5 ms·

Ticking off the number of countries you've visited is hardly a benevolent hobby. You can learn the history, culture, language, traditions, etc. of any country b

Ticking off the number of countries you've visited is hardly a benevolent hobby. You can learn the history, culture, language, traditions, etc. of any country by opening a book, if that's really what you're interested in.

TulliusCicero 7y ago
> You can learn the history, culture, language, traditions, etc. of any country by opening a book Is this a serious assertion? You think I can learn the culture of, say, Japan, from a book as well as by actually living there for a short period and experiencing it? This strikes me as woefully naive. Learning things from books, from a distance is fine and good, but there's no true substitute for being there, for experiencing a thing in person.
- the_gastropod 7y ago
  I strongly suspect an average student who studied Japanese in college knows more about Japan than an average tourist who went to Japan for a week or two, yes.
  - katbyte 7y ago
    Im Canadian, I’ve read and researched a lot. I thought I knew my country but then I drove across it and realized how little I knew. Experiencing a place, people and culture is imho impossible without being there and present.
romwell 7y ago
Yeah right, because nobody who travels to a country reads up on the history, culture and traditions. Traveling and reading, after all, are mutually exclusive. /s Let me tell you of a night in Mardid. I headed out to see the night Madrid around midnight. Going along a crowded street, I heard someone singing. I was carrying a portable synthesizer, so I played along. Three people, carrying two guitars and a saxophone were walking in the opposite direction; they stopped, and joined in. Eventually, the girl who was singing left; and the trio asked me if I'd join them to hear a jazz jam. Something is still happening this late, I asked. Yeah, it starts at 2:30AM. I thought it was an open jam, but it was mostly the house/invited bands playing. Still, I managed to persuade the saxophone player to take the stage with a solo: he played it to me in the corner, where nobody could hear it, and I thought it was really good. When the jam was over, we resumed making music until sunrise, playing at a bus stop (no buses were running that late). Random people joined in at times. When the night was over, I left carrying with me something that I'd have trouble putting in words, much less so reading from a text written by someone else. It's an impossible task, after all, to convert a person or a memory into a string of characters losslessly. You can learn many things from books. And then there is so much more that you can't.
- the_gastropod 7y ago
  That's, no doubt, an amazing experience. And there's likely countless wonderful experiences you have had / could have right in your home city. The suggestion of the comment I responded to was about learning. Traveling, on its own, doesn't do anything to help people learn anything substantial. It's still ultimately a consumerism-centric activity. The travel industry has done an amazing job of convincing people otherwise.
  - romwell 7y ago
    > And there's likely countless wonderful experiences you have had / could have right in your home city. Nothing of this sort. Most of the US shuts down at 2AM, people don't walk the streets in most cities which makes bumping into people impossible, and so on. The life and the environment is totally different here. (I say this as someone who drove through all states West of Iowa, with the exception of North Dakota, lived in NYC, TX, CA each for years, and moved to the US from another country). Most importantly, interacting with people from another country in their environment gives you a unique perspective both on their culture and your own. It's not about "having and experience", it's that your understanding of the world around you changes substantially. >doesn't do anything to help people learn anything substantial You learn how another country works. You learn what a day in life of another person is like in that country. It's the countless little things that are different that you see. It's the everyday lives that shape everyday thinking, and that's what matters the most. In short, you learn to be in a different way, by observing people who are in a different way. Textbooks simply won't answer the question "What is it like to be a Parisian, in 2019?". I mean, you are making a very strong statement, with not much to back it up with. I provided a single counter-example, but I really don't know where to even start. The logic of your argument applies verbatim to pretty much anything: "There's no point in venturing outdoors. If you really want to learn about nature, hit the library. You're just enjoying yourselves out there." Well, no. Maybe that's what you do, but perhaps you aren't getting as much out of it. I'll also make a strong statement: you have no idea what another country is like until you travel there. You won't have a single shared experience that will make it possible for you to relate to someone living there. Until you go there, all your knowledge is just an abstraction that you built up in your head. To make an analogy again: you can read up on Beethoven all your life, but from hearing his music once you learn more than from reading about it.

