Haleigh Ehmsen
Study Abroad Essay Contest
3 Nov 2014
Reflection through Travel
“That’s it. I’m all done with China,” an American man exclaimed.
“What? Have you seen the Great Wall?” asked the man next to him.
“Yup!”
“Forbidden City?”
“Yup! And once I see the Terra Cotta Warriors, I can cross China off my list.”
We sat three across a cushioned golf cart shuttle to visit the Terra Cotta Warriors as we overheard the ignorant conversation of the men in front of us. Thoughts, conversations and readings on the importance of travel swirled in my head as I tried to categorize the man as a tourist or traveler. He was certainly dressed as a tourist with a bucket hat and slick jacket, ready for rain to fall at any second. But he had traveled to China, a place few understand and fewer desire to visit. Certainly hehadn’t endured a twelve-hour flight and a thick language barrier to cross a few UNESCO World Heritage sights off his bucket list.
The conversation took me home as I pictured my grandmother’s mahogany coffee table. A stack of books sit upon it and the thickest one is titled, “1,000 Places to Visit Before You Die.” Sticky notes in an array of colors mark the places she’s been and the ones she hopes to visit. Beautiful descriptions of the Coliseum, Vatican City and countless other “must-sees” provide enough inspiration to max a credit card on airfare, twice. She is struck by the beautiful description on her bookmarked pages; however, I have learned that travel is much more than aesthetic appreciation. It’s about the experiences you have while you’re traveling and how they shape the life you live. I believe it’s about the quirks and the complications, the schedules that don’t go exactly as planned and the way it feels when you would invest your college savings for a good cup of coffee. The desperate feeling of desiring home and loving the moments away for the sake of difference.The desire to travel shouldn’t be solely a checklist or a list of places in a book, but rather a desire to understand other cultures and learn new things about oneself. Travel is about the refreshing feeling of a culture so different, yet still so human, and grasping the humanity despite not understanding whether a conversation in Mandarin is angry or funny. It’s about the recognition of a world much larger than your mind can comprehend and histories that date so far back your head hurts thinking about it.
I imagined the man’s own coffee table and I pictured himopening the thick binding of his own book of travels to slash a red mark through China. I imagined himinviting his family and family over for a barbeque and recounting his latest trip. “I saw it all,” he’d tell them, thinking he had experienced and traveled China to the fullest because he’d seen the “most important” places. Unknowingly missing one of the largest benefits of travel, reflection. As he would relay the steep climb of the Great Wall and the musty smell in the Terra Cotta Warrior exhibits, his account of China would be missing the richness of the culture, the traditional society so deeply rooted in history.
In just visiting the sites, the man obscured the humanity of the Chinese people. He missed traveling all night on a middle bunk, sleeping with your backpack as a pillow and a strange man above you. He hadn’t captured the smiles on cab drivers faces as we rolled our suitcases out of the train station. He missed conversations that turned into journal entries and ultimately changed the way I view travel.
Abroad experiences have got to be more than just visiting. China is home to forty-five of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites deemed culturally valuable to facilitate solidarity and understanding to all who visit. These sites are culturally important and represent values of the Chinese, as well as provide historical explanation.Travel doesn’t truly function on the surface of scratching World Heritage sites off our mental lists, riding around in air-conditioned buses, snapping photos and posting them on social media. Travel functions to debunk stereotypes that all Asians are short and look the same (they don’t) and to understand why what you’re seeing is so important. You can experience travelduring a 108 degree Fahrenheit days and the cold, relieving feeling of a mango popsicle, the sticky juice running down your arm, but not wanting to be anywhere else. Travel exists in those moments when you understand the historical context of which you’re seeing and learn the ways people live. It makes you think about the way you live your own life and I believe there has to be thought, scribbled notes, photos, and genuine interactions for travel to exist. Reflections about why Chinese people love to take pictures with Americans so much, conversations that make you wonder what is so special about your own home, and situations that make you question what it means to be a global citizen, that’s travel. It’s when you will pay the extra two dollars for “American” breakfast, but won’t dare rest your eyes on the bus for fear of missing something.
In thinking about my China trip in terms of tour and travel, I believe I experiencedboth. We rode on charter buses and were escorted by tour guides. We endured overnight train rides with the locals and burnt our tongues on instant noodles.
The argument over which is better, touring or traveling, ensues but I have come to understand the difference, or at least what I have established as the difference.Touring exists when one simply visits a place; they explore the grounds in a mediated form and leave without a deeper thought. That same instance changes into travel when there’s thought and conversation, some critical thinking about how a culture came to be.
The moments I remember the most are the times of struggle, of travel. Sprinting through the station to catch a train and losing my watch, or drinking sugary Nescafe because there was nothing else to keep me awake. Sweating through my clothes and still dripping sweat or feeling sick to my stomach when our bus ran over a dog. Maybe those were moments of travel and maybe travel is more of a state of being rather than an action. Maybe it’s a mindset and engagement with what you’re touring. Thinking “huh” and wondering what it would be like to walk the entire length of the Great Wall, or build it. Thinking about how long ago that was and how many “great” prefixes would accompany the names of your ancestors, and writing it all down so you never forget the moments and the feelings. Travel is not experienced by simply seeing, rather by being physically and mentally present, yearning to understand an ancient culture with one hell of a contemporary economy, identifying the contrast between rural lifestyles and city living.
I sincerely hope the bucket hat-rain jacket man had moments like I did in China like when I thought I could actually kill someone for a cheeseburger, or when I met my pen pal who absolutely adored me before I said a word. Because while I hated getting eaten alive by bugs in Guizhou and the pollution in Beijing was kind of depressing, I’m certainly not done with China. I’ll happily circle China’s name on my mental travel list because there’s still more to tour and much more of China to travel. All the experiences I had in China cause me to look at my life daily in a different light. I am constantly grateful for the clean air I breathe and think about the way I felt in solidarity with the girls in Guizhou as we worked on their English skills. My trip to China is something I will never forget and will continue to reflect on the difference between tour and travel and the importance of both.
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