...But I mean that in the nicest possible way. Lindsay and I have returned from our Asian vacasian, and it was a splendid trip indeed. I had a great time being a minority in a culture that values happiness, calmness, and laughter above money, status, and power. They thought very highly of us financially, because we were white, but with a little harmless bantering, and never losing sight of that buddhist goal of inner peace, we were able to work wonders with them.
In order of preference, I rank them thusly:
1. Cambodia - The closest thing to what I would imagine a southeastern Asian country to be like. It was kind of dirty and dusty, and the people were generally very poor, with the occasional rich guy driving around in a Lexus. They viewed us as somewhat of a novelty, or at the very least, recognized us for the travellers we were. No one ever complained or had disparaging words for others or anything, really. Plus, it's superduper beautiful.
2. South Korea - Although we weren't there for very long, it quickly became one of our favourite places in the world. To be in a country that had no need for our white dollars really opened my eyes to how pushy the western world is. I already knew we were pushy, but after being in a country that figured we were just there to be annoying, it became very obvious that we accomplish nothing by feeling so superior to third world countries. South Korea is what Canada would be if we were all way richer. All of us.
3. Thailand - This was the main focus of our trip, so it's kind of disappointing that we liked it the least. Still, it's incredibly beautiful and has such a wide range of experiences from north to south that there was no way we would miss it. Elephants are supercool, and we met lots of great friends travelling.
In all, I recommend you all get out of your strange little white guy bubbles and go see what the hell the rest of the world looks like. Believe me, you'll enjoy it.
I'm going to resume blogging on a more regular basis once we're moved into our new Victoria apartment, so if you want me to write any supershort stories, send me them ideas, and I shall. Otherwise, you'll just hear stuff that Danielle already wrote about at Royal Roads.
Kthxbai (that's Asian for Ok, thank you, goodbye)
One thing I found very interesting in social studies is the discrepancy between a nations wealth and quality of life. Even your use of language, saying the people were generally very poor, evokes images of late night infomercials trying to get me to donate. Silly social programming.
ReplyDeleteIt was very interesting. There was definitely that level of poverty, of people begging for money on the streets, really looking hard up and pretty miserable. But on the other hand, people were poor, but they just lived very simply, and they weren't angry or sad that they didn't have satellite TV or more than two rooms in their house. Our western idea of "poor" always equals "sad." Not to say they couldn't have used more money, or that you should not help out if you've got the money to spare, but they've learned to really appreciate it, because they aren't convinced that they're worse off than everyone, they just happen to have to do with less.
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