Tag: Global Village
In Praise of Jet Lag
by Michael Yessis | 03.19.10 | 1:27 PM ET
James Parker makes the argument for basking in its uselessness.
Because really, if you’re not lagged to a standstill, how can you tell that you’ve gone somewhere? This is, in a phrase I intend to copyright, “the wisdom of jet lag.” Let us not back away from it, superstitiously warding it off with rituals and hygiene. Let us rather embrace jet lag. As a positive: a rich and naturally achieved state of philosophical disarray. And as a negative: a refusal, by the ever-sensible organism, to keep pace with inhuman modernity.
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Yahoo! BuzzTaking the Pulse of the Irish Pub
by Michael Yessis | 03.17.10 | 3:44 PM ET
Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, the Los Angeles Times checks in on the state of the Irish pub. Verdict: Still struggling in Ireland, still ubiquitous around the world.
And it’s still one of the Seven Wonders of the Shrinking Planet.
A Collection of Cross-Cultural Food Rules
by Michael Yessis | 03.16.10 | 11:48 AM ET
The Atlantic’s Lesley Freeman Riva compiles some folk wisdom:
By food rules, however, I mean more than simple, health-oriented precepts about eating your veggies and avoiding any cereal that turns the milk magenta. I mean those weird bits of food lore passed down unquestioningly from generation to generation: the strange taboos and enthusiasms that are often radically different from culture to culture, like the Japanese prohibition against combining clams and clementines, or the deep-rooted Italian conviction that cucumbers make you burp.
How to Remap the World
by Michael Yessis | 03.15.10 | 2:03 PM ET
Parag Khanna believes eliminating arbitrary borders and redrawing the world map in the next ten years is a “moral, economic and strategic imperative.” His guiding star? The European Union.
Leaders seeking to respond to the global economic and underemployment crises should take a lesson from the world’s most successful instance of a subordination of arbitrary borders: the European Union. The E.U. is the world’s most peaceful multinational zone and its largest economic bloc, combining 27 countries, 450 million people and a $20 trillion GDP. The solution to the hundreds of lines that scar our political geography is to physically build the lines that connect people across them. If we spend just 10% of what we do on fighting over and defending borders on transcending them, the next decade—and the decades beyond—will be better than the last.
The success of the E.U. benefits travelers, too. World Hum contributor Eric Lucas explains.
Lover’s Moon
by Pico Iyer | 03.15.10 | 11:21 AM ET
iStockPhoto Pico Iyer on the power of travel to make a forgettable Glenn Frey song last forever
Why You Should Care More About Signs Than You Do
by Michael Yessis | 03.12.10 | 11:16 AM ET
Slate’s Julia Turner just concluded a terrific series about signs—Penn Station’s horrible ones, London’s plans for better ones, efforts to standardize exit signs, what GPS technology means for the future of signs and why signs are “the most useful thing you pay no attention to.”
For an example of the consequences of what happens when you don’t pay attention to signs while you’re traveling, just watch—shameless self promotion alert—America’s Worst Driver on the Travel Channel this Sunday.
You and Me, Girlie
by Susan Jane Gilman | 03.12.10 | 10:19 AM ET
Photo by François Bourru In an excerpt from her book "Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven," Susan Jane Gilman recalls 1986 China -- and a swaggering, lascivious man named Trevor
Travel Ghosts
by Larry Clark | 03.11.10 | 10:21 AM ET
Larry Clark contemplates the power of monuments and memorials -- and the fleeting moments we spend with them
See the full audio slideshow: »
The Accidental Tsunami Rider
by Jill K. Robinson | 03.10.10 | 11:50 AM ET
iStockPhoto After Chile's earthquake, Jill K. Robinson paddled her kayak into California's Half Moon Bay and felt the energy from a hemisphere away
Jamaica to Travelers: Come See Our Jewish History
by Michael Yessis | 03.09.10 | 11:47 AM ET
The country is pushing to get travelers to experience the island beyond its beaches. From the Wall Street Journal:
From the tourism minister on down, Jamaican officialdom has embraced a plan to market the nation’s Jewish history as a way of wooing a new segment of travelers.
Tourism officials admit that Jamaica’s Jewish history has been a “well-kept secret,” but that doesn’t mean it’s not rich. For instance: Jewish pirates!
