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struelle
Joined: 16 May 2003
Posts: 2372
Location: Shanghai
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 Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 3:43 pm Post subject: |
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My count is a humble 8 countries, 3%, but I'd second what Gordon wrote about staying in a place for awhile. My favorite region of the world by a long shot is Asia, and ideally I'd like to travel there extensively.
Steve |
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china_sk8er
Joined: 30 Oct 2004
Posts: 166
Location: Harbin
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| Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Well I got 1%. 4 countries, including Canada, US, South Korea and China. I even mapped out the countries I wanted to visit and it still was only 27%. |
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struelle
Joined: 16 May 2003
Posts: 2372
Location: Shanghai
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| Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 8:05 am Post subject: |
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| Well I got 1%. 4 countries, including Canada, US, South Korea and China. I even mapped out the countries I wanted to visit and it still was only 27%. |
Just goes to show you the world's a huge place! Despite all the talk about globalization and a 'shrinking world', which I'm becoming more skeptical of by the day, there is so much variety in terms of localization (be it national, provincial, city, etc.) If you stay in a place long enough, you can see that many people live in a local framework. Meanwhile, other localities offer such vast differences in terms of language, culture, food, customs, beliefs, etc. that it really contradicts the whole 'shrinking world' view.
I wouldn't have thought this 5 years ago, but my frequent travels across the Pacific have put nagging questions into my mind:
- Why do I always get such intense reverse culture shock when I return to cosmopolitan Vancouver after living in other cosmopolian cities like Shanghai? Techincally, culture shock should be minimal if we assume those cities really are cosmopolitan.
- If the world is really shrinking, then why are so few people back home (in Canada of all places) interested in the overseas experiences that I and others like to do?
- Why do we segment the world into 'home' and 'abroad' these days if it's really interconnected? Although I use this convention since it's easily understood by others, I don't exactly agree with the assumptions behind it.
- Why so much trouble with currency exchange, work visas, income tax, residency ties, and a whole host of other issues that are involved with having 'two homes'? My brother has now declared full expat status while in Vietnam and has had to cut his residency ties with Canada, even though he's still a citizen. In a truly globalized world, why should he have to do that?
- Do we still identify ourselves by the state and give loyalty to that? Absolutely! If I say I AM Canadian when asked where I'm from, I identify myself with the state by default. I'm granted citizenship here, simply because I was born here. My life would have been completely different if I was born in China. Or imagine a South Korean native who, by some fluke, wasn't born in North Korea. Completely different lives, all because we identify ourselves by the state.
The best movie to see that really illustrates how un-globalized we really are these days is 'The Terminal'. A guy is visiting the USA but there is a revolution in his home country that eventually causes it to implode. This all happens before he enters the USA while in an airport transfer lounge, and he is stuck in between two places: a country that no longer exists, and the USA which he can't enter. He ends up living in the airport terminal, and although the story is farfetched, it makes a great point about how nationality is still crucial in identifying ourselves.
The movie had to be made after 2002, since the Department of Homeland Security was in it.
Steve |
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Sweetsee
Joined: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 2302
Location: ) is everything
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| Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 6:12 am Post subject: |
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That was fun. I had 22 countries for 9%.
The question is how many more countries will one visit? I visited 2 new countries last year. |
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Magoo
Joined: 31 Oct 2003
Posts: 651
Location: Wuhan, China
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| Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:16 am Post subject: |
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| but hey, I been to France 6x, Spain 3x, China 3x, Russia 2x, Thailand umpteen times... |
Me too. 13%.
France 20+ times, China 7, various E. European countries several times, Sierra Leone for 1 1/2 years...
Poor in pocket, rich in memories.  |
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peggiescott
Joined: 20 Mar 2004
Posts: 162
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| Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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40 countries - 17%
I had to make up part of it. I traveled behind the iron curtian in the 70s and some of those countries just don't exist anymore. I have always counted Germany and East Germany as two countries but now they're one.
I wish I'd spent a lot of time in each one but some visits were pretty short. Just a few hours in San Marino but it still gets counted. And when I drove through Yugoslavia on my way to Greece I made a mistake and tried to go through Albania. The Yugoslavs let me out across their border but I got turned back by the Albanian boarder guards. I never even got out of the car but I still count it since it's the only place I've ever been threatened with a sub machine gun by a guy in a trench coat asking me, "Vat do you Vant?"
