The Art of Travel (IV)

While you travel, your curiosity may just explode - you may never have realized you would be like a kid again, asking all sorts of questions you have long lost.

What is that plant?
What is that animal?
Where am I?
What are those people doing there?
What should I say in order to say 'HELLO'?
What should I say in order to say 'THANK YOU'?

There are just all sorts of questions one gets in mind while travelling in another country - somewhere one has no idea about.

Apart from all those mixed feelings and the questions I had in mind, there was another thing that kept my mind busy. It's the thought about 'Continuity' and how close I am to a place or to a person or to a community...

I have been building my 'city list' - not for the sake of getting the pride for travelling to that many places (after all, not many indeed - though I know compared to some others, that's a lot.), but for the sake of getting to know how it is out there somewhere in the world, and how people live there... Yes, it's back to the point about my curiosity. As my friend's message - that's for young traveller.

Then, when it came to travelling on my own, the curiosity is no longer about the places only. It's more about 'self' and 'identity'. Through talking, knowing others, going around & looking at all new things - it's easy to trigger one to ask who i am, and where i am. Probably that's what my friend said, 'seasoned traveler'.

Bet I have been undergoing that kind of 'process' - then came my last trip to China. That's unexpectedly 'something else'. Yes, I did discover something about the places I have been to, and also about who I am. On top, I was discovering something about Chinese civilization.

I went to the Henan Museum and the 'Yellow River' region - amazing! I started learning things like how man was evolved, then all the dynasties, wars, culture... simply everything about humanities and civilization. I also learnt about how the Earth, the different types of earth, rocks... I never thought that I would be going that deep into such topics. I used to visit museums and churches in Europe - but then all I thought was about 'appreciation' of all those, what has happened at that period, and what made the people at that time got the ideas on those artpieces and architecture, etc.

I basically broke down all those as 'periods' to know about, but I never thought about the 'influences' carried forward as time passed. Until when I visited the Henan Museum and the 'Yellow River' region - there came the idea about 'continuity' and how the past affects the next generation - or until now.

So my next questions was - how ourselves in this generation is actually affecting the next generation? We could easily fall into the 'trap' to say something about the next generation, they are just not as good as ours. Yet, have we ever thought about where they learnt from? Have we ever thought about what we've done for ourselves AND the next generation?

I guess unless we believe that we gotta have no 'continuity' at the end, then we could stay with the perception or behave the same. Otherwise, perhaps we should do something for the next generation(s).

***
I'll keep going.