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Two Year Reflections
The following is an excerpt from a letter I wrote my Grandma having just
completed two years of travel in Asia:
I recently reached the milestone of two years on the road in Asia.
Milestones, despite their arbitrary nature, are often convenient points
to look back and reflect on what has passed, and so I'll take the
opportunity provided by this letter to do a bit of looking back myself
on the last two years of my travel and maybe a few stabs at what it has
meant. I hope it will be a more interesting read than a mundane list of
places on a map whose names are inconsequential to their significance.
It has been a fascinating two years, and I feel very fortunate to
have had the opportunity to see so many places and things that remain
merely idle dreams for so many. But more so than the places and sites,
it is the people I meet along the way that makes traveling more than
just a series of images in some sort of fancy three dimensional film. I
was recently in Bangladesh during their first election in 7 years, and
the most peaceful and fair election in the country’s short but turbulent
and often violent history. Talking with the people there, it was
incredible to see the enthusiasm and optimism for a better tomorrow. On
election day people would proudly show me the ink line on their thumbs
denoting they had voted. I see in these people the antithesis of
apathetic Americans who take for granted and don't even bother to
exercise the rights and opportunities that these people thirsted for.
So many of the people I meet will never have the chance to visit
another country much less America. I feel the responsibility that comes
with the knowledge that, rightly or wrongly, people are often judged on
their country of origin and I will be the face of the American people
for many of the people I meet, a face that is in need of a positive
ambassador given the unpopularity of the previous administration's
policies throughout the world. I do my duty and try always to be kind
and considerate, hoping to convey that there is really not that much
different between them and myself.
I am constantly astounded by the generosity and hospitality of
people, who welcome me into their homes, and share their limited
resources. In Bangladesh I met a blind son of a government official and
a couple of his Burmese refugee friends who helped me visit some areas
of the country I would otherwise be unable to go. They are in the
process of setting up an NGO to help the people of Bangladesh's long
neglected minority Buddhist and Christian tribes. I stayed for nearly 2
weeks in a village in Nagaland, a tribal area in the far northeast of
India, with a girl's family I met there, observing and being a part of
the village lifestyle. While hiking in the Himalayas on a particularly
cold night, I was invited to sleep in a tent by a group of porters from
an expedition that was camping at the same place I was. They shared
their warm food with me, as I was hiking with only dried fruits and
nuts. These are just a few examples of the countless acts of
hospitality that have been bestowed on me while traveling the last two
years.
I've slept in village huts, nomad tents, monasteries, a hammock on
the beach, a cave in the mountains, the home of a "living Buddha," the
tent city of a Mount Everest expedition, the floor of a classroom in
rural Rajasthan, and countless guesthouses, homes, and hotels throughout
Asia. I've covered thousands of miles by bus, train, car, truck, boat,
motorbike, bicycle, and foot. Despite all this, I still wake up every
morning excited to find out what will happen today, who will I meet and
what will I see. Every day is an adventure and an education. For
nearly 8 years I studied the fundamental aspects of nature making some
of the smallest man-made structures in the world. Now I'm studying the
world on a larger scale, yet all of it still made up those same atoms
which I learned to carefully arrange using the forces of nature as my
tools. The awe inspiring mountains, the pupil in the stare of a curious
child, the carved stone on a temple wall, and even the brain from which
emanated the idea to carve the stone in just that way, all of it just
rearrangements of these same small particles far grander and more
intricate than any of the crude structures I managed to produce. But
just as I was able to change the outward appearance of material by
merely rearranging the positions of its atoms, so too all that outwardly
seems foreign, exotic, and different is just change in the arrangement
and all is fundamentally the same. Knowing the commonality I can still
appreciate the artistry and complexity of the arrangement, while feeling
the splendor and simplicity of its common fundamental nature. I think
anyone who has traveled extensively would agree that while it is often
the perceived differences that drive them initially, eventually it is
the commonality that crosses cultures and continents that truly
intrigues them.
My travel is natural extension of my curiosity about the world, the
same curiosity which led me into science and now leads me to wonder
what's around that corner, how do people live in this tiny section of
the map. These last two years of traveling have been a mere
continuation of that lifelong uniquely human endeavor we call education.
As of course anyone who has studied anything will tell you, the more
you learn about anything the more you realize you don't know. Thus
there can be no end, only a journey so we must enjoy the process not the
destination, taking pleasure in the thrill of not knowing as much as in
the satisfaction of discovery. So I enjoy the exhilaration of not
knowing what's coming next, what will I see, who will I meet, what will
I discover, as much as who I met, what I saw, what I learned.
Enjoying the
journey.
-Micah Hanson, February 2009 |
