Illuminating Other Cultures

Why it serves to read far afield

Sawubona.

Yesterday I read a piece from one of Illumination’s writers about what she misses about Ramadan:

One of the great gifts of Medium, and in particular the Illumination community, is the diversity. Not only do we get to hear from, support, clap for and share with those who also share our desire to keep our publication growing, but scattered among the self-help, business and many other pieces are the windows into other cultures. I find these not just charming, but reminders of why I so love to travel.

Meen’s article took me back to 2015, a year that I had planned to hike Annapurna. Barely weeks before I left, a terrible earthquake slammed Nepal, and I had to redirect. It was May, and instead I chose Thailand.

Thailand is almost unbearably hot in May. However the visa requirements were lax and I could easily change my trip at the last minute.

I stayed in a part of Phuket that is heavily Muslim. My hostel owner was Muslim. The family down the street who planned my local travel was Muslim. In fact, everybody in that neighborhood was Muslim.

I have rarely had more fun.

One of my favorite travel stories was that the morning of my flight out of Phuket to Chiang Mai, I was expecting the travel agent’s older brother to pick me up well before dawn.

I waited, patiently, and he didn’t show. It finally got to the crisis point, so I walked down the street until I found a merchant who was working at his stall. Prayers begin early in Muslim communities, so he was up and busy. He of course knew the family. We looked at their home across the street. No lights on.

So he walked over with me, positioned himself right beneath their bedroom window, and shouted at the top of his considerable lungs until someone woke up. He was a big man. Big lungs.

In fact, he pretty much woke up the entire neighborhood. Lights came on, heads popped out, and we had an audience, pools of light spilling from bedroom and kitchen windows all over the place.

Finally the startled brother poked his head out another window, saw me standing with the shopkeeper, and realized what he’d done.

Seconds later, hair in disarray, he came tearing down the stairs, all apologies. I thanked the laughing shopkeeper profusely, and off we went. I barely made my flight. The older brother and I howled all the way to the airport, about how he was going to have to apologize to all his neighbors.

I would happily stay in that community again.

You and I vastly expand our worlds through travel. I have never, ever felt ill at ease traveling in cultures whose religions or faiths are fundamentally different from mine. I have never ever felt in danger in places where my color made me stand out like a beacon. Different at times, yes. Aware of those differences, yes. But endangered? No.

Right now, with my big Return to Mongolia slated for this August put off, as of this morning, until 2021, I do my traveling in part via articles like Meen’s.

I would encourage all of us, and in particular my fellow Illumination writers, to taste the rich smorgasbord of offerings from writers like Meen who bring their unique take to the table. She presents a snapshot of culture and ways of being, and allow us to appreciate in full the real diversity of what this online community can offer. I would love to see many more claps on articles like hers, which demonstrates that we are indeed reading, learning from and getting value from contributions that are perhaps, outside what you and I might typically read.

For me, Meen’s piece opened up some lovely memories.

I have traveled to many places, like Borneo and Bali, where the call to morning prayers joins the early birdsong. A call to faith, to practice, as the sun rises in the East, and prayer rugs are positioned with reverence towards qibla, or Mecca. I have learned to love those plaintive prayers, whether they were reaching out over the windswept valleys of Ethiopia’s Bale Mountains where I have traveled by horse, or the palm-dotted islands of Indonesia, where I have traveled by ancient phinisi ship.

Other becomes familiar. Other becomes us. They becomes we, in the shared desire to greet another day, share another meal, be loved by another human being. Let’s adventure with each other.