse.
There is this concept of responsibility when publishing the story. I have a feeling that it's often forgotten.
I can disagree with this, or think up improvement, fixes. But at the end, I'm still a tourist, a guest in this country. I'm there to experience the culture, not to tell them they're doin' it wrong. That would be activism, not tourism.
Addition: experiencing other cultures has taught me things as well. Having to barter in Turkey, I probably got screwed but did learn a few lessons that are applicable at home (particular from watching other tourists handle it) (though sometimes they were dicks). All that tipping in the US, coupled with the fact that listed prices are never what you pay (because they're pre-tax) (this is not the case in the EU, it feels very weird not being able to calculate the final sum before checkout--a little exercise I often do in NL to keep my mental math sharp) I took home a bit more fluid idea of prices, and this makes for a lower barrier to tip in NL as well (but I still feel 20% is just crazy :p).
One should try it in the US after having his visa expired there.