Connecting to a Global Community

 My sister was with me the first time I walked into Chinatown. We stuck together, she and I, lagging behind our parents a few paces and practically cowering from the unfamiliarity around us. The air smelled strange; it was hot and rough and not at all like the air we had at home. I couldn’t read the signs on the street or understand the words being called out from vendor booths. It was uncomfortable and foreign, and I felt lost.

 But something happened there on those narrow, cobblestoned streets that I will never forget. In Chinatown, I watched my dad come alive.

True, Dad had always been entranced by travel, but even I could recognize that something here was different. This was new. After family, Dad’s second great love was food, and this was a parade of spices like we’d never seen. It was colors and fruits and little merchant booths. And it was food like we’d never known.

Stopping in a restaurant for lunch, I made myself small behind Mom’s protective form. The woman working at the front counter was a hurricane of flourished movements—sautéing, steaming, stir frying everything in sight—and she shouted a question at us above the racket of the kitchens. I didn’t know what was happening, and I shrank further into myself, but Dad navigated the hurricane like a storm hunter, pointing and ordering us a mountain of food.

Something Dad said made the woman smile, and for a moment, the hurricane stilled. And then that old woman at the counter laughed, and her smile lines spread wide across her face until they lit her eyes. I couldn’t help but think that I knew that expression, that I’d seen it countless times in the face of my own grandmother.

Later, my sister told me that Chinatown was a pivotal moment for her. She told me it taught her to learn to grow in new situations and to be excited to see new ways of life. She talked about the importance of putting herself in uncomfortable situations—like the walk down to Chinatown to smell the spices on the street and to taste the foreignness of prickly fruits lingering on her tongue—so that she could learn to appreciate the world around her. For her, traveling became less about destinations and more about belonging to something much larger than she had ever known.

As I reflect on her words, I remember the woman at the restaurant counter and how she reminded me of my grandmother. I picture her the woman with grandchildren of her own, and nieces and nephews, cousins, and even aunts and uncles. In my imagination, her family extends forever. And in that crowd, I picture a shy little girl (huddled behind a mother in line at a restaurant) who is, for the first time, learning to belong to something much larger than she has ever known.

To me, this example defines how the power of travel comes down to connection. When you learn to share your travels and cultures with other people, you can learn to find connection in a community much larger than you have ever known—in a community that can fill the globe. 

The Community Next Door

Have you ever had a similar experience of seeing someone or some place in a new light? Learning from my sister taught me that travel and culture doesn’t need to be destination focused to be impactful. So whether you’re far away or are in your own neighborhood, there are still numerous ways to experience culture.

For me, the beginnings of a love for culture started in my own home, which can be a perfect place for you to implement new cultures with your own family. If there’s a place or culture you’ve been wanting to learn more about, ask around your community to see if anyone has ever visited there before and invite them to share stories of what they learned in their travels.

You might be surprised how these stories can bring travel to life. For instance, when I was growing up, I loved to listen to the stories Dad would tell around the dinner table. There, he would connect us to the world as we lived vicariously through his travels and the people he met along the way.

Music is another wonderful way to introduce new culture to your home. When the whole family is participating in music together, whether it be listening to a recording or dancing and singing together, it is easy to gain an appreciation for new things—not to mention creating happy memories of being together.

Sometimes, if we were especially good, Dad would go to his closet and unpack his Austrian lederhosen and a dirndl for Mom. He would place a Bavarian cap on one of our heads, and we would dance in the kitchen to the sounds of a blue Danube. At night, when six rambunctious children needed to be settled into bed, Dad would break out his guitar and serenade us with a sweet “Edelweiss” lullaby.

And then, of course, there’s the food. The phrase often goes that the way to people’s hearts is through their stomachs, and with learning more about sharing cultures, food is definitely the way to go. Young as I was, when Dad talked about Austria in our home, the best thing about it was always the food—especially apfelstrudel (a delicious apple pie-like pastry that was always a staple around the holiday seasons).

Another great thing to do in learning about culture through food is then sharing with your neighbors. Apfeltrudel, after all, wasn’t something you could keep to yourself—Dad was very clear about that. Making it together was about our family, about learning to laugh and play together. But sharing it was about our global family, about connecting with others.

With the small act, my world began to grow, and I could see how sharing this culture that I loved with those around me meant something—that my neighbors’ eyes alighted with the feeling of being connected to someone beyond their own home, of belonging to a larger community.

And the impact doesn’t have to stop here. Try using these suggestions to bring culture into your own home through song, dance, or food!

You might just find out that your connection to the world and its global communities are strengthened with each attempt.

The Community At Large

Of course, this isn’t to say that you should always stay at home instead of travelling abroad. If you have the opportunity to visit new places and people, absolutely take it! Just remember to see the value between the sightseeing.

As I’ve had the opportunity to travel more, new places and traditions have come to rest beside Austria in the list of cultures I love. I traveled to Europe—walked the forum with the Romans, lit a candle in Westminster, and thanked the soldiers who fell at Normandy. I drove through the French countryside and marveled to know that this beauty—these fields and farms I was passing—was the livelihood of some small family, who, just like mine, wanted to be loved and understood.

After Europe, I moved to Thailand for a time, and I fell absolutely in love with the people and cultures there, how they called each other brother or sister, uncle or aunt. I couldn’t wait to come back home and share this new community with the people I’d left.

And as I sit here now, contemplating the meaning of travel, I’m coming to realize that everything I’ve done in life somehow ties back to culture—that every Cinco de Mayo or Chinese New Year we’ve celebrated, every Palestinian dinner we’ve had at Christmastime came from somewhere. I think about how my sister kisses us on the cheeks to say hello like she learned in France and how in Thai we do not say goodbye but good luck—a blessing as you go on your journey.

I watch my life playout before me, and I realize it wouldn’t be what it is without travel, without the learning and sharing of cultures. It would be harder to understand that other ways of life are not bad, they’re just new—I just haven’t learned to understand them yet.

Without travel, my world wouldn’t have grown along with me as I aged. I wouldn’t know the joy of sharing what I’ve learned with my neighbors or of joining cultures from around the globe.

And who knows? Maybe one day it’ll be your turn to revel in the spices heavy in the Chinatown air or to draw your fingers under the dough of an apfelstrudel. My hope, at least, is that you’ll have an opportunity to learn from travel and sharing culture that in all the world there may be differences, but there will also be community and a connection to something much larger than you have ever known.