What a funny world we live in. I've spent my whole life living between cultures, and yet the strangeness of travel strikes me often. Whether I am traveling or a friend or family member of mine is going to a new place, I can't help but be struck by how odd our lives are as we cross borders.
I have lived for significant amounts of time in Congo, the Central African Republic, Cameroun, the United States, and now Taiwan. Each of these places have shaped who I am in a very profound way. My friends and family are scattered across the globe experiencing life in different cultures than I am, and they in turn are being shaped by their experiences. So I am also shaped by the cultures of my friends whether simply by picking up habits or by visiting those places. I am a global nomad surrounded by other global nomads.
All of this results in a large amount of confusion, though also a great deal of fun. I think there are at least one or two words in every language that are so perfect that you cannot translate them, and so you must simply sprinkle them into your mother tongue. What's fun is figuring out what those words are in every language you encounter and then getting to use them. What's not so fun is when others have no idea what you are saying to them because of the multilingual nature of your speech. But still, I hold onto those "perfect" words, refusing to let them go and hoping that the people around me start using them as well. I think it should be my mission in life to take these perfect words from one culture to the next as I travel the world. At the very least it seems line a fun game!
You're probably wondering what brought on these very random ramblings about language and culture, so let me share. Right now I'm sitting in the Manila airport ready to fly home to Taichung. I spent the last week simply living life with a friend of mine from high school along with her husband and four month old son. What made me think about the craziness of our world is the fact that we met each other over a decade ago when we both lived in Cameroun. We both moved back to the States for a time and now she lives in the Philippines and I live in Taiwan. We sat in her Filipino home eating African rice and beans for dinner and reminiscing about high school and life in Africa while simultaneously swapping information about our new home cultures and the international schools where we work. What strikes me is that this is normal. We think nothing of moving across the globe and adopting parts of a new culture and integrating them into the cultures we have already combined. No matter how normal that seems to me, it is CRAZY.
So that's all I'm here to tell you. Our world is crazy. Human adaptability and innovation is insane. Travel is mind boggling. Language is incredible.
God created an amazing planet for us to live on and I'm so thankful that I get to explore it. I'll be back to the Philippines, I can tell you that, but I'm also thankful to be going home to Taiwan.
Life's an adventure, please don't forget to contemplate and enjoy the adventure!
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