Travel Lessons Learned Through Utter Humiliation, Stupidity, and Embarrassment

Call me a masochist, but these last two years have been a series of self-inflicted uncomfortable situations in foreign countries. I have done all of this of my own free will, which makes it feel all the more insane. But what I have learned by bumbling my way around southeast Asia could fill a book. Those of you who are familiar with my last two blogs know how much that last statement is true.

Here I came up with some lessons I learned the hard way through my travels. Some of these stories are re-runs, but I’ve tried to come up with new ones as well. Those old journals are gold mines!

1. Smile. A smile transcends culture and language, and can actually change the whole dynamic of a situation. In Sumatra, when a drunk local thought it would be fun to put his hands all over me, I smiled at a group of local women who spoke NO English, and they quickly surrounded me and told that man to get lost. The fact that they almost killed him in the parking lot aside, just one quick smile and gesture of “help” was all it took to acquire local friends and safety. I think this idea is universal. People want to help, especially if you smile warmly at them – and mean it. “Being Polite” fits into this notion as well. Saying a warm “No, thank you” to a local vendor is a lot more polite and friendly than ignoring them – and guarantees a more pleasant response.

2. Don’t be stupid. Getting really wasted in local “night spots” is a sure way to get in trouble, as is flashing a lot of money, electronics, or jewelry. In one of many stupid moments in Beijing I found myself thinking I knew more than a tourist map, and I got completely and utterly lost. Crying on a street corner didn’t evoke any sympathy, so I had to put my Lonely Planet “Dangers and Annoyances” knowledge to good use, stat! I remembered that LP China said that most pharmacists in China know English. I found the nearest pharmacy, and what do you know? A pharmacist not only helped me figure out where I was and where I needed to go – she chastised a cab driver who tried to refuse to take me.

3. Don’t be too smart. The previous example illustrates this point well. But my main idea here is don’t go around thinking that just because you have studied, read about, talked to others about, or otherwise gleaned knowledge about a place or culture that you know anything. You don’t. Case in point:  Tana Toraja. Not that there is a lot out there about TT for a silly foreigner to read to get any kind of accurate accounting of this culture, but WOW was my mind blown by just opening up to the experiences I had there and learning from them. It was liberating to go into a place totally oblivious to the local language and culture because it was all so new and novel. “Smarty pants” me would have been miserable.

4. Be patient and flexible. We in “The West” have grown up with a factory-style mentality about time. Those in developing countries believe that time is much more fluid and “negotiable.” While many have accommodated our need for timeliness, others value other things a LOT more than “being on time.”  And why should they change their values for us? We are in their country, BTW – shouldn’t it be we who adapt? The best personal example of this need to adhere to a different idea of time is when, on the first day of training in TT, my host said that we needed to be at least two hours late – no one would be there on time, and the ones who were would just feel “punished” for having to sit there waiting. WOW! Imagine showing up to the first day of your new job two hours late?!?

5. Fake it till you get it. While there are certain “universal truths” about various cultures, people are people. You can learn everything about “how to be a good tourist in XYZ place” and then you meet a local who could care less that you don’t take your shoes off in their house, wai to them, etc.. SHAZAM! This truth is especially cogent in a country as culturally diverse as Indonesia – what’s accepted in one local culture might not even be acknowledged by another. In Bintan, basically a tourist mecca for Singaporeans, many of the “western” ideas I felt comfortable with were firmly in place. The one thing that I wasn’t sure about, however, was why people were so friendly there. Having just finished a month in Vietnam where, as a tourist, I basically had to put up a barrier against EVERYONE because they were trying to sell me something, my host Dina told me that when someone said hello to – EUREKA! – smile and say hello back. From that point on I made it a point to either watch and listen A LOT or ask a local for clarification.

6. There are angels everywhere. Hallelujah for those angels, too, because they will come out of the woodwork both when you most need them and when you least expect them. Trying to come up with just one example of this one is a stumper. Maybe it was the guy who helped my colleague and me when we got kicked out of a taxi in the middle of Bangkok and didn’t know where in the hell we were. Maybe it was the woman from San Fran who offered to FedEx my bag to me in Thailand if I couldn’t make my connection (Southwest does not work with any other airlines). Maybe it was the fact that an incredible exhibit of Dali sculpture happened to open in Singapore the day before I arrived there. Maybe it’s every reader who says, “I felt like I was traveling right along with you the whole time you were gone!” Angels, all of you.

Perhaps the moral to this whole disjointed story is that we’re all on this wild ride called life together. We can pretend our lives matter as individuals, but in reality, they don’t. It’s what we do with others, and for others, that really leaves our mark on the world.