Whoever stayed in his dump?

When checking into a motel or hotel have you ever wondered who had stayed in this place?

In this country, places seldom reveal who has been there before you, like it would be an invasion of privacy.

That’s not true in many places, at least in the Orient.

Several places I have stayed in, like Taiwan, Calcutta, and Burma, apparently want you to know that they are visited regularly by the rich and famous.

For instance, in Taipei, on the island of Taiwan, they make it a point to let you know who some of their most famous guests have been.

The Grand Hotel there uses famous people in its advertising.

The Grand at the time was at least partially owned by, or at least under the control of, Madame Chiang Kai Shek.

The hotel wanted you to know that Richard Nixon, Ronald Regan, and Bill Clinton had stayed there.

Also among their guests were Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher, Jordan’s King Hussein, and the Shah of Iran.

Another dozen or so people of note were listed.

In two other places, I could look in registers and find out for myself.

When I checked into the Far Eastern in Calcutta, India, the hotel’s famous register book was on the counter.

The register was about two inches thick and contained all guests who had stayed there and the date of their stay.

I thumbed through a few pages and was asked to sign my name to the register.

I didn’t have time to look back at the opening page to get the date when this was started.

Another similar practice was carried out at the Strand Hotel in Rangoon, Burma (now called Myanmar). After gaining independence from Great Britain, the names have changed but the old names will prevail for years to come.

The Strand Hotel housed many of the people who traveled there while the Burma Road was being built during World War II.

While this practice of revealing the names of former guests was practiced in those places, it wasn’t known for places like Japan, Hong Kong, or Vietnam, at least to my knowledge.

So, in most places you can ask, who has stayed in this dump, and get no takers.

And here in America, the interest is in money — what else?