Let's Change the World

One of the many values of travel that Rick Steves brought up in his presentation was how it allows us to humanize each other. It allows us to empathize with others that we might not otherwise feel the desire to do so. I have had some opportunities to change a small part of the world and so have my friends.

My wife and I have traveled with students a few times to other countries. I feel like this in itself has the power to change the world because we are opening these teenagers to the power of travel. If they continue to travel and share this love with their significant others and children in the future, the cycle has a chance to continue and help create compassionate people.

Within our travels there are a few examples that stick out that show how we can contribute to changing a small part of the world. Both of these examples happen to be from a trip we took to Fiji, New Zealand and Australia with 11 students. When we were in Fiji, we visited a local public school. The best part of the tour was that we were led around by students who fought over us. The worst part of the tour was seeing how limited their resources were, especially their library. When we left, they gave us a piece of paper with their address on it in case we could send books to their library. My daughters (7 and 13) were on the trip with us and they started clearing out their old books as soon as we got home. It felt good for them and us to be able to send them books for their library. It was so amazing for my wife and I to see how much compassion our daughters had for the kids that were their same age yet had so little compared to them.

The other example happened while I had a chance to play a quick 9-hole round of golf at the resort we were staying at in Fiji. I didn’t have any clubs so rented a mix-matched set of clubs and for a few bucks got six very used golf balls that I wouldn’t have picked up if I found them in the desert at the courses I play back home. I started playing by myself, but after just a few holes I noticed a local Fijian quickly catching up to me. I invited him to join me, which he did, and he told me he worked at the resort but they allowed him to play there sometimes. On the sixth hole I noticed the young man didn’t finish playing the hole. I was dealing with my own struggles in the rough, so I thought he just had some struggles of his own and had enough of the hole. When we moved to the seventh tee, though, I teed off and he just started walking off the tee box without hitting. I asked him if was going to hit and he said, “I lost my ball.” It quickly dawned on me that he only had one ball to play with and since he lost it with three holes to play he was done. He wasn’t going to say anything and I guess he was going to just keep walking with me. I tossed him one of my golf balls and he thanked me more with his eyes than the sincere words that came from his mouth.  When we finished the round, I gave him four golf balls and he shook my hand like I had just changed his life. These were four of the worst quality golf balls I had ever seen and was so thankful. That moment doesn’t happen if I don’t travel. That had a distinct impact on my life. I’ll never forget it.

A friend of mine had an experience that helped him become an agent of change. His church had organized a trip to Mexico to help build houses for locals who didn’t have enough money to build a house for themselves. He went more because his church was going than for his own interest in helping the families in Mexico. That was the first time. When he saw how little they had and how gracious they were, it moved him so profoundly that he has been back multiple times on his own. He changed their lives but just as importantly he changed his own life and became an agent of change by getting involved. 

Do you know the whole story?

Adichie Chimamanda gave a warning against the single story in her TedTalk. She said one story becomes representative of the culture and creates incomplete stereotypes. I have had several conversations with my in-laws and some of my friends over the past few days that illustrate this idea fully. One of my friends is traveling to Greece soon. He wanted to talk to my in-laws about some sites he should see when he is there because my in-laws lived in Greece for almost two years. He went on and on about the idealized version of Greece he couldn’t wait to see and mentioned the Acropolis as the site he most wanted to visit. My in-laws started giggling right away. The Greece they lived in was dirty and corrupt and the Acropolis is in ruins (literally and figuratively). They said he should get a refund for his trip if he wanted to enjoy his travels!

Another conversation I had with a friend of mine centered on countries on our travel bucket list. When he paused to think, I said “What about France?” because I had been there and really enjoyed it. He went on this rant about how he had no desire to visit France even though he wanted to see the Eiffel Tower because the French are all rude and hate Americans. I told him how I heard the same thing before traveling there and we talked about how we didn’t even know how we all had that preconceived idea about France. It was similar to Chimamanda’s example with the American who heard about one abusive Nigerian husband and thought all Nigerian men were like that. I told him how I was worried about this when I went there so I brushed up on the little French I remembered from high school to hopefully have a better experience. Although I had fun speaking broken French with the locals who thought my accent was funny, I didn’t see any rude French people when I was there. Again, a single story becomes representative of the culture.

Clearly, having a single story doesn’t always result in negative stereotypes. During a lengthy conversation with a local Jamaican at a resort, I quickly realized he had a single story about the United States. The story he knew was very limited and greatly idealized. When he talked about the United States, he only knew about California and New York City. He talked about all the freedoms in the United States as if there were no set of complex rules or laws. He wanted to leave Jamaica for a while to come to the United States and make a bunch of money, so he could bring it back to Jamaica. I’m not saying that can’t or won’t happen but his romantic idea about the United States was certainly not the whole story!