TulliusCicero 7y ago

> You can learn the history, culture, language, traditions, etc. of any country by opening a book Is this a serious assertion? You think I can learn the culture of, say, Japan, from a book as well as by actually living there for a short period and experiencing it? This strikes me as woefully naive. Learning things from books, from a distance is fine and good, but there's no true substitute for being there, for experiencing a thing in person.

the_gastropod 7y ago
I strongly suspect an average student who studied Japanese in college knows more about Japan than an average tourist who went to Japan for a week or two, yes.
- katbyte 7y ago
  Im Canadian, I’ve read and researched a lot. I thought I knew my country but then I drove across it and realized how little I knew. Experiencing a place, people and culture is imho impossible without being there and present.

romwell 7y ago

Yeah right, because nobody who travels to a country reads up on the history, culture and traditions. Traveling and reading, after all, are mutually exclusive. /s Let me tell you of a night in Mardid. I headed out to see the night Madrid around midnight. Going along a crowded street, I heard someone singing. I was carrying a portable synthesizer, so I played along. Three people, carrying two guitars and a saxophone were walking in the opposite direction; they stopped, and joined in. Eventually, the girl who was singing left; and the trio asked me if I'd join them to hear a jazz jam. Something is still happening this late, I asked. Yeah, it starts at 2:30AM. I thought it was an open jam, but it was mostly the house/invited bands playing. Still, I managed to persuade the saxophone player to take the stage with a solo: he played it to me in the corner, where nobody could hear it, and I thought it was really good. When the jam was over, we resumed making music until sunrise, playing at a bus stop (no buses were running that late). Random people joined in at times. When the night was over, I left carrying with me something that I'd have trouble putting in words, much less so reading from a text written by someone else. It's an impossible task, after all, to convert a person or a memory into a string of characters losslessly. You can learn many things from books. And then there is so much more that you can't.

the_gastropod 7y ago
That's, no doubt, an amazing experience. And there's likely countless wonderful experiences you have had / could have right in your home city. The suggestion of the comment I responded to was about learning. Traveling, on its own, doesn't do anything to help people learn anything substantial. It's still ultimately a consumerism-centric activity. The travel industry has done an amazing job of convincing people otherwise.
- romwell 7y ago
  > And there's likely countless wonderful experiences you have had / could have right in your home city. Nothing of this sort. Most of the US shuts down at 2AM, people don't walk the streets in most cities which makes bumping into people impossible, and so on. The life and the environment is totally different here. (I say this as someone who drove through all states West of Iowa, with the exception of North Dakota, lived in NYC, TX, CA each for years, and moved to the US from another country). Most importantly, interacting with people from another country in their environment gives you a unique perspective both on their culture and your own. It's not about "having and experience", it's that your understanding of the world around you changes substantially. >doesn't do anything to help people learn anything substantial You learn how another country works. You learn what a day in life of another person is like in that country. It's the countless little things that are different that you see. It's the everyday lives that shape everyday thinking, and that's what matters the most. In short, you learn to be in a different way, by observing people who are in a different way. Textbooks simply won't answer the question "What is it like to be a Parisian, in 2019?". I mean, you are making a very strong statement, with not much to back it up with. I provided a single counter-example, but I really don't know where to even start. The logic of your argument applies verbatim to pretty much anything: "There's no point in venturing outdoors. If you really want to learn about nature, hit the library. You're just enjoying yourselves out there." Well, no. Maybe that's what you do, but perhaps you aren't getting as much out of it. I'll also make a strong statement: you have no idea what another country is like until you travel there. You won't have a single shared experience that will make it possible for you to relate to someone living there. Until you go there, all your knowledge is just an abstraction that you built up in your head. To make an analogy again: you can read up on Beethoven all your life, but from hearing his music once you learn more than from reading about it.