tiganeasca
Moderator
Long before my wife and I met, we both loved to travel outside the United States. As a matter of fact, it was because of that love of travel that we met. In Tibet.
Although we have never discussed it at great length, I believe that we enjoy traveling for the same reason: we learn something. We learn something about the people and places and, even more important, we learn something about ourselves. We learn about people whose lives are different—often extraordinarily different—from our own. We learn about their lives from the bottom up: how they eat, how they live, how they get from place to place. We learn about their religions, their societies, and their customs.
We have always made it a point to spend as much time as we can outside the usual tourist places, meeting people who live there, spending time with them. In some places that is easier to arrange than in other places but those times “off the beaten path” are almost always the best part of any trip we have taken. Anything that takes us away from the familiar, that forces us to confront things we know nothing about, that makes us find a way to do what we want—whether that is get from point A to point B, eat a meal, learn about a local custom, see a particular place—when we don’t speak the language. Sometimes it’s true even when we do speak the language. Not every place is like home, even when we stay in the United States or go to Canada or the United Kingdom. They may speak English, but we’re certainly not natives.
We spend most of our lives in comfort: the comfort of speaking the language, knowing the customs, knowing what is expected of us, when, and how. We aren’t required to learn or to grow in any way that takes us outside of our ordinary lives. Travel can do that—except, of course, in those cases for which Americans are famous: walking the streets of Paris or Rio, London or Tokyo, eyes glued to a guidebook or a camera, never leaving the ruts created by all the tourists who were there before us. The American tourists (and I should hasten to add that although Americans are most famous for it, they are hardly unique) who can’t eat anything anywhere unless it’s a hamburger or pizza, for whom a baguette (not to mention escargot) is “foreign food.”
I'll add a personal example. My father's family is from what is now Lithuania. My mother's family is from what is now Belarus. A number of years ago I spent three weeks in Russia and Belarus, seeing tourist sights and also visiting the places my grandparents came from. I don't speak a lot of Russian; I managed to speak enough to be understood most of the time. But I also found a lot of barriers because I don't speak it nearly well enough to get by alone. Even so, visiting the tiny village my mother's father came from and the places other family members came from taught me more than I can say. I usually write up my trips when I return--partly for other family members to read and partly so I don't forget. Forgive me a lengthy excerpt to illustrate my point about learning things:
My wife and I have taken trips to many different corners of Western Europe. And for that reason, we decided a number of years ago to go to other places. Western Europe is a pretty safe place for American tourists because it is, I think, the part of the world that is most like America. The religions, the customs, even the food (for the most part). It is, in fact, where many, if not most, of our grandparents or our ancestors came from. The hardest thing about going to Europe is the language barrier. Especially for Americans, most of whom can’t speak anything other than English. But that’s it. In so many ways, going to the larger cities anywhere in Western (and even, increasingly, in “Eastern” Europe) is less and less like leaving home at all. I’ll never forget the first time I was in Vienna, more than thirty years ago, turning a corner in an old part of the city and seeing, brightly lit and obnoxiously unchanged from what I could find in Chicago—a McDonalds restaurant. I was honestly (if naively) appalled. So too in Moscow. It’s bad enough that the largest cities in the U.S. look more and more like each other every year; it’s more than a little depressing that the large cities everywhere else are starting to look the same too.
And that is why, even if we go to a larger city in Western Europe now, we make certain to plan time outside the city, time away from the tourist ruts. If it’s the first time we have ever been somewhere, of course we want to see the sights and places for which the city is well-known. When we went to Florence, we would have been foolish not see the Uffizi or the Duomo. But that doesn’t mean that we needed to spend all our time in the central city of Florence. For one thing, it is packed (and I mean PACKED) with other tourists. For another, we learn less that way. All we do is follow the herd and meet other members of the herd. So we spent time in the places the tourists didn’t go, had dinner with a local family at their home. That dinner conversation was one of the highlights of our trip.
So what does all this have to do with reading? That’s easy: I read for the same reasons I travel. I want to learn about the lives and societies, customs, and beliefs of people I know little or nothing about. There isn’t enough time or money to go everywhere I want in this life, to see everything I want to see. Reading allows me a peek into places and times I wouldn’t otherwise get. That’s true even if I read American fiction from the 19th century. All the more true if I read something by an author writing about his or her own country. Example: I read Johannes Jensen’s Fall of the King (Danish Nobel winner from 1944) a year or so ago. I thought it was brilliant. But it forced me to learn some things. As I wrote in my mini-review here, “The book is not so much about the characters as it is about Denmark under King Christian II in the early 16th century. Warning: unless you know something about Denmark’s conquest of Sweden in that period or the Stockholm Bloodbath of 1520, do yourself a favor and read a little in Wikipedia first. I got lost trying to follow the story given how Jensen presents it.” But that’s partly my “fault.” Jensen wrote as he did because his audience knew their history, knew what he was writing about. In forcing me to learn about the background that his audience knew, I grew just a little bit.
