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 he hadn’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;
1
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 him opening the thick
binding of his own book of travels to slash a red mark through China. I imagined him
inviting 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
2
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 travel during 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.
3
In thinking about my China trip in terms of tour and travel, I believe I
experienced both. 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.
4
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.
5