Tag: Global Village

Beauty Amid Ugliness

What the simple act of taking lots of photos in Sao Paulo revealed to Rob Verger

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Words Are Like Icebergs

Frank Bures on the pleasures of traveling and learning foreign languages

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Local Newspapers: ‘The Heartbeat of Any Great Place’

Daisann McLane is no luddite. She reads newspapers online when she’s at home. When she’s on the road, though, bring on the ink smudges.

For a long time I thought it was just coincidence that so many of the places I gravitated to as a traveler—Colombia, India, the West Indies, London, Hong Kong—also happen to be places with a lively, even raucous, newspaper scene. (In this “post-print” era, Hong Kong’s citizens defy the pundits by continuing to support 15 to 16 daily newspapers.) But as I travel to more cities and countries and read more local newspapers, I realize they’re in the same category as public squares, street markets, and local coffee shops. They’re the heartbeat of any great place. When I visit regions that, because of political repression or economics, don’t have a good daily paper, I feel like something is missing, as though there’s a lack of oxygen in the air. Havana was wonderful, but it would have been even better if I’d awakened, as I did that time in Veracruz, to the “Music! Happiness! Wounded bulls!” headline.


Jonathan Gold Goes to Bat for Food Trucks

In response to some legal pushback against the popular trucks—driven in part by restaurateurs worried about lost business—the L.A. Times’ food writer explains their appeal. Here’s Gold:

The draw could be the communal experience, or it could be the feeling that you belong to a fraternity of the plugged-in. It could be that moment that defines street food of all types—your food is cooked, served and consumed in what seems like a single fluid motion; desire and fulfillment becoming one. Or it could be the impulse of citizenship: This sidewalk looks a lot like Los Angeles.

(Via The Atlantic)


Travels in a Troubled Greece

Travels in a Troubled Greece Photo by dominiqs via Flickr (Creative Commons)

The country's economic problems are deep and real. So does Greece remain an enjoyable place to travel?

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The Russians Are Coming ... to Italy

And they’re spending wads of money. Silvia Marchetti writes:

Luring tourists from Russia is a lucrative pursuit in Italy. Many of the most breathtaking and expensive locations have been virtually colonized by them.

They’re the former Soviet Union’s new nobility—billionaire businessmen, bankers and investors who travel across the peninsula in limousines, yachts and helicopters (for 2,000 euros an hour), picking the most romantic scenery for the purchase of dreamlike castles and sea manors.


Studying Abroad in the Arabic-Speaking World on the Rise

The numbers are still small-ish, but they’re growing fast. From the New York Times:

Between 2006 and 2007 the number of American students studying in Arab countries rose nearly 60 percent while China had only a 19 percent increase and England, 1.9 percent.

Many of the students are looking to gain a better understanding of the Arab world, and they’re also finding their experiences and Arabic-language skills are making them hot prospects for jobs.

Students in these programs are also writing some great travel stories.


Chinese Developers to Recreate Salvador Dalí‘s Hometown

Xiamen Bay is the new Costa Brava! From the Guardian:

Sources at the company said they had found a spot that was geographically similar to Cadaqués, with its gently sloping hills and protected bay. “Building work will start in September or October,” a spokesman said.

More than 100 acres of land will be used to build a near replica with a capacity to house some 15,000 Chinese holidaymakers who want to enjoy the Costa Brava experience without having to travel 6,500 miles.

The Chinese version will not have the sparkling Mediterranean, the madness-inducing Tramontana wind or as many jellyfish as Cadaqués, but the promoters say they will try to get as close to possible to the real thing.

The developers are following in the footsteps of Lyon in the desert and Thames Town outside of Shanghai, among other places.

Dali would surely approve. As the Guardian notes, “One of his favourite money-making habits was to sign, and sell-off, blank sheets of paper for prints and lithographs. As a result, he is one of the most frequently copied and forged artists in the world.”


What it Means to Travel Back to the Future

Another great piece by Peter Jon Lindberg, who returns to London and a pub he called home 20 years ago. He finds “not the workaday tavern of memory but a roomful of attractive people sipping Pinot Grigio” and lingers for “12 uncomfortable minutes.” Among his findings:

Good Lord, listen to me. I’ve become a bad novel: Aging crank revisits lost youth; cue strings, bittersweet regret. Forgive my maudlin self-indulgence. (If it’s any excuse, I just turned 40.) But really, what on earth did I expect? Only a child—a 20-year-old—could have wished London not to evolve, not to grow up.

