"Others are keen to see if natives other than us live better than we do, without heat in pipes, ice in boxes, sunshine in bulbs, music on disks, or images gliding over a pale screen"

Ella Maillart’s evocative words subtly confront the complex fascination many have with alternative ways of living far removed from the comforts of Western technology. She alludes to an eagerness among some to observe how indigenous peoples or those perceived as “natives” might demonstrate an enviable resilience or even a preferable lifestyle, managing not merely to survive but perhaps to thrive without the conveniences that have come to define modernity. By listing “heat in pipes, ice in boxes, sunshine in bulbs, music on disks, or images gliding over a pale screen,” Maillart itemizes the fundamental elements of twentieth-century domestic comfort: heating and cooling, artificial light, recorded music, and cinematic or television images, the cornerstones of a technologically driven life.

Underlying the observation is a dual curiosity and anxiety: a desire to discover if people outside the Western sphere retain a connection to something lost to those within it, simplicity, self-sufficiency, or a more direct engagement with nature and the cycles of the earth. It also hints at possible dissatisfaction with lives dependent on artificial means to produce warmth, store food, illuminate darkness, and offer entertainment. Maillart suggests a quiet skepticism about whether these technological advances have truly contributed to a richer existence or if they serve, instead, as distractions from substantive living.

Her gentle yet incisive phrasing, “other than us,” positions Western observers as outsiders peering in, perhaps with admiration, envy, or simply anthropological interest. There’s a subtle critique woven into the fascination: the privileges of modernity may come at the cost of losing essential skills, adaptability, or contentment. Maillart’s reflection becomes not only an observation of cultural difference but an invitation to question the intrinsic value of progress, and whether happiness or well-being is genuinely afforded by technology, or if it persists, perhaps more purely, without it.