Dear friend

Dear friend:

I’m Chi, the Taiwanese traveler whom you had hosted, traveled with, given a ride, invited for a meal or helped in any way. I almost reach the end of this long journey. I want to write you this letter to say “thank you” again, and tell you something about this trip.

First of all, I need to clarify that this unforgettable journey is not completed by me, but by all the people I met on the way, including lots of anonymous and all of you. As a freeloader who spent most of the time hitch-hiking and sleeping over at local people’s houses, I could not even reach Mongolia without all your help. The completion of this journey is an absolute evidence proving that most people on this planet are willing to give hands to a foreign stranger without asking repaid and even names. They always provide me more than what I asked for. They took such good care of me that I dare visit those so-called dangerous places, then realized those places were not dangerous at all as long as I was with the locals. Those stories were so unbelievable and heart-touching that many listeners were deeply impressed and inspired to travel.

I think you guys might know some differences between different culture, people and area. Instead of telling you those differences, I would like to tell you something the same, something in common among all those people and places that I had visited. I think it would be more interesting, and maybe more important.

I saw the weather changing dramatically. Moscow had the warmest summer since the last 50 years. China had serious droughts and huge floods at the same time. There were 5 provinces with droughts and floods happening together within 200 km. The water traces on Kenyan and Tanzanian plains had been changed so much that migrating animals had to travel on much different routes, and left more victims on the way. People everywhere complain about the weather, everywhere. But there’re still many countries digging ice layers in Antarctic. It’s very clear that our mother land had been destroyed by those so-called civilized creatures that she bred and raised. We are leaving a worse place for our children and I have no confidence at all that they are able to make it better. So many beautiful places were vanishing and ruined by the tourist business. If there’s something that you want to see on this planet, it’s better to do it as quickly as you can.

I saw people wanting similar lives; falling in love with someone, having some kids and a homey place to raise them up, giving them good educations and strong backup, wishing them have good jobs and good families, are pretty much what most people want. They might have different problems to deal with, but they look very similar when they are at the same life phase. All the mothers asked me the same questions; “How old are you?”, “Are you married?”, “Why didn’t you get married?”, “Why don’t you find a woman here to do your laundry and have some kids for you?”. All of them. I don’t need translators at all.

I saw different colors of brightness from people when they were walking on different life phases. I saw people laughing and crying for what they really care. I saw many broken hearts still believing in love and dreams. I think that is life, devouring suffering and pain then turning them into energy to move on. There’s no one I met having nothing to worry about at all, even their dogs were worrying about something(usually digesting problems). But some people are happy while some are not. Dear friend, I’m not going to ask you to be positive and keep your hopes since I don’t understand what you had suffered from, but I would like to suggest you, no matter how you want to live your life, walk tenderly and slowly. Try to see, hear and feel everything on the way, no matter it’s good or bad. Don’t be afraid to be different as well as being the same. That’s your life, once in a lifetime, not comparable and repeatable at all.

I saw people being so nice to a short-stay visitor like me, but criticizing so much to their long-term accompanied neighbors and nearby countries. So many people suggested me not to visit their neighbor countries because it’s dirty, dangerous, poor, blah-blah… When I went to the next country, people told me the same about the next country. To me, all of them are nice and kind people, but they don't like each other. I'm still wondering why. Maybe it’s the time that really produces hatred and gaps. Maybe it’s the time that differentiates people. If we could only live for 3 days, like some butterflies, we might not have time to hate and make wars. Dear friend, please don’t forget how nice you treated me, and at least do the same to those who are around you and maybe care about you. They might not always be there, and they might not have chances to say goodbye to you.

I saw true happiness having nothing to do with money, place and hierarchy. Every time when people ask me “who are the happiest people I met”, I always think of Africans and South American Latinos. While foreign tourists feeling sorrow for the poorness and worrying about the thieves, robbers all around, those black and chocolate laughing faces are always able to make everybody laugh, make you cannot stop being happy with their music, dances and jokes. I wish you could meet them, truly, then you would know there’s nothing worthy of worry, not even for 3 minutes. Dear friend, nothing would kill you but yourself(...and maybe accidents). If something in your brain makes you sad and depressed, talk and play with your heart. Then it would pump something into your brain to calm everything down.