Of course, this isn’t just about London, is it? It’s about the feeling any traveler has returning to a place he once knew as well as any: A city that seems to hold you in it, or some earlier incarnation of yourself. Going back, you become again that long-ago person, even while the city changes utterly around you. As it is I’ve spent most of my post-London life in New York, 5,000-odd days of it, such that I’ve scarcely noticed the incremental, wholesale transformation of Manhattan over the past 15 years. Yet an Englishman returning here after a decade away might feel the same about New York as I do about London: that it looks like an artist’s rendering; that “it’s all about money now”; that glamour has eclipsed grit, and something has been lost in the process; that the city no longer belongs to me, but to other, younger, wealthier, more exciting people.


‘No Character in a Movie Has Ever Welled Up and Sighed, ‘We’ll Always Have Stuttgart’’

That line comes from a great story by David Segal that explores the pluses and minuses for Italy as it maintains tradition amid the rush of progress and globalization.

In the eternal contest between the meticulously honed and the nationally franchised, Italy knows where it stands. As a matter of profit and loss, it doesn’t make sense to store wool in a spa and let it convalesce for six months, but the methods of Luciano Barbera were never destined for a get-rich-quick guide to manufacturing. His business will make sense only to customers, and for them, quality has a logic of its own.

And of course, the worship of growth has its limitations. The American economy is vastly more robust, but instead of family-owned bakeries, which seem to dot every hectare of Italy, we’ve got Quiznos. And for all the efficiency and horsepower in Germany, no character in a movie has ever welled up and sighed, “We’ll always have Stuttgart.”


How Korean Tacos Became the Hot Cross-Cultural Meal

The Kogi Korean BBQ truck is just part of the story. John T. Edge gets to the roots of the trend in the New York Times:

Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee, a native of Seoul, raised in Southern California by parents who ran a bodega that catered to a Mexican clientele, said the Mexican-Korean culinary connection was born of proximity.

“The idea of Korean tacos isn’t new,” said Ms. Lee, who wrote a guidebook to South Korea and recently finished writing a Mexican cookbook. “Koreans run stores. They hire Mexican workers. They eat together.”

“Before, when Koreans ran out of rice and grabbed a tortilla to go with our kalbi, we called it lunch,” she added. “Now we call it a Korean taco.”

The dish may have honest folk roots, but many Korean taco makers across the country recognize Roy Choi, a Kogi founder, as the pioneering force.

Here’s the accompanying slideshow to make you jones for tacos.


Paradise, Backstage

maldives paradise Photo by Andrew Evans

What happens when a guy who buys luggage at Target finds himself in a $16,000-a-night villa in the Maldives? Andrew Evans reports from the lap of luxury.

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Confessions of a Focus Group Traveler

Confessions of a Focus Group Traveler iStockPhoto

When LiAnne Yu visits other countries, she watches people from behind a one-way mirror. She now knows which cultures prefer jeans that accentuate curvy butts.

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Beyond the Separation Wall

Beyond the Separation Wall Eliana Aponte/Reuters

Could a late night of Arak and hookah prompt Hasam to open up about life as a young Palestinian? Alicia Imbody wanted to find out.

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Interview With Greg Mortenson: One Traveler Changing Lives

David Frey asks the bestselling author about the "Three Cups of Tea" approach to travel and life

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The World at Home

After years on the move, Frank Bures returned to Minnesota. Now, in his Minneapolis neighborhood, he finds himself transported across the globe.

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Mapped: ‘International Number Ones

Every country is the best at something, so Information is Beautiful dug up the stats and laid out the excellence and shame—the U.S.A. ranks No. 1 in serial killers—on a map.

Hooray for Estonia, though. It leads the world in adult literacy. (Via The Daily Dish)


Seven Breakfasts Every World Traveler Must Eat

Seven Breakfasts Every World Traveler Must Eat iStockPhoto

Petit dejeuner, frühstück, desayuno -- call it what you will. Terry Ward dishes on some of the world's great breakfasts.

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Que Lástima, Arizona

Que Lástima, Arizona iStockPhoto

The state's new immigration law puts more at risk than tourism dollars and tacos. Adam Karlin reports from the Sonoran Desert.

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Alain de Botton Imagines a World Without Airplanes

The man who recently spent a week at Heathrow outlines what the world might look like without “the unremitting progress of inbound aluminium tubes.” De Botton even imagines what would happen to Heathrow:

At Heathrow, now turned into a museum, one would be able to walk unhurriedly across the two main runways and even give in to the temptation to sit cross-legged on their centrelines, a gesture with some of the same sublime thrill as touching a disconnected high-voltage electricity cable, running one’s fingers along the teeth of an anaesthetised shark or having a wash in a fallen dictator’s marble bathroom.

(via Gadling)