So I have a GA (General Abonnement) card, which, for a flat fee, lets me travel around Switzerland without limit. So almost every train, bus and tram in Switzerland is open to my use. 

It usually costs over 3000 Francs per year, but as a student I get a discount down to 2200 or so. If you travel enough here, it’s well worth the money. You make back your investment in fairly short order. 

Since I’m going to be moving into Zürich soon though, I’ll get to refund the remaining months on my card, and invest into a Zürich city pass. 

But BEFORE that… I should travel a lot. I have always wanted and never been to Schaffhausen, and I’ve heard it’s beautiful. 

I could also go and explore Ticino and Lugano more. Otherwise I feel like I’ve seen a lot of the country over the years. 

No offense to any vegetarians and vegans among my followers, but putting things simply, it makes travel a lot more difficult. 

I feel like America caters well to vegans, but practically no one outside the US will even bother. Vegetarians get some love in China, India, and other places, but you also have to be open to different cuisines and I’m not sure that American vegetarians are necessarily into that, since most of them are vegetarians for health reasons. 

When travelling you only have a limited amount of time in any given place, and so you maximize your experience by trying everything that place has to offer. You can always revert back to your normal way of living when you go home. 

I dunno. I just think it’s wasteful. 

My parents are somewhat obsessive planners. My dad in particular, when traveling, likes to look up all the train connections and all the details and print out multiple possible itineraries. 

My mom is just a bit of a control freak, and maybe slightly OCD. 

A few years ago they lived closer to Zürich, and there was one almost direct train to the airport, with one changeover. The time between when your train arrived and the next one left was something like 3-5 minutes. This is a long time, considering that the trains actually shared the same platform, and so it’s literally crossing from one side of the platform to the other. 

Despite taking this train multiple times, in the months and months after having moved to this area, they would tense up one stop before the change, remind each other and anyone else they’re with that they have to change soon, rush like hell to the other side, and sit and wait for 5 minutes. 

The wonderful thing about the Swiss public transport network is that most of it works together really well. Buses and trains arrive with generally enough time to make your connections. You might occasionally have to run a little, but most of the time you don’t have to do more than walk. 7 minutes is a lot of time to go from one platform to another. 

I have to say, I missed travelling alone. There’s a lovely feeling to being on your own, going somewhere you haven’t gone before, and not being sure about how you’re doing it but doing it anyway. 

Every time I do this, I am amazed by the sheer size of the world. When you’re in a travel hub, like an international airport or a train station which sees a fair amount of traffic, you can’t help but be amazed at how many people there are. They’re going in all directions, coming from everywhere, each a little story with a suitcase. 

To be honest, it’s humbling. How many people out there live lives just like me? No one is exactly like me, but in a lot of ways as well, none of our lives are so very different. We are born, we go about our lives, we die. In the mass of 7 billion people currently living, dying and being born, it’s a small thing. 

When you travel you take yourself out of your normal context, and when you do that you look at places and people and you inevitably compare it and them to your places, your people, and yourself. And you realize how limited your experience is, and how wide and wonderful the world is. 

iamatck:

You may not notice her.  At first glance, she may appear perfectly comfortable — these kids are chameleons, adept at taking on the colors of each new environment they are plunged into.  She looks and sounds like the other kids in her class; she wears the same kind of clothes, has the same gadgetry, carries the same backpack.

…

These children are losing the worlds they love, over and over.  They cycle through the stages of grief each time they move — or they don’t, and push it down, submerge it, only to have it bubble up later in life, unexplained.

The grief of children is often invisible.  They are told they will adapt, they are resilient.  They are told they’ll get over missing that friend, they’ll get another pet, they’ll have a nicer room in the new house.  Their family is rushed; they don’t have time to mourn their losses.

And they are children, and don’t know how to express what they are feeling.

Some mental health professionals call it trauma.

Kathleen Gilbert has researched grief among TCKs, and writes, “Losses that are not successfully resolved in childhood have an increased likelihood of recurring in adulthood… For TCKs, questions about who they are, what they are, where they are from, what and who they can trust are examples of existential losses with which they must cope.  And the way in which they process these losses will change, or may even wait until long after their childhood.”

So when she comes to you, don’t ask her where she’s from, or what’s troubling her.  Ask her where she’s lived.  Ask her what she’s left behind.  Open doors.  And just listen.  Give her the time and space and permission she needs to remember and to mourn.  She has a story — many stories.  And she needs and deserves to be heard, and to be healed, and to be whole.

http://www.cmhnetwork.org/media-center/morning-zen/the-trouble-with-third-culture-kids

I wonder about this. 