Some books are more universal than others. That’s neither “good” nor “bad.” It’s just different. It is wonderful to read a book on a universal subject written by someone from a different time and place—or even the same time and different place. The more I learn, the more I grow and, I hope, become a better person: more patient, more accepting of difference, more understanding. The more I am exposed to thoughts that are completely different from my own, approaches to problems or questions that are different from my own, and beliefs—whether religious, economic, or political—that are new to me, the more deeply I can think out my own thoughts. I don’t have to agree with someone to understand his point of view. Much as it pains me, my answers aren’t always right. ? And the more distance I can get from my own world, the better.
Perspective is a gift. Some perspective comes with time and age. I see things differently now than I did thirty or forty years ago. Some perspective comes with place or location—all you have to do is learn some physics or art history to know that. And some perspective comes from position or money or caste. The more I learn about different places, different beliefs, different times, and so on, the better my perspective. And the reason that some of my favorite books are my favorites—say Pather Panchali or Children of Gebelaawi—is because their authors created such convincing worlds that I came to find myself inhabiting them for a time. And so I learned about those places and times and became just a little bit more thoughtful, a bit more patient, more understanding, a little bit wiser, and—possibly—just a little bit better a person.
That's why I read. And, just to make the point slightly clearer, that's also why I am here, on this board. Because you're here. Because this board has the invaluable asset of having people from so many different places. Different ages. Different experiences and different backgrounds. I would, no doubt, learn something even if everyone here were from the U.S., because there would still be differences among us. But the greater variety of backgrounds, knowledge, experience, and outlook of the people I meet and get to know here is far too valuable to miss. So thank you for being here, for contributing, and for contributing to my own education.
Although we have never discussed it at great length, I believe that we enjoy traveling for the same reason: we learn something. We learn something about the people and places and, even more important, we learn something about ourselves. We learn about people whose lives are different—often extraordinarily different—from our own. We learn about their lives from the bottom up: how they eat, how they live, how they get from place to place. We learn about their religions, their societies, and their customs.
We have always made it a point to spend as much time as we can outside the usual tourist places, meeting people who live there, spending time with them. In some places that is easier to arrange than in other places but those times “off the beaten path” are almost always the best part of any trip we have taken. Anything that takes us away from the familiar, that forces us to confront things we know nothing about, that makes us find a way to do what we want—whether that is get from point A to point B, eat a meal, learn about a local custom, see a particular place—when we don’t speak the language. Sometimes it’s true even when we do speak the language. Not every place is like home, even when we stay in the United States or go to Canada or the United Kingdom. They may speak English, but we’re certainly not natives.
We spend most of our lives in comfort: the comfort of speaking the language, knowing the customs, knowing what is expected of us, when, and how. We aren’t required to learn or to grow in any way that takes us outside of our ordinary lives. Travel can do that—except, of course, in those cases for which Americans are famous: walking the streets of Paris or Rio, London or Tokyo, eyes glued to a guidebook or a camera, never leaving the ruts created by all the tourists who were there before us. The American tourists (and I should hasten to add that although Americans are most famous for it, they are hardly unique) who can’t eat anything anywhere unless it’s a hamburger or pizza, for whom a baguette (not to mention escargot) is “foreign food.”
I'll add a personal example. My father's family is from what is now Lithuania. My mother's family is from what is now Belarus. A number of years ago I spent three weeks in Russia and Belarus, seeing tourist sights and also visiting the places my grandparents came from. I don't speak a lot of Russian; I managed to speak enough to be understood most of the time. But I also found a lot of barriers because I don't speak it nearly well enough to get by alone. Even so, visiting the tiny village my mother's father came from and the places other family members came from taught me more than I can say. I usually write up my trips when I return--partly for other family members to read and partly so I don't forget. Forgive me a lengthy excerpt to illustrate my point about learning things:
"And, speaking of the Great Patriotic War--the name by which all Russians know World War Two--a digression is in order. My visit prompted a far better understanding and appreciation for Russia’s role in the war. We in the United States make a great fuss about the American contribution to winning the war; I don’t mean to denigrate it (especially since my father fought in it). But the United States lost fewer than 300,000 killed and it was fought thousands of miles away. More than 21,000,000 Russians died, fully one-third of them civilians. Twenty-one million. And it was fought right there. On their territory. Their homes, their towns, and their villages. No American city was besieged for 900 days, over the course of more than one bitter winter, reducing residents to eating rats. Occasionally, we see pictures of little old Russian men and women dressing for formal portraits with their uniforms on, their chests filled with rainbow colored medals. I used to laugh at these funny pictures. No more. Having been there, having seen the battlefields, even just briefly, brings home the cost of that war in a way little else can."