Paying Respect to Buddha in Boston
by Shelley Miller | 03.03.10 | 10:11 AM ET
iStockPhoto At a Boston park, Shelley Miller learned that a little Cantonese will go a long way
So Long, Vancouver 2010
by Eva Holland | 03.02.10 | 7:48 PM ET
The medals have all been handed out and the flame’s been extinguished. Monday saw Vancouver International Airport have its busiest day on record as 39,000 visitors left the host city for home. As for me, I won’t forget joining in the massive red-and-white street party that consumed downtown Vancouver anytime soon—I think my favorite moment had to be seeing a crowd of turbaned Indo-Canadian kids dancing to a bhangra beat to celebrate our victory in men’s hockey, creating their very own wonder of the shrinking planet.
The Big Picture has a top-notch pair of photo essays for your final Olympic Games fix. See you in London?
Interview With Ted Conover: Traveling ‘The Routes of Man’
by Frank Bures | 03.02.10 | 11:39 AM ET
Frank Bures asks the author about the role of roads in the world -- from Ladakh and the Peruvian Andes to the West Bank
From Beijing to Vancouver: A Very Different Olympics
by Eva Holland | 02.22.10 | 2:22 PM ET
REUTERS/Shaun Best It’s been nearly two years since I blogged from the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, and—as I thought I might—I now find myself on the Olympic travel trail again, in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Games. I’ll be honest: The two host cities couldn’t feel more different.
I stepped off the train from the airport and surfaced in downtown Vancouver this weekend, expecting, perhaps, to feel some uniquely Olympic vibe in the air, familiar to me from my brief time in Beijing. But the scene on Vancouver’s streets has almost nothing in common with the one I encountered two years ago. My memories of Beijing are all broad boulevards, empty except for uniformed Chinese volunteers offering directions to clusters of wandering foreigners, and subdued subway cars full of commuters. Vancouver, in contrast, is a non-stop maple-leaf-painted street party—flag-draped young people careen through the streets, impromptu break dancing circles pop up on corners, and buskers work the crowds. The brightly-dressed foreigners that I remember from Beijing are here, too, but they’re wildly outnumbered by the revelers in red and white.
I suppose there are plenty of economic reasons for the contrast. The 2008 Games probably weren’t as accessible to the average Chinese citizen as these Games are to most Vancouverites, while the expense and difficulty of visiting China could explain why the many young Olympics visitors here were absent in Beijing. (The local high school students I rode the bus home with last night, for instance, weren’t likely to make a transcontinental Olympic trek.) But economics aside, I still feel like there’s a fundamental difference at work: Beijing’s Games, to me, were clearly aimed outward, at the world, while Vancouver’s, so far, feel more like an essentially Canadian party to which everyone else has also been invited.
New Orleans: It’s About to Get Weirder
by Adam Karlin | 02.16.10 | 5:13 PM ET
REUTERS/Sean Gardner After a landmark mayoral election and the Saints' Super Bowl win, Adam Karlin believes the spirit of NOLA is undergoing a tectonic shift.
Foreign Tube
by Tom Swick | 02.15.10 | 10:41 AM ET
Photo by Tom Swick On the pleasures of watching television in a faraway place
Haiti: Give Aid or Deal With the Roots of the Problem?
by Rick Steves | 02.08.10 | 3:57 PM ET
On the question few people are asking about Haiti after the earthquake
Don’t Mess With My French Toast!
by Eric Weiner | 02.04.10 | 8:11 AM ET
iStockPhoto On the meal that grounds us in our home culture, even on the other side of the globe
The Flame of Hope in the European Union
by Eric Lucas | 01.27.10 | 11:32 AM ET
Don't take it for granted. Eric Lucas explains why the EU matters to travelers.
Haggis Ban Lifted After 21 Years*
by Eva Holland | 01.26.10 | 1:32 PM ET
The sheep offal delight had been banned in the United States since the ‘80s due to BSE fears, but now Scotland’s most famous dish is back on the American dinner table. (Via Andrew Sullivan)
Update 3:01 p.m. PT: Sorry, haggis fans. A representative from the Department of Agriculture writes, “At this time, haggis is still banned in the U.S. The APHIS rule covers all ruminant imports, which includes haggis. It is currently being reviewed to incorporate the current risk and latest science related to these regulations. There is no specific time frame for the completion of this review.”
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