To some extent I agree. It doesn’t bother me all the time but once in a while I just feel terribly lost, and a desperate need to be reminded of my connections with my various pasts. 

But… like I said, I spend most of my time pretty okay with things. My most difficult time adjusting to adulthood was during that transitional period between being a teenager and being an adult, being an active TCK and then being a passive TCK. 

What I mean between active and passive is that the period considered most important, or at least the main area of analysis, is childhood. I don’t want to make the suggestion that what happens after you turn 18 isn’t important, but sometimes it feels like it’s said that we’re only TCKs until we move back home or until we turn 18, and that everything afterwards is just feeling the effects of that experience. 

And while there’s something to be said for the fact that your developmental years are particularly important, how you deal with the rest of your life isn’t set in stone by how your world affected you growing up. 

All of this is my way of saying that part of the problems of repatriation and dealing with “not being a real TCK anymore” is intricately tied with growing up as well. 

Because when you repatriate, at that age you leave your family, you leave your childhood, you go to a new place and you’re increasingly saddled with more personal responsibility… it all adds up with everything else, because you’re saying goodbye to your youth, which is bundled together with saying goodbye to your more international life. 

And just like how you eventually sort of become what we call adult, you do also learn to deal with the childhood you left behind. 

I’m not saying that there aren’t lasting issues, but I am saying that they’re also linked to our sense of loss for a past we can no longer entirely reclaim either as a childhood in general or our international upbringings. 

kindelling:

So there’s a picture post floating around of a Klansman getting a ticket to travel, and after many years his racism is cured. I could get into the sheer bullshittiness of this on so many levels, but I’m just going to focus on one:

Travel does not cure racism.

Just because you went to “Africa” (never mind what country) and played football, does not mean you are suddenly a bigger, better, non-racist person.

In fact, I’ve met more racist people in my travels than I have at home. The fact is, people don’t like to feel humbled. Sure, if they see a gorgeous mountain with a perfect sunrise, they feel humbled by nature or God. But generally people don’t like to feel they were wrong, and they really don’t like to experience another culture on that culture’s terms.

I’ve lived abroad for eleven years, and even I’m guilty of that last one. I got mad when people touched my pale skin in China, I hated how people assumed I was a dumb foreigner, and I really hated being judged for being American. But that was an Occidental approach that comes from thinking you know best. What I feel about shadism or xenophobia doesn’t matter, because it is not my country so it is not my culture to change.

And people do this in so many horrifying forms, in so many little ways, that they don’t even notice. Little things that add up to so many disgusting forms of Western superiority that go unchecked, because there’s practically no dialogue about it. Or at least none that most will listen to.

And even when a dialogue is started, most people talk over the citizens whose daily life is being questioned because they believe they know best. For instance, every movie where a white person goes to India has to question love matches vs. arranged marriages, and the white person’s view is always portrayed as the correct one. Or for a real example, when I was in the Philippines, I was appalled by how the white men treated their Filippina wives - one woman was literally being dragged by her arm through the Mall of Asia. When I asked some Filipinos about it, I drowned out their side with my Western feminism. 

Sure, travel can open your eyes. But that doesn’t mean your perception will magically alter to acceptance of who and what a culture is. You can take what you see abroad any which way, and odds are, you will not understand it. 

The thing is, it’s fine if you don’t understand it. It’s not yours to understand. Or if you want to understand it better, you need to shut the fuck up and listen. And, as Tumblr loves to say, you don’t get a gold star for doing the right thing. 

So my friend Johnny is travelling and trying to tell stories from his development work. He’s recently made it to Sri Lanka, and made a point of visiting the (former) war zone in the north. 

This is a particularly touching article. 

So I wanted to talk about my day instead of writing about it. I did it with various background footage I’ve been taking here in Switzerland, in particular of Zug, a little bit in Zürich, and the ägerisee after the snow. 

Let me know if you like this format, or the other from my previous video I posted. The other is more work, of course, but I think more creative. 

I was feeling inspired by the Vlogbrothers and their absolutely lovely “Thoughts from Places” videos. It’s kind of a lot harder than it looks. 

Basically though, I went about my day in Switzerland and brought my camera with me. I went a little out of my way to show extra stuff. 