It's all about the memories. |
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Cardinal Synn
Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 586
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| Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:34 am Post subject: |
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| peggiescott wrote: |
| it's the only place I've ever been threatened with a sub machine gun by a guy in a trench coat asking me, "Vat do you Vant?" |
What did the guys in trench coats who threatened you in other countries ask?
Anyway back to the topic. It's really a bit of a pointless exercise because really it's the travelling you do within a country that is the real experience. I've been to loads of countries where I've spent an hour or two in the transit lounge of a nondiscript airport but to me it means little. I've also spent months roaming around small countries getting to know the land and the people which to me, means a lot. So the number of countries you visit doesn't really reflect on how well travelled you are. It's a difficult thing to guage. Is it countries visited? Miles travelled? Cities stayed in? Cultures experienced? Best just to enjoy each new experience I suppose and not try to quantify it. |
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ContemporaryDog
Joined: 21 May 2003
Posts: 1477
Location: Wuhan, China
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| Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 5:04 am Post subject: |
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I've only been to 6%!
Its odd, cos I always thought I'd travelled a lot.
Still, I have spent a lot of TIME in other countries, a year in Paris, a year and a half so far in China, and six months in India. |
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Gordon
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 5309
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 5:07 am Post subject: |
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| Cardinal Synn wrote: |
Anyway back to the topic. It's really a bit of a pointless exercise because really it's the travelling you do within a country that is the real experience. I've been to loads of countries where I've spent an hour or two in the transit lounge of a nondiscript airport but to me it means little. I've also spent months roaming around small countries getting to know the land and the people which to me, means a lot. So the number of countries you visit doesn't really reflect on how well travelled you are. It's a difficult thing to guage. Is it countries visited? Miles travelled? Cities stayed in? Cultures experienced? Best just to enjoy each new experience I suppose and not try to quantify it. |
I completely agree. Number of countries is meaningless and is not indicative of how well travelled you are. Some countries are enormous and could take a lifetime to explore and are not equal to Monaco or Andorra. |
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Gowump
Joined: 05 May 2004
Posts: 70
Location: Poland
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| Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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| In regards to the movie "The Terminal". Not so far fetched. Merhan Karimi Nasseri has been living in Charles De Gaulle since 1988. It is reported that Dreamworks paid him $250 000 for the story. |
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poro
Joined: 04 Oct 2004
Posts: 274
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| Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2005 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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| struelle wrote: |
My count is a humble 8 countries, 3%, but I'd second what Gordon wrote about staying in a place for awhile. My favorite region of the world by a long shot is Asia, and ideally I'd like to travel there extensively.
Steve |
I agree with that too, Steve.
I've been to 16 countries, and only got 6%.
On the other hand, I've spent more than two-thirds of my life outside the country where I was born, so I'm not sure how meaningful that 6% is. |
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travelingirl68
Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Posts: 214
Location: My Own State of Mind...
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| Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 1:41 am Post subject: |
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| thank you Gowump - I knew I remembered hearing about someone, somewhere in the world trapped in an airport.... Does anyone know if he is still there? Where he is from? What he does on a daily basis? Talk about an interesting cultural experience - trapped in an airport for years... |
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Gordon
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 5309
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 2:13 am Post subject: |
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| travelingirl68 wrote: |
| thank you Gowump - I knew I remembered hearing about someone, somewhere in the world trapped in an airport.... Does anyone know if he is still there? Where he is from? What he does on a daily basis? Talk about an interesting cultural experience - trapped in an airport for years... |
I saw the Terminal last week with my wife who used to be a flight attendant. We really laughed at that one line when a business traveller said "don't you just feel like you live in an airport?". That is a really funny film. |
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amandajoy99
Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 63
Location: Brazil
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travelingirl68
Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Posts: 214
Location: My Own State of Mind...
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| Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 3:41 am Post subject: |
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| thanks amandajoy, I will be flying into Charles de Gaulle in early April and will check on his status. If anyone is interested, I will post here when I know more. |
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