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Things I've Learned from Traveling Around the World for Three Years

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Re: Things I've Learned from Traveling Around the World for Three Years

#71

Post by jerf »

elblanco wrote: post #19

I've had the good fortune to be able to travel quite a bit in both my professional and personal life. And I really have to echo everything the author says. But three points in particular: "The media lies" is something everyone should take to heart. It's an astonishing thing to be in a place where the #1 story of the day is happening and not see anything even remotely representing the reporting on it at ground level.…

'"The media lies" is something everyone should take to heart. It's an astonishing thing to be in a place where the #1 story of the day is happening and not see anything even remotely representing the reporting on it at ground level.'

For what it's worth, that's not unique to international news. Anyone who has been involved with a national scale story can tell you about the disconnect between what the news reports and the truth. My involvement was being home-from-school during a school shooting, and the news reports were seriously doing well to simply spell the names of those involved correctly. Most everything else just came from a pre-canned "disaster in small town" template without any sort of checking for truth or anything.

This was 1993, too. The media hasn't been worth the paper it's written on for a while now, the Internet just let us collectively discover the rot.

Re: Things I've Learned from Traveling Around the World for Three Years

#72

Post by jerf »

evgen wrote: post #56
run4yourlives wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadians travel, so you can't excuse the distance. I think the problem is (I say this as a Canadian) that the US has a very insular streak to it's fabric that is manifested in ways such as this. This same streak that caused the US to join both world wars when they were half over. My guess is that it stems from the individual nature of the founders, along with the split from England. This isn't as strong in Canada an…

Another alternative hypothesis for you to consider: there is already so much beauty, novelty, and interesting diversity in the US that it takes a slightly bigger push to get past this local maxima. No offense, but if you chopped out and stitched together all of the interesting bits of Canada you would have a land mass that was about the size of California and with a similar population; in the US we have 49 other stat…

Another aspect is that I don't have to travel to the other side of the world to learn about other cultures, necessarily; I just start talking to my neighbors or coworkers. Is it the same? No, but it's not worthless and you can get up close and fairly personal. I won't learn enough to blend in with that culture by any means but that takes months anyhow.

Re: Things I've Learned from Traveling Around the World for Three Years

#73

Post by neilk »

gruseom wrote: post #13
shralpmeister wrote: post #2

As a Canadian living in the US, I have to take exception to his remark that Canadian and American cultures are the same. The differences might appear subtle, but I'd say the differences are huge. They just run deeper beneath the superficial similarity. I'm speaking of English Canadians BTW. Vive la difference!

An American is proud of what he is: an American. A Canadian is proud of what he is not: an American.

I would amend your statement to say that ignorant Americans believe their country is supreme, because the TV tells them so. Ignorant Canadians receive the same messages, but don't have much to counter them, and thus default to such spite and envy.

I'm a Canadian and I've lived in the USA for years. This has made me acutely aware of how different our cultures really are, and how they both have different virtues.

Re: Things I've Learned from Traveling Around the World for Three Years

#74

Post by decadentcactus »

maxawaytoolong wrote: post #22

I used to travel. Africa, Australia, Japan, Europe, Mexico, etc. His point about Americans not traveling is valid. I wonder if part of the reason is that North America is so far away from everywhere else. It takes 11 hours to fly from Berlin to Thailand, but it takes 25 hours to fly from NYC to Thailand. Most Americans probably have to get to NYC or LA to get anywhere else in the world, which can be another 3-5 hours…

I feel like you're making the excuse. You don't have to go to Thailand, there's plenty of different cultures/destinations near the US (Europe, Southern Americas and possibly even Japan). Instead of comparing Berlin to Thailand with NYC to Thailand, try NYC to Berlin.

This is coming from someone living in Perth, who has to travel forever to get anywhere, including having to go through Sydney or Singapore to get anywhere distant.

Re: Things I've Learned from Traveling Around the World for Three Years

#75

Post by mrtron »

gruseom wrote: post #13
shralpmeister wrote: post #2

As a Canadian living in the US, I have to take exception to his remark that Canadian and American cultures are the same. The differences might appear subtle, but I'd say the differences are huge. They just run deeper beneath the superficial similarity. I'm speaking of English Canadians BTW. Vive la difference!

An American is proud of what he is: an American. A Canadian is proud of what he is not: an American.

Ah, a load of shit.

Canadians are proud to be Canadian. Traveling around has shown me that people often don't know much about Canada, but they recognize the people are nice. That alone is enough to be proud of.