When I was in the darkest time of my life, totally hopeless and helpless, it was a voice from my heart telling me that I could make it. When I was weak and lonely, it was that voice telling me that I should be strong to complete this trip, otherwise I will definitely regret. Your brain might deal with those routines and works, but when you need to make some important decisions, listen to your heart. That voice would tell you something that really matters in your life, and usually it is right.

I saw people being so easily controlled by those greedy, selfish politicians and media. This makes it easy to build illusions(of freedom or democracy), and make one culture bully another. Some people, who stand for gender equality, just went to Africa and Arabic countries then criticized about female circumcision, objectification and propertization, then forced them to change. It’s like breaking the doors and running into someone’s house then asking them to leave. They didn’t care Muslim women had covered their faces for almost 1,500 years. They didn’t care what ancestors had told to the tribal people. For how many times those western countries made messes in other countries under the flag of freedom, and how many of those victims really became free or better? Look at how it is now in Libya, Egypt and Syria, was it really a spring coming?

We intend to convince others to accept what we believe, that’s one of the biggest problems of human beings. We cannot really tolerate differences around us. Many people believe that men and women should be equal. When a Ethiopian woman stated that she was proud of being circumcised, people challenged her instead of trying to understanding why she was proud of being circumcised. This kind of unaware arrogance clearly showed me the human limitation, and the origin of racism and discrimination. This arrogance also makes it easy for powerful, rich people to manipulate public opinions on some purposes.

Most people don’t really want the truth, they just want stories; stories which are able to fulfill their understanding, tendency and maybe imagination. So those politicians just need 4 or 5 tricks to manipulate people among those countries, and for those thousands of passed years of human history. So fucking easy.

Dear friend, when you encounter someone/something different, respect them and try to understand them. If you think you understand much enough then you could make some conclusions and decide if you agree with them or not. If you cannot really understand, leave them for a while and come back when you have more knowledge and life experiences, then try again. Maybe you believe in democracy, equality, world peace and something like that, but not everyone does. If you think they don’t understand what you believe, explain to them but please, let them decide. Try not to judge and label people as much as you can. I know it’s difficult, but try it, OK?

All the information you got has it’s tendency and standpoint, and usually it’s biased. If you really care about the truth, go there and see it with your own eyes, think about it with your own brain. But keep in mind that different people have different stories of the same country. You might also have different stories of the same country when you visit it in different time phase. If you don't want to do it this way, at least try to get the information from more/different sources and make a fairer conclusion. Those extremists who like to carry bombs to scare everybody are very few. Most of the Palestinians and Afghanistanians are as peace-loving as you, maybe more than you. That’s why they said “salam” to greet each other. I believe it’s the same in Libya, Syria and wherever those western media had told you about the terrorism nests are. People are simple, but the politics and relationships between countries are complicated. Saying that you know a country only according to what you had known from the books and media is very naive and rude. Saying that you know a country only according to what you had seen there, for how many years you had lived there, is relatively convincing but still a bit arrogant. It’s better to always stay humble, no matter how much you had know about this object.

I saw many different ways of people’s living and thinking, so many that I cannot really decide which ones I’m going to adopt. For those people who think their lives had been trapped and headed to a dead end. I can promise you that there’s always a solution, actually in most cases there are more than 2 solutions. Either you trap yourself, or you don’t really want to do that because of money, time and blah-blah… To increase tokens in your solution pocket, meet more and more people, the more different of them the better.

What pushes me forward is always the people. Those monuments and museums are dead. They just told me the same stories about how stupid and selfish humans were, and how much they liked to repeat the same mistakes. People are alive, they surprised and inspired me. They showed me how valuable lives are, so generously that I could even touch their hearts beating. There’s no best country, but there’s a best thing; meeting those people and laughing with them.

At the end, I would like to say thank you, and thanks to this beautiful world for helping me to see it. I’m really lucky to be born in this world, and happy to have all of you living with me under the same sky. I wish I could meet you again, more importantly, I wish you could find those important things of your life, chase for them and keep them well. Complete the greatest miracle on this planet; LIFE.

Best Regards.


Chi
03/30/2014 Japan.