Being A Minority

"There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign."

I found myself losing hours of my day yet again on stumbleupon.com. Among discovering many completely useless websites and pictures, I found the quote you see above. This is such a new perspective and as an anthropologist I couldn't resist thinking about it. When most people travel, they think about what sites THEY want to see, how THEY want to spend their time, and about the stereotypes THEY have formulated over the years about the culture they will be visiting. Differences are inescapable.

(I do not own this picture)

I have found that out more than ever by living in a different country, half a world away from everything and everyone I've ever known. I've noticed a lot of similarities and differences and I found myself saying, "wow that's weird, or different, or COOL." To everyone else, it was nothing out of the ordinary. The things I grew up being accustomed to are no longer present and the habits I've formed and ways of doing things are being brought up almost everyday as a topic of conversation. I found myself thinking for the first time in my life "I am a foreigner. I am a minority in this country."

Yes, England does not seem like such a different culture and the culture is not comparable to let's say Turkey if I had decided to go to school there instead. I am still surprised at exactly how different things are here. People seem to be so fascinated that I'm American and they've "never met one before". To me, I'm normal, but here I'm something completely different, unknown and it is such an exhilarating experience. I never thought that I would be living in a country, much less an English speaking country and would be considered a minority.

Not to be too anthropological, but it just makes me think about how many people decide to leave their countries to visit, live in, escape to, or study in another country and subsequently a different culture than their own. They are all minorities, for the most part, and many people don't even realize it. It's a humbling experience to realize just how different you can be somewhere, but still manage to find a niche for yourself among people who are so different yet inherently the same.

This leaves me with the quote at the end. When you visit another culture, no matter how similar it may be to your own, there is always another way of seeing every little aspect. I feel that to gain the most perspective and the best experience from something like this, for lack of a better word, journey that I'm on you have to look at it through someone else's eyes. Life really is about seeing different perspectives and hearing different opinions about the world that you've never thought of before. To be able to do that, I feel so humbled, exhilarated, anxious and am awaiting what happens next.


“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."