Here’s what I wrote one rainy Hong Kong morning when I was there last August
“Pewter-colored day that should have been devoid of charm, but the rains weaved ancient magic as the clouds shroud the piercing skyscrapers in mystery, harking back to olden China where heroes fought and lived epic adventures.”
There is something sublimely attractive in traveling. In the unfamiliarity of a new place, you stand on the verge of two worlds. One world you intimately know – one that does not necessarily speak of a geographical location, but one that is in you – the you that you carry – your thoughts, your identity, you memory, your world. And then there’s the world that you behold in your travels. In that world you are different. You are taken out of your ordinary context, and what appears to be ordinary to the inhabitants of that place appears appealingly exotic, dramatic to you. Not just the way they eat, or wear their clothes, or the way they drive right instead of left, but more so, because things are different, yet hauntingly similar. You are dislocated, you could be a different person, a totally new creation, but you are still you. You carry with you your world. It is both a thrill and a disappointment. The thrill comes from the sense of being there, and a disappointment because you perceive that world as yourself. One hopes that in traveling you become a different person; that somehow you are transformed to a person fitted for that place, but you remain you. You have the same way of thinking, same way of perceiving things, with the same tastes, assumptions. One would hope that in some way you are transformed by that visit, by your contact with you alien surrounding, and I’d like to think we do indeed come out changed. We do not remain as we are. In fact, to travel does not just mean covering great distances, or reaching far and exotic destinations, but more so, it is a learning process, a discovery. A pilgrimage of some sort, where we travel the byways and highways toward a goal, a destination, a place that God has told us of. Travel means being reminded of our own impermanence, of the challenge to discover more, to see what’s beyond.
“Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose hearts is set on a pilgrimage…” Psalm 84:5
“Pewter-colored day that should have been devoid of charm, but the rains weaved ancient magic as the clouds shroud the piercing skyscrapers in mystery, harking back to olden China where heroes fought and lived epic adventures.”
There is something sublimely attractive in traveling. In the unfamiliarity of a new place, you stand on the verge of two worlds. One world you intimately know – one that does not necessarily speak of a geographical location, but one that is in you – the you that you carry – your thoughts, your identity, you memory, your world. And then there’s the world that you behold in your travels. In that world you are different. You are taken out of your ordinary context, and what appears to be ordinary to the inhabitants of that place appears appealingly exotic, dramatic to you. Not just the way they eat, or wear their clothes, or the way they drive right instead of left, but more so, because things are different, yet hauntingly similar. You are dislocated, you could be a different person, a totally new creation, but you are still you. You carry with you your world. It is both a thrill and a disappointment. The thrill comes from the sense of being there, and a disappointment because you perceive that world as yourself. One hopes that in traveling you become a different person; that somehow you are transformed to a person fitted for that place, but you remain you. You have the same way of thinking, same way of perceiving things, with the same tastes, assumptions. One would hope that in some way you are transformed by that visit, by your contact with you alien surrounding, and I’d like to think we do indeed come out changed. We do not remain as we are. In fact, to travel does not just mean covering great distances, or reaching far and exotic destinations, but more so, it is a learning process, a discovery. A pilgrimage of some sort, where we travel the byways and highways toward a goal, a destination, a place that God has told us of. Travel means being reminded of our own impermanence, of the challenge to discover more, to see what’s beyond.
“Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose hearts is set on a pilgrimage…” Psalm 84:5
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