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Without meeting locals, you may see the world, but you will never understand it. You don't have to befriend everyone. Meeting people is different from being fri

by TriinT 17y ago

Without meeting locals, you may see the world, but you will never understand it. You don't have to befriend everyone. Meeting people is different from being friends with them.

tdavis 17y ago
Both of those may be true, and using "befriend" was a bit extreme I admit. But I must take this opportunity to ask: what do you mean by "understand it"? I've heard this phrase before, but it has never had any meaning to me.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  It means something a bit different to everyone else, but it involves things like: - When you merely "visit" a new place, you are getting the manicured, prepared, bite-sized, "tourist" version of it. This prevents one from seeing anything from more than just the "oh neat that's a big tower" perspective. - When you meet the locals in a new place, you are absorbing their culture and perspectives - something that is nearly impossible to do when you're secluded in a luxury resort all the time, or stuck on a tour bus with people from your home country/city. This perspective IMHO enriches oneself and allows us to understand what makes other people tick - and I firmly believe that if people took more time to figure out how other people think, the world would have a lot fewer problems.
- TriinT 17y ago
  "Understanding" the whole world is a quixotic quest. However, it's possible to understand a bit of the places you visit by meeting the locals and letting them show you their way of life. It may sound like baloney, but I have experienced that many times :-) Often one assumes that others have the same values and the same habits that one has. Meeting the locals in their "natural habitat" is a way of understanding the local values, the local culture. I do abhor that kind of traveling where you sit on the top deck of a bus and drive around a city while some dude with a mike points to touristic attractions. That stuff you can find on Wikipedia. The cool stuff is to meet locals who will welcome you to their houses so you can have dinner with their families, or show you the underground night scene that tourists never experience, or invite you for a weekend at their country / beach house. That's the good stuff.

by TriinT 17y ago

Without meeting locals, you may see the world, but you will never understand it. You don't have to befriend everyone. Meeting people is different from being friends with them.

tdavis 17y ago

Both of those may be true, and using "befriend" was a bit extreme I admit. But I must take this opportunity to ask: what do you mean by "understand it"? I've heard this phrase before, but it has never had any meaning to me.

potatolicious 17y ago
It means something a bit different to everyone else, but it involves things like: - When you merely "visit" a new place, you are getting the manicured, prepared, bite-sized, "tourist" version of it. This prevents one from seeing anything from more than just the "oh neat that's a big tower" perspective. - When you meet the locals in a new place, you are absorbing their culture and perspectives - something that is nearly impossible to do when you're secluded in a luxury resort all the time, or stuck on a tour bus with people from your home country/city. This perspective IMHO enriches oneself and allows us to understand what makes other people tick - and I firmly believe that if people took more time to figure out how other people think, the world would have a lot fewer problems.
TriinT 17y ago
"Understanding" the whole world is a quixotic quest. However, it's possible to understand a bit of the places you visit by meeting the locals and letting them show you their way of life. It may sound like baloney, but I have experienced that many times :-) Often one assumes that others have the same values and the same habits that one has. Meeting the locals in their "natural habitat" is a way of understanding the local values, the local culture. I do abhor that kind of traveling where you sit on the top deck of a bus and drive around a city while some dude with a mike points to touristic attractions. That stuff you can find on Wikipedia. The cool stuff is to meet locals who will welcome you to their houses so you can have dinner with their families, or show you the underground night scene that tourists never experience, or invite you for a weekend at their country / beach house. That's the good stuff.