Reflecting on our Trip: Appreciation for our Country

That’s Amazing

It’s amazing what other people find amazing, and what they don’t.  Chris had this realization back in 1998 when visiting family in Italy and got excited in the car on the expressway when they passed a castle on a hill, taking out his camera to snap a quick picture.  His cousins couldn’t understand what he was doing or why.  To emphasize the point, within a few minutes they passed another castle, and yet another just a few minutes after that.  Amazing is only what you’re unaccustomed to.

Chris and Kate were on the other side of this experience in China and Cambodia.  Chris had brought a standard MasterLock combination lock on the trip and attached it to a loop on the shoulder-strap of his backpack.  Our tour guide in China asked what it was and was interested in its purpose.

The best experience with the MasterLock, however, happened in the Siem Reap airport in Cambodia.  While buying a last minute item from the duty-free store the salesperson at the register asked what the lock was and Chris took it off and showed him.  Chris put in the combination and opened the lock to an audible reaction of surprise.  Then Chris closed the lock, handed it to the salesman and walked him through the combination to unlock it.  Then, with the combination properly entered, the salesman opened the lock and reacted with the most sincere sensation of joy and surprise. 

 Combination locks, as it turns out, are amazing.

The Stars and Stripes Forever

WARNING: AMERICAN PRIDE COMING OUT....
So after all our travels and experiences one other realization continued to drive itself home, time and again:  We are truly lucky to live in and be citizens of the United States of America. For all the problems we have in our country (and we have many), we have gotten a whole lot very right. 

China has between 3,000 and 4,000 years of continuous history.  Greece developed democracy over 2,500 years ago.  Istanbul has been the center of multiple empires during the last 2,000 years.  All three of those countries combined don’t produce as much in one year as the people of the United States.

In less than 300 years the USA developed the world’s largest economy, history’s most advanced society and the highest standard of living the world has ever known.  We are the most prosperous people on the planet, and we did it in roughly one-tenth the time as the rest of human society.

When you are in a place like Cambodia or India, you start to get a sense of people who have no opportunity.  Where they are born is where they will die and, at best, they will have only as much as their parents, who were born into the same fate.  There is no social mobility, there is no opportunity, and there hasn’t been opportunity for generations (though in places like China and India this is finally beginning to change).

This is the miracle of the American experiment in democracy and capitalism.  In a remarkably short period of time we have created the most enviable system for prosperity and opportunity in the world.  Travelling the globe and seeing the stark comparison is a vivid reminder of these accomplishments and not a small source of pride.