Problems
Why do people travel?
1 To learn about the world.
2 To find the meaning of life.
3 To go to a place they have always yearned to see.
4 To escape from danger.
5 Thrill-seeking, excitement, end of boredom.
6 To join a joyful crowd, experience an event.
7 To find the answer to a problem.
8 To find their ancestors or a lost love they are seeking.
9 For romance which eluded them at home.
10 To earn more money. (For yourself, or your family, or your community, or to save somebody who is sick.)
When I go to Toastmasters, the opening speech by any speaker is often the Ice-breaker, when they tell their life story. Sometimes a speaker postpones their icebreaker for as long as two years.
Why? They say they were too shy. They lacked confidence. It was too challenging.
They don't want to admit to themselves or others about their past failures. They don't know how to recall the past without upsetting themselves.
A Chinese Story
Once, a Chinese girl told us her life story - in a table topic, an impromptu speech, which she later expanded into an Icebreaker. When first speaking to her I had admired her for her courage in taking the big journey from rural China to Singapore / Hong Kong at an early age. She studied relentlessly, studied at night, took two jobs, learned two new languages.
I was surprised to find out that hers was partly an escape story. Her parents were separated and hostile to each other. This made her unhappy at home, yo-yo-ing between the two. She went elsewhere to have education and job prospects. She dreamed of a boyfriend and marriage. Her qualifications and jobs and income and accommodation were gradually improving.
She has two motives. One is escape from warring family. The second is build a secure future.
An Indian Story
At another event, I heard an Indian boy's story. He was smartly dressed in a shirt and tie and business suit and worked in a finance company. He lived in a small village with an extended family. His family and the neighbours all worked day and night and pooled their savings to send him to school and then college so he could get a job overseas either from a scholarship or taking the cheapest form of transport and taking every skilled or unskilled job available and paying his way at each step.
The understanding was that he would pay back to the community, sending money from his salary to his family and those who had funded his education and travel. He would also pay for one or two or three children from his home area to go to school and college.
The second time I heard this story, I thought, I've met this young man before. But I hadn't. It wasn't a unique story. If you think you have met the same young man as the first one I met, or second one I met, probably not.
You eventually find that stories you hear form a pattern. They are not necesaarily copied from each other. They are simply patterns of behaviour. Some people are born poor, others are born rich. You meet some of both.
Some are worn down and commit suicide. Others persist and become famous for their success, like Jack Ma, Chinese founder of Ali Baba.
English And Asian Attitudes
Unlike people in England, who sneer at financiers and those who want to earn money, and wearing a suit and tie, he was very proud to be employed and earn a good salary. he said his dream has been to buy his mother a house, and he had achieved that. Now he was still working non-stop, day, evening, overtime, whatever was pleasing to his employers, whatever would keep his job and earn him promotion. Whatever would enable him to get another job elsewhere. Whatever skills he would learn to run his own company.
He has three or four motives. Fulfil the dreams of his family. Help his family. Repay debts. Start a better life.
Conclusion
Draw your own conclusion about others and yourself. I presume you reach the same conclusion that I reach. But when you ask what people learn from a story, the answers you hear are surprisingly divergent.
Why are you travelling? Are you travelling to get away from something or get to something?
Jews After WWII
After WWII, escapting Jews travelled to get away from the dangerous places and regimes and memories they left behind. Some travelled to the yearned for promised land of Israel. Others travlled as far as possble to South America or Australia.
Some tried to escape and hide their past in a totally new environment. They changed religion. They became buddhist, atheist, humanist. I met a Jehovah's witness in Poland who said he or his co-religionists might have been descended from Jews, but for safety nobody ever admitted it, and rarely discussed it, except with a dying grandparent.
Advantages Of Travel
Some went to a Communist country with no religion. Some married somebody from Asia, such as an a Japanese or Chinese or Vietnamese person who had no knowledge or or hostility towards Jews. I met a man who had married an Asian girl. I eventually learned about his grandparent's past. His mother had kept it from him, and encouraged him to travel to Asia and study Asian languages. Her wish was fulfilled. He had a new life.
Jews in WWII, the Kindertransport, have something in common with modern day Chinese and Indian migrants. You admire their enterprise and determination.
Efforts At Assimilation
It can be quite a surprise to learn the initial difficulties they faced. When you meet somebody who seems confident and successful, their past can be a surprise. I have often been taken aback on learning how they started in a dormitory, then it took five or ten years of study and working to learn a new language, get an education, a shared university room or flat, a new skill, a job, a better paid job, a well paid job, their own room, their own flat, owning a flat.
They forgot the past and kept quiet about it, concentrated on their future. If you give them the opportunity to talk, and listen sympathetically, they will tell you.
Revelations - If You Ask
The bouncy, smiling, confident, detmined youg girl starts blinking and licking her lips and sighing as she tells you her past. The suave, loud, or quiet, young man, hesistates, or stammers, when he tells you about his past.
Some tried to hide their poor origins and early suffering. They enthuse about their new contry. Others try preserve what they had lost. Others find a balance. Listen and learn.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Please share links to this post.