My wife and I have taken trips to many different corners of Western Europe. And for that reason, we decided a number of years ago to go to other places. Western Europe is a pretty safe place for American tourists because it is, I think, the part of the world that is most like America. The religions, the customs, even the food (for the most part). It is, in fact, where many, if not most, of our grandparents or our ancestors came from. The hardest thing about going to Europe is the language barrier. Especially for Americans, most of whom can’t speak anything other than English. But that’s it. In so many ways, going to the larger cities anywhere in Western (and even, increasingly, in “Eastern” Europe) is less and less like leaving home at all. I’ll never forget the first time I was in Vienna, more than thirty years ago, turning a corner in an old part of the city and seeing, brightly lit and obnoxiously unchanged from what I could find in Chicago—a McDonalds restaurant. I was honestly (if naively) appalled. So too in Moscow. It’s bad enough that the largest cities in the U.S. look more and more like each other every year; it’s more than a little depressing that the large cities everywhere else are starting to look the same too.
And that is why, even if we go to a larger city in Western Europe now, we make certain to plan time outside the city, time away from the tourist ruts. If it’s the first time we have ever been somewhere, of course we want to see the sights and places for which the city is well-known. When we went to Florence, we would have been foolish not see the Uffizi or the Duomo. But that doesn’t mean that we needed to spend all our time in the central city of Florence. For one thing, it is packed (and I mean PACKED) with other tourists. For another, we learn less that way. All we do is follow the herd and meet other members of the herd. So we spent time in the places the tourists didn’t go, had dinner with a local family at their home. That dinner conversation was one of the highlights of our trip.
So what does all this have to do with reading? That’s easy: I read for the same reasons I travel. I want to learn about the lives and societies, customs, and beliefs of people I know little or nothing about. There isn’t enough time or money to go everywhere I want in this life, to see everything I want to see. Reading allows me a peek into places and times I wouldn’t otherwise get. That’s true even if I read American fiction from the 19th century. All the more true if I read something by an author writing about his or her own country. Example: I read Johannes Jensen’s Fall of the King (Danish Nobel winner from 1944) a year or so ago. I thought it was brilliant. But it forced me to learn some things. As I wrote in my mini-review here, “The book is not so much about the characters as it is about Denmark under King Christian II in the early 16th century. Warning: unless you know something about Denmark’s conquest of Sweden in that period or the Stockholm Bloodbath of 1520, do yourself a favor and read a little in Wikipedia first. I got lost trying to follow the story given how Jensen presents it.” But that’s partly my “fault.” Jensen wrote as he did because his audience knew their history, knew what he was writing about. In forcing me to learn about the background that his audience knew, I grew just a little bit.
Some books are more universal than others. That’s neither “good” nor “bad.” It’s just different. It is wonderful to read a book on a universal subject written by someone from a different time and place—or even the same time and different place. The more I learn, the more I grow and, I hope, become a better person: more patient, more accepting of difference, more understanding. The more I am exposed to thoughts that are completely different from my own, approaches to problems or questions that are different from my own, and beliefs—whether religious, economic, or political—that are new to me, the more deeply I can think out my own thoughts. I don’t have to agree with someone to understand his point of view. Much as it pains me, my answers aren’t always right. ? And the more distance I can get from my own world, the better.
Perspective is a gift. Some perspective comes with time and age. I see things differently now than I did thirty or forty years ago. Some perspective comes with place or location—all you have to do is learn some physics or art history to know that. And some perspective comes from position or money or caste. The more I learn about different places, different beliefs, different times, and so on, the better my perspective. And the reason that some of my favorite books are my favorites—say Pather Panchali or Children of Gebelaawi—is because their authors created such convincing worlds that I came to find myself inhabiting them for a time. And so I learned about those places and times and became just a little bit more thoughtful, a bit more patient, more understanding, a little bit wiser, and—possibly—just a little bit better a person.
That's why I read. And, just to make the point slightly clearer, that's also why I am here, on this board. Because you're here. Because this board has the invaluable asset of having people from so many different places. Different ages. Different experiences and different backgrounds. I would, no doubt, learn something even if everyone here were from the U.S., because there would still be differences among us. But the greater variety of backgrounds, knowledge, experience, and outlook of the people I meet and get to know here is far too valuable to miss. So thank you for being here, for contributing, and for contributing to my own education.
Last edited:
In all seriousness, though, I missed out on a couple of opportunities to travel to India when I was living abroad. It is a country I am determined to visit at some point - I just don't know when.