It’s my first video in a while, and honestly the first video I’ve done in this style, so I think I have a lot of improvement to do in regards to editing. 

Watch with annotations! 

This is kind of how I like to travel. I hate planning trips. The idea of just following other tourists is a good one though, hadn’t thought of that. 

Still, it works a little better when you can speak the language. Last year around my birthday my roommate in Malaysia insisted I travel more, and since he was going to KL I could come with, and then go in my own direction. On his suggestion, I went to Melaka. 

I knew juuuust about nothing about Melaka before going, but the activity of figuring things out with the bus stations, the cab driver, the hostels, and meeting people there to wander around and hang out with, was extremely fun and surprisingly rewarding. 

But John shows how you can do it without speaking the language. 

For Americans who were or are expats, and for Adult Third Culture Kids: 

By June 2005, the itch had grown unbearable. I could no longer look in the mirror or the eyes of my girlfriend and deny it any longer — I was a junkie. My addiction was not for drugs, sex, adrenalin, or the typical gamut of vices, but for travel — and not just travel, but full-blown expatriation. Cost meant nothing, nor danger, nor stability, nor the damage it caused to relationships with loved ones. The only thing that mattered or provided any joy in my life was chasing the dragon down roads less traveled. And yes, it made all the difference.

Thanks to the US government, I carried a golden ticket. Two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Estonia had qualified me to teach English as a foreign language and added a formidable reference to my resume which opened the door to nearly any school in the developing world. Combined with the intense desire for many of these countries to westernize in business, trade, and technology, I was in hot demand, so long as I didn’t mind working in quasi-legality. In fact, I preferred it. It intensified the rush.

But the heart of the addiction lay elsewhere — no doubt partially in a host of psychological issues instilled in childhood by Québécois nuns, partially in the improved social status living abroad brought (known locally as “foreign fabulous”), partially in the increased access to exotic women, but far more in the power of the blank page.

At home, the pages of my life already seemed written — go to college, get a job, get married, buy a house and car, have babies, die. But stepping through the West Gate in Canterbury, England during my first year abroad as a student at the University of Kent, the tale was mine to write. And I was determined to beat Chaucer at his game.

There are sometimes photos which float around Tumblr and Facebook which are pictures of galaxies. They’ll point out with an arrow at a tiny patch of nothing and state “that’s where you are.” 

The point is to put your life in perspective as a simple matter of scale: you are a tiny patch of existence in a huge universe much older than you’ll ever truly understand. So chill out and enjoy it. 

I find that the effect can be repeated, in a sense, in large transportation hubs like train stations or airports. I mean the big ones, like international airports. The kinds of places where you can see the list of departures, all of which are heading somewhere far away and very different. This means there are people coming and going from these places, either tourists travelling there, migrants going back and forth, immigrants coming from there, and so on. 

This has an effect twofold: 

The first is in having the plain evidence ahead of you of just how big the world is. You see distant cities, and people from them, and going to and from them, and it just represents a sense of scale. 

The second is in perceiving the people themselves. You can build a story by watching people. You can see who the tourists are, who the travelling students are, who the retirees are, who the backpackers are, who the business travellers are… and so on. Indeed, in any large collection of humanity, just being observant of the people around you can give you a sense of the vast wealth of variety in human experience, but the effect is multiplied by international transportation hubs bringing the world to you, in a sense. 

This is probably a big reason why TCKs love airports. They remind them of a bigger world that they feel comfortable to be a part of. 

I had my beer today with my Pakistani friend, and another classmate from Azerbaijan who’s a very nice woman. 

While we were talking, I wished them Eid Mubarak, and we got onto the topic of Islam, religion, and later food. 

What was interesting was the different interpretations. Neither of them observe the Ramadan fasting. Her, because she’s not a religious person (and apparently not many people in Azerbaijan are) and he, because he doesn’t believe you need to fast in order to appreciate God. He also says he has a fast metabolism which needs regular sustenance, and in that sense is excused. 

The Azeri woman went a step further too. She eats pork. Even non-practicing Muslims I know tend not to eat pork. The way she described it in Azerbaijan is that of being quite pragmatic: it’s an animal, it walks around, it’s a waste not to eat it. I don’t know for sure how common her outlook is, but she made it sound like a fairly normal idea there. He still doesn’t, though. It’s just a thing you don’t do. 

