One of the things that Mike and I have always agreed on is that it is important to be not just Americans but also citizens of the World. To us, this means making choices for the greater good of the planet, because we see all people and all nations as interconnected. If we are all looking out for each other, the World will be a better place to live.
This belief was a big part of our decision to live in another country with our kids. We believe that if we live in China, then what many people think of as "the Chinese" become real people to our kids, not just news blurbs and stereotypes. We wanted to make the other parts of the world real places with real people and not just blobs on a map.
After being here for 10 months, we now have the chance to see that it has had an effect and they can make personal connections to news stories.
Yesterday, the North Korean president came to China. He took a train from North Korea into Dandong on tracks we stood next to a few weekends ago. He then came to Dalian and stayed in the hotel downtown next door to where we stayed when we first arrived here. After visiting the Dalian port and a few of the many multi-national factories here, our hope that he’ll see the enormous economic progress that free market economics has brought to China and decide it’s time to change himself. The North Korean people we saw across the river in Dandong deserve to be part of this interconnected World too. I'm proud that my kids know why it is significant that the North Korean president came to China. They know this because we live here and visited Dandong.
We've had similar, but not as historically significant, experiences after traveling to other places as well....Google moving their China servers to Hong Kong while we were there, the potential tsunami approaching Hawaii the day after we left (with our hotel in the backdrop of the news coverage), and Thailand protests on the news knowing we will travel there later in the year.
As we continue to travel, I look forward to seeing their views of the World continue to grow.
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2 comments:
very real and timely post - I agree with you about the reality of North Korea now that we've actually seen it. Pretty amazing that there are places in the world still closed the way they are, and I hope too that KJI will see the light from his trip to Dalian!
This is so important Debi, and I'm glad you're writing about it. We've talked a lot about the political unrest in Thailand since we returned. It's so much more real to see news reports of train stations we've been in, and places we've taken pictures of. We met and liked a lot of people in Thailand whose livelihoods in the tourist industry are in peril--the hotel workers and tuk-tuk drivers and guides who were so kind to us. We know that a country is so much more than what you see on CNN.
Tina
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