Ke Luar means To Travel in the native language of Malay. Three years of my life have been spent lived on a small country known as Malaysia found in south-east Asia. My family has travelled to Austria, China, Singapore and Thailand, visited France and South Korea (and these are just a fraction of our travels). We have walked along The Great Wall, seen the Terracotta Warriors, explored the Forbidden City, climbed the Pyramids of Giza, beheld the Sphinx, ascended the Merlion Fountain, sailed across Hong Kong harbor and experienced countless other awes.
Those three years have had the most profound impact on shaping who I am today and who I will become in the future. It was a completely new society to me, full of fantastic wonders and foreign marvels, a fresh perspective filled with new sights and sounds and everything else in between. It was absolutely different from anything I had ever known: new music, new food, new language, new religion, new people, new culture, a new world, a new life.
For many people there is no world beyond their own; never venturing beyond the confines of familiarity or the boundaries of the ordinary. Whether by choice or circumstance, isolation and ignorance promote a one-dimensional view of a three-dimensional world. These stereotypes are the most threatening aspect of our current cultural mindset; they drive wedges between peoples and reinforce the borders of nations.
The ancient American-Indian tribe, the Cherokee, conceived one of the most important and famous proverbs in our culture: “Do not judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes.” Travel embodies and promotes this idea by encouraging communication and establishing connections; it provides a context and meaning to a world that is otherwise perceived through camera-lenses and television-screens.
At face value, travel offers the simple but essential ability to expose ourselves to new sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches. Beneath this, however, lies a more complex but equally important capacity of travel that simultaneously penetrates much deeper and reaches much further than we can imagine. Travel has the ability to connect people across any boundaries: bridging national borders, transcending religion or ethnicity, disregarding time-zones or distance, rejecting any restrictions or limitations. Travel reminds us of our basic ability to relate to one another as people.
For the three years of my life I spent living in Malaysia I experienced the abilities of travel to establish connections and advocate communication first hand. Those three years overseas, and what I learned while travelling, have had a more meaningful effect on my personality and character than anything else. The wonders I experienced and the miracles I witnessed will never be neglected or forgotten, but rather, will stick with me throughout every day of my life.
Travel creates invaluable photos and unforgettable memories that will last a lifetime, but it also has an infinitely more far-reaching and profound impact on us as a species; helping to shape who we are today and who we will become in the future, and because of this everyone should be a world traveler.
– By Adam Rimolt