Tag: Global Village
The Travel Benefit Young Americans Should Envy
by Michael Yessis | 11.20.09 | 11:19 AM ET
Australian Ayden Fabien Férdeline writes in a New York Times op-ed column about Working Holiday visas, and why America should follow suit and offer its citizens the same benefits her country offers. Férdeline makes a good point:
I owe a great many adventures to this program and I’ve gained an appreciation for the differences that make us human. When I hear the French stereotyped as snobby, for example, I know better. When I worked in France, the people I met were warm and welcoming, despite my mediocre language skills.
The United States could gain some similar good will by making it easier for Americans to work abroad, and by opening its doors to the world’s young.
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Yahoo! BuzzSometimes a Language Barrier Isn’t One
by Spud Hilton | 11.11.09 | 11:51 AM ET
On the benefits of language barriers in a Tunisian rug shop
‘Ivory Coast = France = Japan’
by Michael Yessis | 11.06.09 | 10:02 AM ET
That equation comes from a James Fallows post in the Atlantic, and he’s talking about language habits.
That is: in France and Japan, the deep-down assumption is that the language is pure and difficult, that foreigners can’t really learn it, and that one’s attitude toward their attempts is either French hauteur or the elaborately over-polite and therefore inevitably patronizing Japanese response to even a word or two in their language. “Nihongo jouzu! Your Japanese is so good!”
Escape From Thamel
by Eric Weiner | 11.02.09 | 10:19 AM ET
On hawkers, banana pancakes and tourist ghettos from Kathmandu to Bangkok
Photo You Must See: Halloween Sushi Bento Box
by World Hum | 10.30.09 | 2:08 PM ET
Homemade kimbap topped with nori and carrot bats. Happy Halloween!
‘Why Every Country Has a Different F#$%ing Plug’
by Michael Yessis | 10.30.09 | 11:57 AM ET
Funny story, says Gizmodo. They’ve mapped it out.
Two Cheers for Gloom
by Tom Swick | 10.26.09 | 11:17 AM ET
Contemplating and celebrating the world of travel
Audio Story: Ukulele Diplomacy
by Pam Mandel | 10.23.09 | 10:36 AM ET
Photo by UJ Sommer Nothing makes Pam Mandel feel less like a lonely traveler than her four-stringed diplomatic tool
Interview With Nicholas Kristof: Traveling and Tweeting Under ‘Half the Sky’
by David Frey | 10.21.09 | 10:53 AM ET
Photo by Fred R. Conrad David Frey asks the author about his dream vacation, Twitter, travel to hellholes and the trip that changed his life
The Case Against Bad Music in Public Spaces
by Michael Yessis | 10.20.09 | 2:05 PM ET
Peter Jon Lindberg makes a strong one in Travel + Leisure:
It would be revealing to compile an alternative history of Western music, focused solely on Songs Played in Hotel Lobbies and Cruise-Ship Corridors Through the Ages. You’d document a bizarro parallel universe, one where Michael McDonald is more popular than Led Zeppelin and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons trumps everything by Mozart. The Eagles would be more revered than Dylan; Jamiroquai bigger than Springsteen. And at the top of the pyramid, with her Nagel-print cheekbones, would sit Sade.
Lindberg also hammers resorts that “pump their newage right into the pool via underwater speakers.”
I’ll come clean here: The first and only time I heard music underwater in a hotel pool—Three Little Birds, Bob Marley—I liked it. Overwhelmingly, though, I’m with Lindberg: Keep Jamiroquai to yourself, world.
The Economist: Americanisms to Avoid
by Eva Holland | 10.12.09 | 4:29 PM ET
Here’s an entertaining tidbit from The Economist’s style guide, advising writers for the venerable British weekly on a few American-style variations of the English language that are best left unused. A sample:
Make a deep study or even a study in depth, but not an in-depth study. On-site inspections are allowed, but not in-flight entertainment. Throw stones, not rocks, unless they are of slate, which can also mean abuse (as a verb) but does not, in Britain, mean predict, schedule or nominate. Regular is not a synonym for ordinary or normal: Mussolini brought in the regular train, All-Bran the regular man; it is quite normal to be without either. Hikes are walks, not increases. Vegetables, not teenagers, should be fresh. Only the speechless are dumb, the well-dressed smart and the insane mad. Scenarios are best kept for the theatre, postures for the gym, parameters for the parabola.
And some people think there are no cultural differences to speak of between Americans and their trans-Atlantic neighbors—or should I say neighbours? (Via Gadling)
From Bhutan to France: Gross National Happiness
by Eric Weiner | 10.09.09 | 12:26 PM ET
On the intersection of place, politics and culture
‘Warm Shots,’ ‘Vaseline’ and Other Movie Classics
by Eva Holland | 10.07.09 | 9:42 AM ET
The Huffington Post takes a look at the international variations of a few well-known movie titles. My favorite? China’s “Six Naked Pigs”—otherwise known as The Full Monty.
Forbes Ranks World’s Billionaires Against National GDPs
by Eva Holland | 10.06.09 | 2:54 PM ET
And, for many nations, it’s not a flattering comparison. Bill Gates’ net worth, for instance, is higher than the gross domestic product of more than 140 different countries. Warren Buffett’s wealth ranks up there with North Korea’s, while George Lucas and Guyana are neck-and-neck further down the list. Hmm. I smell gimmicky rebranding potential—tropical vacation in Lucasland, anyone? (Via Kottke)
The World’s Connections, Mapped
by Eva Holland | 09.30.09 | 3:30 PM ET
The New Scientist has a fantastic slideshow of world maps, showing global shipping lanes, railways, navigable rivers and more. The idea? To demonstrate how “little of the world’s land can now be thought of as inaccessible.” (Via The Morning News)
The World’s Most Carnivorous Countries
by Michael Yessis | 09.29.09 | 12:11 PM ET
Good posted a clever interactive graphic. The most carnivorous country per capita? Denmark.
Travel Song of the Day: ‘Amsterdam’ by Jacques Brel
by Jim Benning | 09.24.09 | 12:48 PM ET
In Praise of Hot Locals
by Michael Yessis | 09.23.09 | 3:34 PM ET
It comes from Guy Trebay and his essay in the latest Travel+Leisure:
Naturally, we all hope when we are away to find fine hotels and good food and clement weather and merry encounters with charming locals. But we also, secretly, want the strangers in the places we visit to give us something good to look at. If not flat-out beautiful, we want them to be comely or stylish or to have something about them to please that most promiscuous of organs, the eye. At any rate, that’s what my eyes desire.
This approach may seem politically incorrect, at its worst, and baldly superficial, but getting to know inner beauty requires intimacy. And intimacy takes time to develop, and travelers generally have little time to spare.
Interview With Richard Hammond and Jeremy Smith: ‘Clean Breaks’
by Joanna Kakissis | 09.23.09 | 12:15 PM ET
Joanna Kakissis talks green travel, greenwashing and experiential journeys with the authors of a new book
The Oregon-Guanajuato Connection
by Jim Benning | 09.23.09 | 11:22 AM ET
Nice story in the Global Post about a particularly potent sister city relationship between Ashland, Oregon, and Guanajuato, Mexico:
While other cross-continental matchings are largely symbolic, this relationship has fostered academic and musical exchanges, helped build houses—and even led to 79 marriages.
I gotta say, Ashland couldn’t have picked a better sister city than Guanajuato. The Spanish colonial city doesn’t get the attention it deserves—it’s one of my favorite places in Mexico.
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