The Case for Travel
Initial reflections from the start of a new adventure
It rains in Hanoi as I write this.
A vendor pitches a huge umbrella over her nuts and dried chops of fish. A woman cuts a purple piece of meat off from the pile and weighs it. Crates are filled with oranges, still coupled with their green leaves. These are pure things for sale, plucked from the earth.
I love seeing the world untrimmed.
The roads of Hanoi are short and busy with offshoots. The city is organic, alive, teeming with trees and hanging pots and miscreant vines. On some of the buildings, plaster has peeled off, exposing bright bricks beneath. Like everything that ages, there is beauty in these new designs. The buildings slouch into each other, comfortable after all their years together.
In her op-ed “The Case Against Travel,” Agnes Callard provocatively declares “Travel is a boomerang. It drops you right where you started.” In some sense, I agree. I would like to return to Chicago after this. But while Callard argues that any growth associated with travel is delusional, I believe this growth is not only real but necessary for personal development.
Traveling helps me to recognize that my daily routines did not pop into existence. I experience a reality that has been inevitably refined and adulterated by the communities around me. Whether visiting a new neighborhood or a new country, the process of displacing myself from my daily life forces me to recognize new realities.
My favorite “new reality” during travel comes from crosswalks. In Hanoi, not all traffic lights are equal. Some intersections have a red timer counting down like a race, with a horde of motorbikes ready to burst once it hits zero. Other streets are more improvised, and we the pedestrians have to dance between the gaps motorists leave for us. It’s a social interaction, of avoiding lethal collision, that I’ve never had the pleasure of joining before.
Other things I have learned about reality in Hanoi:
The BBC (my favorite media outlet) is blocked in Vietnam, as the Communist Party deems it “subversive”
Everyone runs counter-clockwise around Hoàn Kiếm Lake (and I do too now)
Dogs walk without leashes but stick close to their owners (“Dogs of Hanoi” post inbound)
Tai Chi is very easy and fun and anyone is welcome to join in
The cat at Ngoc Son Temple feigns asceticism and actually loves attention
I am taking a sabbatical from consulting where I can reflect over the next few weeks. I hope to ask myself the important questions I have put off or assumed for quite some time: How much money should I make to live the life I want to live? What skills am I good at and what do I need to learn? What makes me happy and how can I fill every day with whatever it is? And so on and so on, as reflections go.
I’ve finished my meal now — a pork noodle dish punctuated with peanuts and fresh cilantro. The sun is leaving me to go rise over Chicago (I imagine, please let me know if the sun has gotten lost on its way to y’all).
Thank you for sharing this meal with me. I’m excited to share what else I find.
This blog post is part of Daniel Rowe's Blog, Offworld, exploring joy through mediums such as science fiction, fantasy, journalism, and more.