When I was in school, everyone made a big deal of studying abroad, largely because of the stories they would be able to tell about leaving the country. As a much more subdued individual, I made my mark on campus, and graduated in the most predictable way, the most excitement happening when I moved off campus. For years, I thought that I had missed out on living a life full of adventure, especially when I heard about people taking several trips a year and living with someone who had completed time in the Peace Corps. However, after traveling through Europe and living in Mexico, I have one suggestion for imperial residents: stop exotifying the everyday, because that kind of behavior takes away people’s humanity.
People from the United States are famous for the way they smirk and demand that people “speak English,” even though the majority of the population lacks enough vocabulary knowledge to understand that plenty of English words come from other languages. Consequently, tourists, scholars, and other international travelers are losing their interest in coming to a country that sees languages as threats to its autonomy. I wonder what all those lunatics think that “foreigners” are talking about, because if we follow the premise that all people are human beings, what else would they be talking about, other than their lives? Families, bad bosses, crushes, and other issues are universal, which is one of the reason that movies are international. Even if people cannot speak another language, being afraid of or fetishizing different languages is a sign of insecurity, because nobody is so important that people around the world are constantly talking about that person.
Additionally, cultural appropriation has gotten out of control, and it is high time that people stop doing things that they are incapable of understanding. Why do more people from New Zealand do the haka? Because the Maori community has become internationally recognized, and it is now seen as socially hypocritical to rave about a country without acknowledging the indigenous populations. Sage is not some New Age nonsense that needs to be sold for hundreds of dollars, but similar to ayahuasca, leading to clarity and understanding as part of long-standing cultural rituals. Yes, there are ceremonies for hair locks and no, “edgy” rockstars do not look better in them than those whose hair from which they originated. Making money from people’s lifestyles and selling it as “new” is not thoughtful or “superior.”
Honestly, people in other countries are simply living their lives and doing what everyone else does in countries: living, working, and dying. There is nothing particularly unique about the way people live except for those who were training to see everyone outside a specific dominant narrative as “other.” Perhaps it would mean more to travel abroad or study at foreign universities if people were genuinely interested in history, politics, or development from a local perspective, rather than scoping out cultures and resources to steal.
Chasing A Dying Empire 