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There and Back Again: Asia

“If I take one more step… it’ll be the farthest away from home I’ve ever been.” — Samwise Gamgee, The Fellowship of the Ring

I am proverbially kicking myself for missing out on my opportunity to quote that line when I finally traveled outside of the United States this past month. My husband and I had the amazing experience of going to Asia in May. Phew. How is that for your first trip out of the country? We went with a small group of people from my college.

Above is a photo of some members of our group and some of the gracious people who hosted us during our stay in the country. It’s strange to be back home again after spending three weeks in a land where everything is covered in gold. I saw a little journal in Powell’s on Hawthorne a week ago with a golden Buddha statue on the cover and it struck me that I hadn’t seen one of those since getting home. Yet there they are everywhere.

Another weird experience reminded me of The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. In that book, one of her characters refers to the United States as being devoid of smells in comparison to the Congo. Now I understand what she meant. This part of Asia has a particular smell and while walking through the Portland Farmer’s Market at PSU on Saturday I caught a whiff of something very similar for just a moment. I probably whacked my husband on the arm and I said, “Did you smell that? It smelled like Asia!”

Asia may be a land of golden pagodas, but this picture shows what I think is probably a more accurate representation of life for many people. We saw homes perched on stilts over dirty, mosquito-ridden standing water. Throughout the trip, we only drank bottled water because the tap water is not safe. Our hosts assured us that bottled water is cheap there, but I wondered if it was accessible to everyone in the country, even in the most rural areas. There is great poverty in this beautiful country.

Nothing in Asia is more beautiful than its people. Our hosts were so generous and excited for us to be there. They showered us with food and gifts and more and more food. We watched kids sing and play and dance their hearts out—and punch their siblings. We cracked jokes and learned new words and gave each other nicknames. We played Ninja and Greedy and sometimes just Charades or Monkey See, Monkey Do between two people who spoke two different languages. And they were all so patient while we attempted to learn how to say their names correctly. I could tell you the names of the two kids in this picture, but I could never spell them and I probably would pronounce them very badly.

We had to wait until the last week of our trip before we finally caught an Asian sunset. (We were always inside eating dinner at sunset for the rest of the trip.) It was well worth the wait. This is the view from a house in one of the towns we visited on probably my favorite night of the trip. Flying home we had the strange experience of seeing Sunday sunrise in Asia followed by Saturday sunset in California.

This photo of my husband and me is also from the same town. We have been home now for two and a half weeks, but this country is still pressing into my mind. Lately I’ve been feeling that a trip to a place like this should be part of every person’s undergraduate education, not only a select few. As an English major, and especially as one who recently took a Global Literature course, I have heard a lot of talk about developing nations in class lectures and textbooks. In the classroom, however, those nations are just paper and Power Points. They are too often filed away as a footnote in a student’s mind. But when visiting a place like Asia in person, the same thought runs through your head a million times over: We don’t have a lot to complain about at home, do we? And I think that’s one of the best lessons a student can learn.

After arriving back home, that thought still rang in my head. It was confusing and I couldn’t put exactly what I was feeling into words. I am so grateful to live in this country, yet I was so irritated by our endless quest for stuff. Someone brought up those reality TV shows about ultra expensive birthday parties/weddings/cars/homes/[insert anything else here] and I felt like smacking my head against the wall. I couldn’t phrase what I was feeling except to say, “Practically no one in this country should be complaining about anything.” Including me. Finally, while poking around on Steven James’ blog a few days ago, a quote he had posted caught my attention:

“Anyone whose common sense has not been dulled by familiarity should be able to see the blindingly obvious truth that there is something radically wrong with a civilization in which millions devote their lives to pointless luxuries that do not even make them happy, while millions of others are starving; a civilization where no hand, voluntary or involuntary, moves money from luxury yachts to starving babies fast enough to save the babies.” — Peter Kreeft

Bam. That was it. That’s what I was feeling. And who can argue with that? It’s true. Sometimes we just forget what’s important and what’s going on in the world. It’s easy to forget paper and Power Points. But it’s impossible to forget people and places.

More on my trip to come. And you can bet that next time I fly over 10,000 miles I will say that quote!