Signs you’re not traveling even if you go far
Travel used to mean something. You had to work to go somewhere. In many places you could find a different culture.
Today, you just pay money and go from one airport to another. The concept that “it’s the journey, not the destination” is over. For most people the journey is passive. Going across the world takes marginally more effort than going across town. I’ve written before that “Traveling” with roller suitcases isn’t what traveling used to be.
Today, most places are just slightly different versions of the same global culture. Again, going across the world takes you to people little different than you can find across town, and I don’t just mean in a place as diverse as New York City.
Signs that your travel didn’t bring you to a different culture
A Swoosh is visible in many places.
Industries differ in the country from ones in yours by one letter, like Bollywood versus Hollywood or K-pop versus J-pop versus Pop.
You can charge your phone; only the shape of outlet jack is different.
Many people are wearing jeans.
They’ve made the ground smooth enough that you can pull your suitcase with little wheels to many places.
The main difference in their most popular sport is whether football is spelled with a ‘u’ as in Futbol or has something like “Australian rules” in front.
The food is still “Pad Thai” or “burrito” or something you get at home only the words are translated into a different language on the menu.
The biggest difference between their main religion and yours is which child of Abraham you trace to your roots to, or whether the medieval split was to Protestant versus Catholic, Ashkenazi versus Sephardic, Theravada versus Mahayana, etc.
This place dumps its garbage on a similar third world country as your country.
This country’s top market didn’t exist before oil or finance.
Most people there carry smartphones.
They use Baidu instead of Google, Alibaba instead of Amazon, WeChat instead of WhatsApp, etc.
Many products there are manufactured with rare earth metals or cobalt.
They have an obesity epidemic that started a few decades ago.
Covid reached this place within a month of when it reached where you live.
You can’t tell what nation or continent the beef in burgers there come from either.
Many people there use hair spray.
People in Africa will melt electronic waste from there down to extract metals.
People there gain value from more clicks.
You think you can help people there by bringing them electric power, nuclear power, giant dams, solar power, and cell phones.
The biggest difference in how people there are surveilled or censored is that it’s by a market controlled by the government instead of a government controlled by market.
People there feel helpless to change the march of (what’s called) progress but that its results keep robbing them of time, connection, community, and family, like social media.
They think leaving their culture means returning to the stone age.
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