Multiple stories can greatly alter the way in which we view a country and/or people. Getting a more complete view provides a better understanding without relying on incomplete stereotypes as Chimamanda states. However, I think the multiple stories need to come from personal experience to be truly authentic and revealing. 

I know I need a wider lens!

I think our choices as writers are definitely influenced by colonialism. I do feel like my writing is/will be impacted by the “other” as different and inferior. It’s not that I feel like I’m better than those living in other cultures; it’s more of the fact that sometimes I feel better off than some of the people in other cultures.

I can’t help but look at everything through my own economic background. I grew up in an upper-middle class family and as soon as I got married I moved into my first house. I didn’t have a ton of money (my wife and I are teachers), but I wanted a 4-bedroom house similar to the one I grew up in. In Arizona in 1999 that wasn’t too hard. I don’t look down on people who don’t share my definition of “success,” but it definitely impacts my opinion of how other people choose to live. Even when I watch shows like “House Hunters International,” I’m blown away at how small the places are in Europe and I’m always thinking “What? $1500 for a studio apartment!” 

I process everything through my own view of what is “better off.” When traveling I don’t think it helps me any that other countries make money off what I kind of view as exploiting their culture. When I traveled to Fiji, for example, we paid to go on an organized tour of a traditional school and a traditional Fijian village. While we were at the school, we were led around by students who didn’t wear shoes and had all sorts of scars on their legs. As a teacher, it was sad to see the condition of their school. On the way out the headmaster hit us up for donations. How do I not look at their culture as “being in a worse spot”? In the traditional village, we participated in a traditional ceremony and the women of the village cooked for us. We sat on the floor, eating food in one of their houses while the women watched us and swatted flies out of the way. The experience was extremely enlightening, but I kept looking at it through my lens of “acceptable living standards.” They obviously benefit from the money we spend on touring their culture, and I learned a lot about their culture, but I also left feeling bad for them. I shouldn’t because they choose to live according to the traditional ways of their culture.

When I travel to Europe, I definitely wish I was in someone else’s spot at times. The lifestyle and the history of the place make me want to live there. Then I snap out of it and remember that I only speak English with very little French that I kind of remember from high school. I also have my very “American” way of looking at things and I don’t know if I would have the ability to adapt J

What Happens in Vegas Doesn't Always Have to Stay in Vegas!

For the last 15 years or so I have traveled to Las Vegas for 3 days in the summer. It’s a guys trip that started out as a “We should go to Vegas” idea developed while we were a few rounds in to our high roller card night at my buddy’s house. By high roller, I mean nickel, dime, quarter bets with a $5 buy in. Did I mention yet that we’re all teachers?

In the early years I got exactly $300 out of the bank because we didn’t really have enough money to justify my going on a trip by myself. Let’s just say that on several of those trips I had to decide between lunch on the last day and one more shot at the black jack table. Fortunately, I’m in a better financial position today and have enjoyed both eating and gambling on the final day of our trip.

We don’t usually win, but we have fun and haven’t done anything that would necessitate the saying “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!”

When I thought of the blog discussion prompt, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to write about. Then, I remembered one of our trips a few years ago and it became very obvious that it would fit nicely for this week’s blog.

When we go to Vegas we drive (despite my friend Mike’s strong desire to fly). We do this for a few reasons. First, it only takes four hours and 30 minutes door to door to get to Vegas from the West side of town where we live. If you fly, you have about the same amount of time invested with getting to the airport early, waiting for your flight, the flight, navigating through the airport and grabbing a taxi. Second, with four or five of us splitting gas, the trip to Vegas is like $20 apiece, which is much cheaper than a flight. And last but not least, it’s nice to have a car to get around while you are there so you don’t have to rely on expensive taxis that test your patience while you wait in traffic and watch the price continue to rise.

In regards to mapping our trip, we typically don’t do much mapping. However, one year we decided to do just that. We mapped Vegas based on places we wanted to make sure we went to. When I was reading the prompt for the blog, one of the guiding questions was whether or not the map was multi-tiered or not. At first I didn’t think our map was, but if I’m understanding layers correctly then our map did include multiple layers.

The map was as varied as our personalities. There were six layers to our map. The first layer was mutually agreed upon places that we all really wanted to go to but never had before. One of the places was the pawn shop from the television show Pawn Stars because we all enjoyed the show. When we got there, there was a line wrapped around the block and no one was moving. We didn’t even stop the car on that one! Another place on the map was the Stratosphere hotel so the non-adventurous ones of the group could watch the crazy ones go up to the top and ride the rides. I think you can guess which one I am! There were a few other places on that portion of the map, but the last one was The Sahara Casino. This casino was kind of run-down and had $1 black jack (which is why we first went there). We made sure we went there every time we were in Vegas for “old time’s sake” and we heard it would be demolished in the near future (and it was).

