Let's hear from DUers with lots of overseas experience!! Tell us your experiences! Mini Bios.

[Locut0s]

As I alluded to in another post I often find those with the most foreign exposure are the most liberal and open minded. I'm not arguing it's a prerequisite, this is just from personal experience travelling. As a child I lived in the far east in Malaysia, China, Taiwan and a few other places for 4 years (from the age of 2 to the age of 6). My father is Caucasian, my mother Chinese of Malaysian decent. Since that time I've been living in Vancouver, Canada. During the past 10 years or so I've had the luck of travelling to Europe with my family on several occasions (Italy, Spain, England, France, and a smattering of other locales). Last year we went back to China, you can see my posts about this in my Journal. I personally feel these experiences have been vital to my identification as a liberal minded individual even if chronologically they were short experiences. Experiencing foreign cultures can be such an eye opener when it comes to ones perception of social and cultural norms! I just wish it were cheaper and I had more opportunities. As it stands I've only manged to travel as much as I did because I travelled with my parents.

[ConsAreLiars]

1. In my 20's I traveled twice, two very different ways.

First to Europe doing a pretty standard set of highlights using Fodor's "Europe on $5.00 a Day." Three months driving a BMW 1600 wherever we wanted. On the ground, picking our many destinations and far, far better than some tour package. That trip introduced us to societies and cultures with a very rich and deep history, dating back to the cave paintings in the Dordogne Region, and the most fresh and delicious meal (still makes me drool) I've ever enjoyed in a roadside inn in we happened on in that extraordinarily beautiful region. And so on in several more countries. Many great experiences of what it means to be "in" those different worlds.

But I doubt those who do charter tours ever feel a hint of being "in" the countries and cultures they look at, no matter the numbers or months they've racked up, any more than those who serve in embassies and live in those pathetic little gated enclaves they build for their employees. Or military personnel who live on bases anywhere and venture out only to visit bars or sex workers. I wouldn't say any of those have anything that counts as "overseas experience."

Later on I spent 15 months traveling overland with a backpack, tent and sleeping bag, hitching and second-class trains and buses, on the ground, from the northernmost point in Europe to Ceylon and points between including the then peaceful and tolerant Afghanistan. The first trip was eye-opening, but this experience was truly transformative.

I was already "a liberal" and more before that. Vietnam woke me up. But living with/among people in other places is certainly something that is recognized as valuable in the European tradition of a post high school or mid-college wanderyear. The encounters along such journeys always teach that other people are not "the other."

[Locut0s]

6. I completely agree on the chartered tours thing. But I suspect...

this being DU that there will be far more legit stories of cultural immersion.

Truthfully whenever I'm travelling and see one of those large tour buses stop off at a BIG NAME tourist trap or all you can eat buffet a little of my dies inside ;)

[JDPriestly]

2. I lived more years than I want to admit in four countries in Europe.

What can I say. I'm happy to be in the USA. But I'm glad I lived overseas. I learned to differentiate between what is universally human and what is culturally conditioned.

By the way, single payer was way, way better than our healthcare system.

[SoCalDem]

3. I lived in Panama from age 4 thru age 12

at Albrook AFB, and have traveled to South America, the Caribbean (including Cuba...as a small child), Central America, and to Tahiti..

Our son went to college in Florence , Italy and has traveled all over Europe. His honeymoon last year was a 3-week Greek Isles cruise, with a week in Florence at the beginning, and a week in Dubrovnik at the end..

He's a soccer nut and goes to World Cup whenever he can (He's headed for South Africa next year)

[niceypoo]

4. We try to go to a different country every year

Im in love with the third world, particularly Latin America.

Worst place I've ever been was the Dominican Republic, was worse in many ways than Haiti. Dominicans round up Haitians and use them for slave labor. They also round them up and force them back into Haiti, even if they are Dominican citizens. Had a guide we hired tell me, 'Haitians are amazing, they can work all day and they never eat or get hungry'. He said they pay them about 60 cents a day. We were appalled.