I was telling him about nightlife where I’d been in Asia. In Indonesia most people drink alcohol, regardless of whether they’re Muslim or not. This is because they have a fairly relaxed approach to Islam. They generally don’t let it get in the way. 

In Malaysia however, all the bars and clubs are mostly full of just Chinese-Malaysians and foreigners. The Indians go too, but not as much or in as many numbers. The Malays just don’t go, since they’re not supposed to drink. Considering they’re legally under Sharia, I’m not sure if they get checked on or not. I don’t think they do, but it wouldn’t surprise me otherwise. 

Shopping Malls in Asia

It’s important to realize that in much of Asia, the outgoing pastime for urban folk is to go to the shopping mall. This is for two reasons: 

1. It’s freaking hot in many of these countries, so the chance to hang out inside an air-conditioned place with everything in it you could want is attractive. 
2. People like to shop. And also to be seen shopping in more luxurious places. 

So these malls have everything in them. The basic concept is to hang around there all day on a Saturday. They always have large food courts, cafes, shops, and cinemas. And air-conditioning. 

Taman Anggrek, the first photo, is quite the doozy. It has a full supermarket in its basement, and the towers above the main building are actually mostly apartment blocks. It lets tenants hang out at the mall without going far. It also has an ice skating rink inside. 

Pondok Indah Mall opened while I was a child in Jakarta, and it was the cool place to go for a while, because it had its own water park (whose popularity didn’t quite last). I believe they’ve renovated it since I was there. 

Plaza Senayan was the luxury mall for a long time, and I believe may still be. Among other things, it has a premiere cinema. It’s also located within the Senayan area, which has among other things, the lovely 5 star Melia Senayan hotel. We used to go for dim sum there on Sundays, and they also had a great buffet. 

In the middle of Georgetown, in Penang, is Komtar. Technically it’s the complex directly below the only skyscraper within the city, but everyone refers to the area as Komtar. It has about four large malls within the area: 1st Avenue, Prangin Mall, ICT Digital Mall, and Komtar itself. Komtar itself is pretty run down and drab, while 1st Avenue is shiny, pristine, and really really cold inside. It says something that both 1st Avenue and Prangin Mall have their own cinemas. 

Singapore has been called “One big mall and hotel” and that would be somewhat representative. That paints a picture of Orchard Road in particular, which is full of malls and 5 star hotels. The Singaporean (and tourist) pastime is to walk along there for anything you need. The great difference between Singapore and other Asian cities is that you can walk from mall to mall. 

When I was in Hong Kong last year, I stayed with a friend in Kowloon Tong, and the nearby mall was Festival Walk. It seemed relatively new, and connected directly with the MTR (metro). It too, had its own ice skating rink. It was also the only place I found a sizeable English bookstore. 

ricanontherun’s post about Dine-In American cinemas reminded me of the luxury cinemas I’d been to in Asia. 

While I was living in Jakarta, they opened the “Premiere” theaters at Plaza Senayan. These would have La-Z-Boy chairs, champagne and bar service, and a colder A/C than usual (this being Asia, is very important). 

The cost of a movie ticket at a more local area, like I usually went to, would at the time be around Rp. 25k. At a nice mall like at Senayan or Pondok Indah, the price would jump to closer to Rp. 40-60k. The Premiere cost around Rp.90k. I understand prices have changed since I was there though. 

The only other time I’d been to a cinema with the same sort of concept was in Penang. 1st Avenue, an upscale mall in by the Komtar complex, has what it calls a “beanieplex.” The movie chairs are basically big beanbags. It’s perfect for movie date cuddle. 

It cost, I think, a little more than the average movie ticket. The prices in Malaysia tend to fluctuate a lot, but I think it was only 18 MYR to the usual 12-14. 

What’s also pretty common in South East Asian cinemas is that they’re always in shopping malls, the general outdoors entertainment source in the region, and there’s always a gaming arcade next to it, to play while waiting for your movie. In Taman Anggrek there’s a skating rink instead, though. 

There are some quite nice cinemas here in Switzerland, but one thing they do in all Swiss cinemas is an intermission. Around halfway through the movie they’ll take a break for 10 minutes. For people to go to the bathroom, grab a snack, or have a cigarette. Personally I prefer my immersion to never be broken, but it’s practical for others. In any case, all Swiss cinemas are city cinemas and therefore relatively small. 

My experience in America, on the other hand, had cinemas in large lots with 20 different theaters. And with free seating. America is the only country I’ve been to with free seating in cinemas.