The whole 'Canada identity crisis' is because Canadians are too concerned with their international appearance and place. We need to just embrace the core identity we already have instead of looking for a new one.

The Olympics was an example of Canada trying too hard on the international scene. The closing ceremonies had this horrid 'comedy' portion designed to show that we don't take ourselves too seriously. That in itself was just trying too hard - you don't need an intentionally lame comedy sketch to show that.

Anyways Daniel - I recommend you travel more. The further I get from Canada the more I realize it is only a few Canadians and Americans that see it as a US vs Canada issue - we already have our own distinct identity.

Re: Things I've Learned from Traveling Around the World for Three Years

#76

Post by T_S_ »

Pretty sensible article, except for the health concerns. Don't be afraid, just prepare like you are.

Glad the author is in robust health, but be prepared with antibiotics, anti-diarrhea medicine and remedies for whatever you are prone to getting, say, allergies. Worst case planning makes the trip more fun. For example, my friend got malaria in Kenya.

You just don't know what kind of medicine or care is going to be available.

Re: Things I've Learned from Traveling Around the World for Three Years

#77

Post by metamemetics »

kroger wrote: post #60
SkyMarshal wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about 'developing world' instead? Any other suggestions?

It's not so simple as 'developed world' vs 'developing world'. There's an awesome Hans Rosling ted talk [1] about that. Here's an quote from it: "I find my experience from 20 years of Africa is that the seemingly impossible is possible. Africa has not done bad. In 50 years they've gone from a pre-Medieval situation to a very decent 100-year-ago Europe, with a functioning nation and state. I would say that sub-Saharan…

>It's not so simple as 'developed world' vs 'developing world'

Of course. These are just useful categories. Humans like to put things into categories so we can make statements about ideas. Saying it's "not so simple" is a strawman as I don't think anyone is claiming that a country is a data structure with the capacity of 1 bit (developed or developing).

Maybe if you said or quoted something about how the act of using this categorical construction in analysis when performed too often is the physical cause of some sort of injustice.

Re: Things I've Learned from Traveling Around the World for Three Years

#78

Post by maxawaytoolong »

decadentcactus wrote: post #74
maxawaytoolong wrote: post #22

I used to travel. Africa, Australia, Japan, Europe, Mexico, etc. His point about Americans not traveling is valid. I wonder if part of the reason is that North America is so far away from everywhere else. It takes 11 hours to fly from Berlin to Thailand, but it takes 25 hours to fly from NYC to Thailand. Most Americans probably have to get to NYC or LA to get anywhere else in the world, which can be another 3-5 hours…

I feel like you're making the excuse. You don't have to go to Thailand, there's plenty of different cultures/destinations near the US (Europe, Southern Americas and possibly even Japan). Instead of comparing Berlin to Thailand with NYC to Thailand, try NYC to Berlin. This is coming from someone living in Perth, who has to travel forever to get anywhere, including having to go through Sydney or Singapore to get anywhe…

I've already been to Perth, so I'm not making any excuses. Even if I was, it doesn't make the flights any shorter.

Re: Things I've Learned from Traveling Around the World for Three Years

#79

Post by george_george »

shralpmeister wrote: post #2

As a Canadian living in the US, I have to take exception to his remark that Canadian and American cultures are the same. The differences might appear subtle, but I'd say the differences are huge. They just run deeper beneath the superficial similarity. I'm speaking of English Canadians BTW. Vive la difference!

I'm an Australian living in a town with a pretty high level of immigrants, including a lot of Americans and Canadians, and I can't tell the difference between an American and a Canadian at all. I'm not entirely convinced the difference between a Canadian and an American would be any bigger than the difference between Texans and Californians, for example.

Re: Things I've Learned from Traveling Around the World for Three Years

#80

Post by maxawaytoolong »

george_george wrote: post #79
shralpmeister wrote: post #2

As a Canadian living in the US, I have to take exception to his remark that Canadian and American cultures are the same. The differences might appear subtle, but I'd say the differences are huge. They just run deeper beneath the superficial similarity. I'm speaking of English Canadians BTW. Vive la difference!

I'm an Australian living in a town with a pretty high level of immigrants, including a lot of Americans and Canadians, and I can't tell the difference between an American and a Canadian at all. I'm not entirely convinced the difference between a Canadian and an American would be any bigger than the difference between Texans and Californians, for example.

The difference between a Canadian and an American is about the same as the difference between a Kiwi and an Aussie. Likewise, the difference between a Texan and a Californian is similar to the difference between someone from Geelong and someone from Sydney.
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