Must fascinating place was probably Thailand. Most docile people on earth.

[Locut0s]

5. Negative experiences are part of the package and just as informative as...

the positive moments. I can tell you we had a difficult time living in China of the 1980s. It was a wonderful eye opening experience but also at times equally mind numbing and frightening.

[ConsAreLiars]

7. Being a slow typer, I'll just copy an earlier post in answer to your request.

My best friend
Posted by ConsAreLiars in General Discussion
Fri Jun 13th 2008, 12:03 AM

Many, very many in that category.

But tonight, for some reason, one stands out and his memory reminds me of so many others. But he, like them, carried the same message. We are the people, we are one people.

I had spent a day exploring the Buddhist caves and the art they contained at Ajanta in India ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajanta_Caves ). I had taken a bus to get close to the site but decided to walk back to the nearest village to get some food and sleep. The curator of the site insisted on accompanying me and carrying my pack on his bicycle. So he is surely another best friend.

So we followed a path with him as protector and carrier, and about halfway there we were confronted by a group of Maharashtran tribals. The leader of the group offered me a drink of the local rotgut, which I accepted. He gently reminded me of the proper hygiene, not to touch the the bottle to the lips but use the thumb as a prophylactic, and we did a couple Namasté's and continued the trek.

He told me something we all know, but sometimes forget. We are brothers and sisters, parents and children and elders, one family, whether we speak the same language or not.

As I approached the village, after the curator had turned back and my pack seemed a bit too heavy too carry any further I dropped it off at a shrine on the outskirts of the village I was nearing, after through sign language or such, asking permission and assurance. Just an open shelter, some deity, a roof, back wall, and a few people hanging there. I went on to search food/shelter in the village, found both and although those who gave me shelter (more best friends), a floor in their dwelling, warned me that the shrine I had left my pack in was a haven for criminals (untouchables?) and returned to find it intact. More best friends there.

I've had the good fortune to travel many places, not by jet and tourist bus, but on the ground and in the same ways the people of those lands got around. I met best friends every place I traveled.

Religion, race, language, skin color, ideology, caste or class, none of that mattered at all. After all, we are all human.

Of course, there are the true monsters, the true aliens, the true non-humans, the entities who really want to destroy us. They are the devourers. The are the transnational capitalist entities whose only goal is to maximize their profits and consume everything they encounter. No human values in their operating manual at all. Indeed, destroying all human values and the very value of human life is a part of what they must do to succeed and survive.

So we fight back. By any means. By every means. And rather than fighting over which is the best, we agree that whatever fight is being waged on whatever front is worth something. And we fight not only for ourselves and our family, but for our best friends, even those we never had the good fortune to meet, everywhere in the world. Good decent people who face the same enemy.

(Edit tiny typos)

[Vickers]

8. Lived a total of 9 years overseas, & married a fur-ner.

Kids speak between 3 to 4 languages.

My dumbass siblings who've been to the Bahamas on weekend trips tell me all about the downfalls of countries I've lived in for YEARS.

:rofl:

[Locut0s]

9. Which countries to be specific? I also lol at...

people who love to prognosticate on the disasters that might befall you if you visit this "backward" country or that. Um hello? Your idea of roughing it is a motel 6 in Florida with no mini bar.

[cascadiance]

10. I started being born in Indonesia...

a few years before "The Year of Living Dangerously"... so I can see first hand what would have happened had I tried to run for president, even though my American parents moved me away from there within a year after I was born back to the states.

I grew up as a white minority in Washington DC when I started school back in the days when Kennedy got assassinated, then as a white minority for a year in Hawaii, then lived in Thailand for a couple of years, and then in Turkey for five years (in the years that lead up to the attack on Cyprus) and in a time where the only place you could get a hamburger was on the American base there (we actually dreamed in those days of coming back to the states to go to McDonalds, believe it or not). lived in the midwest in Michigan and Iowa and then in California. Currently had to move away from conservative Southern California to Oregon.

