Posted on the Semester at Sea Fall 2013 Voyage page on Facebook:
Fall 2013: 50th Anniversary
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› Fall 2013: 50th Anniversary
- See more at: http://www.semesteratsea.org/voyages/fall-2013/#sthash.17NmbN6R.dpuf
It's a week before I fly to London and my To Do list is getting longer instead of shorter every day! Amid all the tasks like finding the perfect travel journal (going for unlined this time to try to encourage more right brain entries) and remembering to pay in advance the teenager next door who will be shoveling my early season snow, I'm trying to take some quiet time to set some intentions for myself for this voyage. What could I promise myself to do consistently along the way that would make me feel at the end that I had truly experienced and grown from this journey? I was thinking what a stubbornly persistent point of view my ethnocentrism is. I've been working on it for years but I keep catching myself behaving and talking like Americans have the best ideas, best cultural practices, best way of solving problems and the rest of the world would be much better off if they just did it our way. I decided I wanted to come home from this voyage with a vibrant list of the Best Of's from each of the countries we visit. I intend to ask locals I meet - taxi driver, guide, host family, woman in the market, anyone with whom I can find an adequate way of communicating - what about their country they think is the very best, that is uniquely theirs that they would like the world to know about and we would all be better, happier for it. I'm a confirmed foodie so which one dish or drink will be one question. I love all the cultural music, dance, crafts and visual arts so I plan to ask the person to pick just one of those. With some people I hope to be able to ask which idea or understanding or community practice is their very best gift to the world. So for America, if a foreign traveler asked me these questions, I might say Southern fried chicken, jazz and freedom of opportunity, supported by all our other freedoms.
As much as I'd like to learn these specific things, my main goal is to change my point of view as I travel. I want to enlist people's help with me seeing their country more through their eyes, from their point of view. Hopefully, they will have the experience of being valued and invited in to a real conversation, instead of feeling I am one more American who believes we have all the answers and all the best ways of doing things.
I'm planning to collect all these answers and share them with all of you, and if you'd like to do it, I'd love to hear what answers you get. There is an intranet on the ship with public folders where you can post all sorts of info for the ship's community, share photos and video, etc. I will be starting a folder maybe called something like "What do they bring to the table?" because I have this fantasy of a huge global dinner party where everyone is feasting on amazing food and drink, enjoying fabulous entertainment and having fascinating, powerful discussions of a wide array of exciting ideas, each the Best Of from each country.
If you'd like to join in, starting with England, try out asking these questions and see what happens. Copy down the answers in your field notebook - you are all bringing a small field notebook to keep with you all the time, right? Use their words when you can and include lots of sensory details you noticed as you were talking with this person - wrinkles in his face, call to prayer in the background, smell of the basil she was selling, starched khaki uniform of the schoolgirl. Photos and video also welcome. If you'd also like to add your Best Of list, from your point of view as a guest, a traveler in their country, please do that as well.
Fall 2013 is a celebration of Semester at Sea's 50th Anniversary and I, for one, am going to do all I can to make it The Best Ever! I absolutely cannot wait to make this voyage with you all! See you soon!
