Traveling to different places is one of the things that keeps life interesting, in my opinion. It gives you an appreciation of just how big and diverse this planet of ours is. Whether it's going across town to an area with a different socioeconomic level than you have, or flying to the other side of the world, there is something about seeing how people in circumstances different from your own deal with the pressures and pleasures of life.
Texas can seem alien compared with Utah (or for that matter, Utah can seem pretty alien compared to just about everywhere else!), and yet both are in the United States, both are Western in one way or another, they even have similar terrain in places. But the cultures in both places are both alike and very different in surprising ways.
So of course, going to a different country on the other side of the world, with a radically different culture, language, history, religious tradition, and even different looking bodies, is an opportunity to really examine how those factors end up affecting the way people live.
In some ways there are still the profound similarities that makes us all fellow humans: people love their children the same way generally, they laugh and they cry and they play games and do sports. In other ways, there are profound differences: the way people dress, the way they show (or don't show) affection, the differences between rich and poor, the way they pray, eat, sing (or don't sing).
I've attempted to blog some of my observations in the past, but for one reason or another I didn't keep current. Partly it may have been due to the technical platform I was using, and partly it's because of the fact that there are frequently large gaps between trips during which I lose interest in the project. And in at least one case it's because I went to the same place so many times I kind of became sick of it and thought I had nothing of interest to write besides bitching about the place.
I'll try to do better in this one. As the web has become more social in the last few years it is easier to disseminate these types of blogs, and I think the biggest factor in keeping it going is the interest of others. So, if you are out there reading this, I will try to keep posting! I will also try to bring some of my old posts from the previous blog here so they will all be in one place. That means that you may see some posts that appear to be out of order, or you may think I'm just bouncing around all over the place. Hopefully, however, what I've written will be sufficiently interesting that it won't be too distracting. In any case, there aren't too many of those.
Texas can seem alien compared with Utah (or for that matter, Utah can seem pretty alien compared to just about everywhere else!), and yet both are in the United States, both are Western in one way or another, they even have similar terrain in places. But the cultures in both places are both alike and very different in surprising ways.
So of course, going to a different country on the other side of the world, with a radically different culture, language, history, religious tradition, and even different looking bodies, is an opportunity to really examine how those factors end up affecting the way people live.
In some ways there are still the profound similarities that makes us all fellow humans: people love their children the same way generally, they laugh and they cry and they play games and do sports. In other ways, there are profound differences: the way people dress, the way they show (or don't show) affection, the differences between rich and poor, the way they pray, eat, sing (or don't sing).
I've attempted to blog some of my observations in the past, but for one reason or another I didn't keep current. Partly it may have been due to the technical platform I was using, and partly it's because of the fact that there are frequently large gaps between trips during which I lose interest in the project. And in at least one case it's because I went to the same place so many times I kind of became sick of it and thought I had nothing of interest to write besides bitching about the place.
I'll try to do better in this one. As the web has become more social in the last few years it is easier to disseminate these types of blogs, and I think the biggest factor in keeping it going is the interest of others. So, if you are out there reading this, I will try to keep posting! I will also try to bring some of my old posts from the previous blog here so they will all be in one place. That means that you may see some posts that appear to be out of order, or you may think I'm just bouncing around all over the place. Hopefully, however, what I've written will be sufficiently interesting that it won't be too distracting. In any case, there aren't too many of those.
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