Moving to Michigan for my final three years of high school after living in effect as a "white minority" all of my life in the schools before that I think gave me a lot of perspective on things. I had a lot of sympathy for the only black girl in my high school in those final three years there, and what she had to deal with for acceptance there.

I travelled to Cambodia as a kid from Thailand before John Kerry or the American armies moved in to there during the Vietnam years when Prince Sihanouk was still in charge then. And I travelled through Israel shortly after the Six Day War, through Egypt on one of the first tours that Americans went to Egypt on after Sadat took power there from Nasser, and traveled through Beirut before that city "blew up" back in the days of Beirut University being strong there. It was a very beautiful place then, as was Cambodia when I traveled there. So was Yugoslavia when we travelled through there when it was communist before entering Turkey. My favorite 5th grade teacher in Turkey was the boyfriend of one of four American airmen who were kidnapped in Turkey during one of the times of Martial Law then, who fortunately escaped unharmed later. Another high school friend of mine there had her father held by the Soviets for a while as one of three Air Force officers caught in their airspace in a U2 incident over the Black Sea then...

Yeah, I saw a lot of history first hand and met many people and cultures first hand too that gives one an appreciation as to how we fit in the whole world culturally and spiritually, which is why I'm more sickened by some of the cultural arrogance and ignorance we have today in this country that seems at times to run the show.

And though I was a USAID brat and not a military brat when living overseas, don't dismiss too many people that lived in the military bases overseas as not also having unique experiences that helped them become better champions for democracy. A good documentary to watch is "Brats", which was made by a friend of mine who got Kris Kristofferson to narrate it and donate his music to it pro bono (he grew up a military brat too FYI), She points out how the military in those days preceded America in terms of racial integration, and was socialist in much of its structure, with subsidized housing and stores (the PX and the commissaries) and man other benefits, and the rich lived alongside the poor and so did the races in a more equal fashion overseas.

http://www.bratsourjourneyhome.com/

One small American school I attended out there generated many great people who attended there - Mitch Pileggi (Skinner of the X-Files), weapons inspector Scott Ritter, Sylvia Nasar who wrote the book that was the basis for best picture "A Beautiful Mind", Buddy Hickerson who is the cartoonist of "The Quigmans", etc.

[Locut0s]

13. Wow thatsn quite an upbrining! Thanks for the link! nt

[struggle4progress]

11. I lived in Texas once: not overseas, I know -- more like another planet

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

12. Once a year

My husband is English so every year we go visit to see his family. While there, we generally make a side trip, cause travel by air from England to another country in Europe is inexpensive. This year, we went to Cork, Ireland. We rented a car and drove all over the place.

My favorite is Venice. It's the appeal of the art. What a place! We've been twice, and I love it so, I have a hard time choosing some where else. There is a street called Garibaldi and it's where a lot of locals live. If you go to that street in the afternoons around 4:00, you can sit at an outside wine bar, sipping a glass of red and watch the entire neighborhood come out and stroll the street, all talking, laughing, and even singing. Small children, older teens flirting with each other, dog walkers, elderly, it's just amazing to see.

[Kaleva]

14. I got drunk in many countries

Canada, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Greece, Romania, Cuba, Jamaica.

[Locut0s]

15. LOL I guess that counts.... so long as...

it was at a domestic bar and not the local club med ;)

[A HERETIC I AM]

16. Pop worked for "The Company"

(CIA) I was conceived in Taiwan (My older brother was born there, in Taipei) I was born in Arlington, VA. Moved to Saipan in 1961, back to DC in early '63. Moved to Miami, FL shortly after Kennedy was shot. Moved to Athens, Greece in 1966. Back to DC in late '67. Alice Springs Australia in '72. Back to Miami in '74 where Dad retired.

Working in Indy Car racing got me to Surfers Paradise, Queensland 4 times in the early 1990's and to Northampton, England 4 times and Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire once.