The rest of the map was sectioned off by each individual person in the group. We each got to choose one or two places we had never been to and wanted to make sure we got to. For me, that year was special because my Aunt had just passed away and she always went to the Flamingo Hotel and Casino. She took me there when I turned 21 for my first trip to Vegas and gave me a $100 chip to play a hand of black jack. I wound up winning $1000. So I wanted to go there and play an honorary hand of black jack, which I lost so I don’t know what that says J

My other friends each had their reasons for why they wanted to go to their destinations on the map. Andrew just wanted to watch soccer and make small baseball bets, so we went to the sports book at Caesar’s Palace. Mike is the cheapest person in the group, so he wanted to go downtown to the old casinos that still offered cheap black jack. Doug is a friend of mine who looks like Buddy from the cake boss and everyone tells him that, so he wanted to go to Carlo’s Bakery at the Venetian. My other friend Jay just likes to play craps and drink Diet Coke with Jack Daniels, so he chose Casino Royale, a dive casino that offers 100X odds (whatever that means).

Even when we don’t map out our trip, we still do the same types of things based on the same personalities. That’s true I guess of all of my travels. Usually it is just based on my kids J

I didn't know what I was getting myself into

I have been traveling for 20 years, so when I signed up for this class, I thought I would only be learning to write blogs like "Runaway Jane." I can honestly say I didn't think about Marco Polo's journals  during his exploration or Charles Darwin's scientific journals sprinkled with opinions about slavery! 

Ironically, I never thought about ethnographic writing, but I just ended a cruise to the Caribbean and spent a long time talking with my friend on the ship about how different the culture is in Jamaica. I was blown away at how the locals live and how small their houses are. I talked to a young man for a while about how he's never left the island and all sorts of judgments were running through my mind.

After this latest trip and having it brought up in the class, I can see how people from different cultures have very different views. On the cruise ship, my wife and I talked with the wait staff about their work contracts being 7 months. How can you leave your family for 7 months? One of the waiters had a 3 year-old and a 7 year-old. I can't leave my kids for more than a few days and they leave for 7 months because it's financially necessary (I'm guessing but I didn't ask).

It's not that my priorities are different from theirs. I just take for granted that I have opportunities that some don't have. It would be fascinating to interview locals while traveling to find out the different views on similar topics.

On a separate note, I have not noticed much discussion of cultures in current travel writing. I can't honestly say I want to see more of it, but I think it's interesting. I want to see more of the same: tips on traveling better and smarter and recommendations for places to go or stay. The blog that Jane wrote for a few years would be a perfect example for what I would love to write. Obviously with kids and a wife, this would be very difficult. Actually, it would be impossible without being divorced with kids :)

I liked how she gave such specific examples about what she was writing. I also liked how she gave very practical suggestions like "how to spend less while traveling" or "5 places to see when in..." (she had so many).

I think Jane's blog is what I like about current travel writing. It seems to be more personal and very practical. Current travel writing also provides a great awareness of audience. With the technology out there, it's easy for travel writing to be organized. I like that I can google search “How to survive traveling with kids” and get so many personal entries.

I’m not sure if this qualifies as “travel writing,” but one thing I wish there was less of and that is negativity in travel writing. For some reason negative attitudes are louder. I’ve read several blogs with people complaining about the most insignificant issues like how it took 10 minutes to get their room key or how the person in front of them on the plane reclined their seat. I don’t know if I’m a more positive person or I just don’t get bent out of shape by small things, but I wish people didn’t spend time writing about petty issues. I see it in travel reviews as well about hotels. It’s hard to believe travelers, like we read about in lesson 1. You just don’t know what personalities and biases they are writing with!

The more we get into this class and I start to think about my own interests in travel writing, I’m having a difficult time deciding what I will focus on. I think my blog will be varied if allowed. If I’m writing about a specific place, I will focus on food, culture, the hospitality and the natural environment. However, I would like to also include humorous blogs about travel in general as well as practical advice about traveling solo and with your family.

I think my audience will be people in my similar age bracket (25-45) who have children. I think I have to travel more to build my knowledge base more though. In the past I have traveled without an agenda to gain information that I would share with others. I have such a bad memory that if I don’t write things down I forget them. So, I have to tell my wife we are going on another cruise. That way I will take notes throughout on various aspects of the trip from packing to tips to enjoy a small room on the boat and making the most of the on-board activities. I better start saving money! J

  

Just getting started!

I'm very excited to start blogging here. Stay tuned for more posts...