Why do people travel?
1 To learn about the world.
2 To find the meaning of life.
3 To go to a place they have always yearned to see.
4 To escape from danger.
5 Thrill-seeking, excitement, end of boredom.
6 To join a joyful crowd, experience an event.
7 To find the answer to a problem.
8 To find their ancestors or a lost love they are seeking.
9 For romance which eluded them at home.
10 To earn more money. (For yourself, or your family, or your community, or to save somebody who is sick.)
When I go to Toastmasters, the opening speech by any speaker is often the Ice-breaker, when they tell their life story. Sometimes a speaker postpones their icebreaker for as long as two years.
Why? They say they were too shy. They lacked confidence. It was too challenging.
They don't want to admit to themselves or others about their past failures. They don't know how to recall the past without upsetting themselves.
A Chinese Story
Once, a Chinese girl told us her life story - in a table topic, an impromptu speech, which she later expanded into an Icebreaker. When first speaking to her I had admired her for her courage in taking the big journey from rural China to Singapore / Hong Kong at an early age. She studied relentlessly, studied at night, took two jobs, learned two new languages.
I was surprised to find out that hers was partly an escape story. Her parents were separated and hostile to each other. This made her unhappy at home, yo-yo-ing between the two. She went elsewhere to have education and job prospects. She dreamed of a boyfriend and marriage. Her qualifications and jobs and income and accommodation were gradually improving.
She has two motives. One is escape from warring family. The second is build a secure future.
An Indian Story
At another event, I heard an Indian boy's story. He was smartly dressed in a shirt and tie and business suit and worked in a finance company. He lived in a small village with an extended family. His family and the neighbours all worked day and night and pooled their savings to send him to school and then college so he could get a job overseas either from a scholarship or taking the cheapest form of transport and taking every skilled or unskilled job available and paying his way at each step.
The understanding was that he would pay back to the community, sending money from his salary to his family and those who had funded his education and travel. He would also pay for one or two or three children from his home area to go to school and college.
The second time I heard this story, I thought, I've met this young man before. But I hadn't. It wasn't a unique story. If you think you have met the same young man as the first one I met, or second one I met, probably not.
You eventually find that stories you hear form a pattern. They are not necesaarily copied from each other. They are simply patterns of behaviour. Some people are born poor, others are born rich. You meet some of both.
Some are worn down and commit suicide. Others persist and become famous for their success, like Jack Ma, Chinese founder of Ali Baba.
English And Asian Attitudes
Unlike people in England, who sneer at financiers and those who want to earn money, and wearing a suit and tie, he was very proud to be employed and earn a good salary. he said his dream has been to buy his mother a house, and he had achieved that. Now he was still working non-stop, day, evening, overtime, whatever was pleasing to his employers, whatever would keep his job and earn him promotion. Whatever would enable him to get another job elsewhere. Whatever skills he would learn to run his own company.
He has three or four motives. Fulfil the dreams of his family. Help his family. Repay debts. Start a better life.
Draw your own conclusion about others and yourself. I presume you reach the same conclusion that I reach. But when you ask what people learn from a story, the answers you hear are surprisingly divergent.
Why are you travelling? Are you travelling to get away from something or get to something?
Jews After WWII
After WWII, escapting Jews travelled to get away from the dangerous places and regimes and memories they left behind. Some travelled to the yearned for promised land of Israel. Others travlled as far as possble to South America or Australia.
Some tried to escape and hide their past in a totally new environment. They changed religion. They became buddhist, atheist, humanist. I met a Jehovah's witness in Poland who said he or his co-religionists might have been descended from Jews, but for safety nobody ever admitted it, and rarely discussed it, except with a dying grandparent.
Advantages Of Travel
Some went to a Communist country with no religion. Some married somebody from Asia, such as an a Japanese or Chinese or Vietnamese person who had no knowledge or or hostility towards Jews. I met a man who had married an Asian girl. I eventually learned about his grandparent's past. His mother had kept it from him, and encouraged him to travel to Asia and study Asian languages. Her wish was fulfilled. He had a new life.
Jews in WWII, the Kindertransport, have something in common with modern day Chinese and Indian migrants. You admire their enterprise and determination.
Efforts At Assimilation
It can be quite a surprise to learn the initial difficulties they faced. When you meet somebody who seems confident and successful, their past can be a surprise. I have often been taken aback on learning how they started in a dormitory, then it took five or ten years of study and working to learn a new language, get an education, a shared university room or flat, a new skill, a job, a better paid job, a well paid job, their own room, their own flat, owning a flat.
They forgot the past and kept quiet about it, concentrated on their future. If you give them the opportunity to talk, and listen sympathetically, they will tell you.
Revelations - If You Ask
The bouncy, smiling, confident, detmined youg girl starts blinking and licking her lips and sighing as she tells you her past. The suave, loud, or quiet, young man, hesistates, or stammers, when he tells you about his past.
Some tried to hide their poor origins and early suffering. They enthuse about their new contry. Others try preserve what they had lost. Others find a balance. Listen and learn.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Please share links to this post.
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