By I hardly know where to begin!
It seems like a lifetime ago that I stepped out of the Toronto airport and breathed the crisp and cold air of Canada again after two months of the perpetual sauna-soaked air of Southeast Asia: with glee, I spread my arms out, threw my head back, inhaled dramatically and refused the jacket offered me right off my aunt’s back. The whole trip feels like a dream–even the heat! And yet, the more time that slips by and separates me from that experience, the more I seem to absorb from it. I can’t answer the demands from well-meaning friends to tell them about my trip; I can hardly remember more than one specific story at a time (such as the ill-timed story on how I took my relationship with squatty-potties to the next level: this went completely unappreciated by my mother, busily preparing Easter dinner!) but I feel the whole experience all in one piece as a completely indescribable…enlightenment? That might sound really corny or implausible but I can only explain what it is that has changed for me, as a result of this trip, as a feeling. To be more exact, I feel larger, not by physical measure but inside somewhere, deep down; there’s something new there that wasn’t there before. Maybe it’s just things like being able to say ‘I know what a traffic jam reallylooks like’, or ’I've seen how people in a poverty-stricken nation can be rich without money or justice’, or ‘I know history that other people can only hear about on the news, where it’s unrestricted by government leaders’ (because it’s different somehow, perhaps more valuable, when you know lecturers to be risking their safety or their reputation to tell you about their country). Or I can skim a textbook and get a chill when, upon glancing at a picture and receiving a strange wave of deja-vu, I realize I’ve stood in front of that very same ruin, seen it in colour and even taken a picture of it!
Above and beyond all that, however, I think what I feel most in reaction to Asia 2009 is merely the fact that I no longer have a dark void where all knowledge of Southeast Asia is concerned. Dark voids are burdensome things and a person doesn’t even notice how heavy they are until they’re gone! (And by ”dark voids” I suppose I mean ignorance or lack of knowledge.) I am so incredibly gladI have had the opportunity to go to these three countries–even if learning about and experiencing them doesn’t make me an expert, I’ve learned so much more than just the politics of Thailand or the security issues in the Philippines or the day-to-day Islam in Malaysia, and I can boast epiphanies both personal, interpersonal, spiritual and even academic! I can hardly believe there was a time I was anxious enough to consider not going at all! In short, pre-Asia, in-Asia, and post-Asia are periods of my life that have opened up a whole new world for me and I wouldn’t dare close my eyes now!