Before travelling, there were stories of travelling, of other countries; my mother’s stories of 1950s Singapore, my father’s stories of the ocean and land trip to come from Malaysia to Britain; my father’s stories of his father in 1930s Cambridge.
Ben, to travel is to learn. You will only ever learn so much from school.
You may expect to hear that from parents who were travel agents. A refrain used as a glib marketing aphorism. Yet, it was repeated with such regularity, and feeling, and backed up by stories that it became a belief held as family fact.
I’m uncertain exactly what my father learned on his travel from Malaysia to Cambridge, via France. I know it was a foundational experience and played a part in his settling in the UK and an appreciation of Europe. I know to be able to dance the cha cha cha on such a ship can live on in the memory for decades. I know the miles and miles of driving across the French countryside in an Alpha Romeo cemented a love of driving and cars. Preferably fast. Preferably with fantastic food at every stopping point.
Growing up in London, I never heard the cries of a street food hawker. Yet, I somehow feel I know such a cry because my mother conjured such a scene for me. A dish of noodles costing five cents and the major decision of whether it was worth spending another five cents on ice kachang, a shaved ice dessert, when available. The seemingly low price an ever present memory for what inflation might mean to daily living. The smell of cooking noodles today evoking meals from afar and the history of meals past.
In my father’s Malaysia, the childhood games to master were kite fighting and spinning top battles. Kite strings coated in abrasives and flown to cut lines. Danger lurked as the string was sharp enough to cut flesh. Forty Forty hide and seek and even British Bulldog (banned in some schools) seemed tame and ordinary in comparison.
These tales of an other world. Different in games, rules, culture, food, rituals, in seemingly everything and glimpsed in childhood through family travel became a part of my personal world history. Far removed from suburban outer London life.
Tiny but major stories to explain the inexplicable. Why does Auntie dislike the Japanese? They came in the war and tortured family friends. Oh. Why do we have this pewter jug? Malaysia was one of the world’s largest tin producers (the key metal in pewter). Where does chicken rice come from and why is it so tasty?
This emphasis on travel lead me to be nudged on several great travel trips in my youth, both solo and duos as well as many family travels through Europe and South East Asia.
San Francisco, solo, when I was 14
Borneo, East Malaysia solo, 16
North Thailand, solo, 16
North India, solo 17
Sulawesi, Indonesia, duo 19
Peru, duo 21
Sri Lanka, duo, 26
Japan, duo, 28
I still receive surprised comments when I recount that I travelled by myself to San Francisco when I was 14 and stayed in the middle of the Borneo jungle solo two years later.
People were somewhat surprised then and more surprised now.
There is a tiny piece of myself that is similarly surprised. Today middle class culture in general in many countries does not give early teenagers the type of freedom that would allow them to travel a few thousand miles to experience living in another city.
Perhaps encouraged by media stories, there is sense that the world is unsafe for our children. This we observe from how playgrounds have lost their edges and how street play has disappeared. While it is true the world contains plenty of risk, it is unclear if the world today is more unsafe. The long run data suggests we are safer today from violent crime but problems with reporting means it is difficult to know what has happened historically for many crimes.
My contention would be that children are mostly at risk from domestic abuse and that general safety for a 14 year old child today is better, or at least, no worse than in the last four decades.
Parents will always fear the uncertainty, and will always wish to protect their children. Against these two compulsions, my parents gave me a valuable gift in letting me and encouraging me to travel to learn.
I learned significant insights in living in cultures different to how I was growing up and living. Deep observations and a range of human rituals and behaviours. The force of personal experience trumps books, films and conversations. We speak of the power of lived experience because it is one of our most powerful human forces.
Over and above these hard to imagine experiences such as living in the jungle with no running water (Indonesian rain forest), or why you would not use soap in a bath (Japan, where baths are for soaking in not washing), or the all day drinking party that is Vappu (Finland) were the small every day learnings on how to live a good life.
What to choose for lunch (why so many cultures are particular about breakfast), how to budget a day, how to ask for information, how to decide on trusting people, how to change your plans, how to rely on yourself, how to have conversations with strangers, how to record your thoughts, how to figure out what's important or what’s not.
Experiences live on in the memory, often more than many tangible objects do. I recall riding the Cal train from Palo Alto into San Franscisco - glimpsing the life of the working commuter - deciding on lunch, walking up and down these hills, and then cable cars thus understanding their practical attraction, past the colourful painted houses and wandering around Fisherman’s Wharf. Declining to pay for tacky museums and preferring Chinatown and the park. These were smaller everyday experiences in the arc of life, but chosen and balanced by myself with only myself to decide and to blame for what worked or failed.
Mostly, today much of those learnings for the developed middle class start in university and then the early years away from parents. I started university at 17. School had prepared me for academic learning and had nurtured self directed intellectual curiosity.
But travel, and in particular my solo adventures, had prepared me for life. And to make the most of it.
Every child and very family is different. My own has distinct challenges. I hope I can swallow my fear enough to allow own my own child the chance to travel to learn.
Here’s a a story of part of my trip to Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Here are photographs from India and other travels.
