I grew up in a 2-level home. The first floor is where we lived and the second floor is where we slept.
As a child, I spent summers in a hot pink one piece running around with a super soaker squirt gun. My brothers and I would scream until our voices became hoarse and my mom would call for us, particularly me, to do something cerebral.
I had no idea what the word even meant. I remember I was holding a sun chip and had my eye on a doughnut the first time she said it. "What's that," I remember asking. She told me it means doing some reading or writing; something with your brain. I protested that I was already keeping a journal. I guess it wasn't enough.
That afternoon, I ventured into my dad's home office to thumb through his books and spend time inside. I was glum. His shelves of dusty books looked thick. I stared at the computer. A stack of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing programs he'd bought us for the summer sat nearby. The plastic wrap was still on them. I told myself I'd start those programs soon and turned my attention to the globe to the left of his computer. I started spinning it around and stopping it with my finger to see where it had landed.
It was on this day, I started to really look at the countries of the world. Their outlines started to mean more than just a new blob of color. I landed on the U.S.S.R. (it was an older globe) and looked it up in the encyclopedia. I landed on Panama and started reading about the canal. The afternoon passed.
My dad came home and found me on the floor of his office with the globe and stacks of encyclopedias in a circle around me. Back then, we had one large book for every letter of the alphabet. I think it was 25 or 26 books in all.
I remember being unimpressed with Asia. I didn't feel an urge to go there, no matter how many times my index finger landed there. Years later, I told my friends Asia was the last place I wanted to visit. Iceland, Uganda and Peru were much higher on the list. The entries for those places seemed much more interesting for some reason.
So, it was strange when, at 27, I found myself living in Sri Lanka and just a few months later, embarking on a 2-year Peace Corps stint in Central Asia. Instincts, or rather, the information I'd gathered in those encyclopedias or in my daily life, had not successfully informed me about the wonders of Asia.
My experience in Asia was intensely life-altering. It's the reason I'm in grad school and the reason I'm studying journalism. Asia taught me about community and communality and the importance of others. It is a magical place. And I cannot for the life of me understand why I didn't understand that sooner. In fact, my little brother just said over the weekend, "I'd like to travel, but am not really interested in Asia."
I just thought: If only you could just go there to see it. You might have a different take.
I think that telling stories well is a lot like my struggle to understand Asia. Anyone who has been to Asia will understand this statement, which I know sounds a lot like a huge generalization. But, the dozens of Asian countries share a common culture, just as every state in the U.S. shares a common understanding.
It took me more than a year to wrap my head around the cultural differences. The divide between Western culture and Eastern culture is wide. But, when I left, I could safely say that I knew how to think like a Turkmen. It is a skill that is incredibly useful if used in parallel in the U.S., but that if used directly would do nothing to help me. Thinking like a Turkmen in the U.S. would be maddening for me and most likely maddening for everyone around me. Essentially, I would be unable to operate in our culture.
I think being a reporter means living in a divide like this. We are tasked with inviting readers into a situation they are completely unfamiliar with. We tell them what it's like. We invite them to understand it, to smell it and to feel it. But, they've likely never been there themselves.
Our job is to be the bridge and to invite readers over the divide.
As a child, I spent summers in a hot pink one piece running around with a super soaker squirt gun. My brothers and I would scream until our voices became hoarse and my mom would call for us, particularly me, to do something cerebral.
I had no idea what the word even meant. I remember I was holding a sun chip and had my eye on a doughnut the first time she said it. "What's that," I remember asking. She told me it means doing some reading or writing; something with your brain. I protested that I was already keeping a journal. I guess it wasn't enough.
That afternoon, I ventured into my dad's home office to thumb through his books and spend time inside. I was glum. His shelves of dusty books looked thick. I stared at the computer. A stack of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing programs he'd bought us for the summer sat nearby. The plastic wrap was still on them. I told myself I'd start those programs soon and turned my attention to the globe to the left of his computer. I started spinning it around and stopping it with my finger to see where it had landed.
It was on this day, I started to really look at the countries of the world. Their outlines started to mean more than just a new blob of color. I landed on the U.S.S.R. (it was an older globe) and looked it up in the encyclopedia. I landed on Panama and started reading about the canal. The afternoon passed.
My dad came home and found me on the floor of his office with the globe and stacks of encyclopedias in a circle around me. Back then, we had one large book for every letter of the alphabet. I think it was 25 or 26 books in all.
I remember being unimpressed with Asia. I didn't feel an urge to go there, no matter how many times my index finger landed there. Years later, I told my friends Asia was the last place I wanted to visit. Iceland, Uganda and Peru were much higher on the list. The entries for those places seemed much more interesting for some reason.
So, it was strange when, at 27, I found myself living in Sri Lanka and just a few months later, embarking on a 2-year Peace Corps stint in Central Asia. Instincts, or rather, the information I'd gathered in those encyclopedias or in my daily life, had not successfully informed me about the wonders of Asia.
My experience in Asia was intensely life-altering. It's the reason I'm in grad school and the reason I'm studying journalism. Asia taught me about community and communality and the importance of others. It is a magical place. And I cannot for the life of me understand why I didn't understand that sooner. In fact, my little brother just said over the weekend, "I'd like to travel, but am not really interested in Asia."
I just thought: If only you could just go there to see it. You might have a different take.
I think that telling stories well is a lot like my struggle to understand Asia. Anyone who has been to Asia will understand this statement, which I know sounds a lot like a huge generalization. But, the dozens of Asian countries share a common culture, just as every state in the U.S. shares a common understanding.
It took me more than a year to wrap my head around the cultural differences. The divide between Western culture and Eastern culture is wide. But, when I left, I could safely say that I knew how to think like a Turkmen. It is a skill that is incredibly useful if used in parallel in the U.S., but that if used directly would do nothing to help me. Thinking like a Turkmen in the U.S. would be maddening for me and most likely maddening for everyone around me. Essentially, I would be unable to operate in our culture.
I think being a reporter means living in a divide like this. We are tasked with inviting readers into a situation they are completely unfamiliar with. We tell them what it's like. We invite them to understand it, to smell it and to feel it. But, they've likely never been there themselves.
Our job is to be the bridge and to invite readers over the divide.
No comments:
Post a Comment