Six Weeks Around the World

Published 11/04/2022 in Scholar Travel Stipend

Written by Caroline Chiu | 11/04/2022

Two days after I graduated from Columbia University with a degree in biomedical engineering, I embarked on a six week journey that took me from New York to the Dominican Republic, Holland, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

I was both excited and nervous: I had never travelled for longer than two weeks, and when I have, I did so in the modern comforts and safety of a hotel or a friend’s home. This time, while there were a few hotel and family stays spread throughout, I would mostly be hopping around from Airbnb to Airbnb, hostel to hostel. 

I was also excited by the prospect of embedding myself in the vastly different cultures of these destinations. Barring the Dominican Republic and Taiwan, I had never travelled to the other five countries. In particular, I was intrigued by what I would find in Asia. My parents were born in China and Taiwan, and I’ve visited both countries and have a sense of their unique cultures from my own upbringing and from the additional glimpses provided when extended family visits New York. I was curious by what similarities and differences I could find between those cultures I was most familiar with, and what I would find in Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

Japan was my first stop in Asia. Parts of Tokyo felt like the Financial District in Manhattan, albeit with wider streets, while other neighborhoods turned into Times Square at night, but even busier and more frantic if you can believe it. Yet strangely enough, interspersed between those urban scenes were peaceful Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines that made you feel like you were standing in a place where the earth stood still.  

Kyoto was an entirely different experience. Imbued with historical, religious, and cultural sites, this city is so obviously sacred to the Japanese that I wasn’t surprised when I learned that during World War II, the Allied Forces purposefully spared the city from any bombings. Each site in Kyoto is an escape of it’s own, and so distinct in it’s style and beauty.  

Aside from the overwhelming number of things to see in the cities I visited (and not to mention the cities I couldn’t fit into my itinerary), there were an even greater number of things to eat. I don’t think I ever ate so well, on a relative budget (my comparison being New York City restaurant prices), in my life. Highlights included waking up in Tsukiji Fish Market for ​omikaze​, where chefs made an assortment of sushi right in front of you with the best cuts of freshly caught fish. I also had one of the best, if not the best, meal of my life at Cafe Rakuraku in Kyoto, where a home chef opened his kitchen to us and prepared his favorite dishes.  

Japan was truly a place of wonder. While vaguely familiar with some of its Eastern cultures and aesthetic values, it was all distinctively Japan. There is also still so much I want to see and do: to climb Mount Fuji, and to see for myself what Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like today.

Taiwan
Despite being stuffed to the brim in Japan, I was getting ready to do it all over again in Taiwan, where I have family that show their affection by taking me out to eat at some of the most delicious places in the country (which, for context, is about the size of Maryland). During that long weekend of amazing food, I also noticed that I was looking at Taiwan in a different light. Taiwan was occupied by Japan for 50 years after World War II, and while I knew that Taiwan was inevitably influenced and affected by the occupation, I was now properly seeing it for the first time, from the design of the subways to some light influences in food. So in addition to seeing my family for the first time in a few years and being very well fed in preparation for three weeks of backpacking in Southeast Asia, I also found a new lens to look at the country I had been to so many times before.

Thailand
My introduction to Southeast Asia came by the way of Bangkok, where I stayed for an evening before heading to Cambodia by bus. Two things I was struck by immediately: 1) the many different Pocky and Pretz flavors (i.e. Tom Yum and Spicy Shrimp), and 2) how much more affordable the bottled water was. That evening, I had authentic Thai food for the first time--it’s lighter and fresher than anything I’ve ever gotten in New York.

Cambodia

While I was sad to not be spending any longer in Thailand (I’ll be back!), I was excited to travel to Cambodia, a country that I knew so little about but knew had suffered much devastation in recent history. Our first stop in Cambodia was Siam Reap, where Angkor Wat, the largest religious complex in the world, is located, along with other monuments and temples of the ancient Angkorian civilization.

It was such a marvel to roam around the temples for three days -- they were intricately beautiful and impressive in their size and complexity. Over time, the complexes were forgotten about and the jungle ended up taking over. It wasn’t until the French colonized much of Southeast Asia that they were rediscovered. As a result, some of the temples are overgrown with enormous trees whose massive roots are incomprehensibly tangled through the floors of some of the buildings.  

Amidst all of the history, in Siam Reap, you can see rampant poverty. Local women and children can be found along all the major tourist attractions, selling wares or begging for spare change. The social workers in the area implore tourists not to give money, because it keeps children out of schools. In response, children have learned to say that they attend school even when they do not, because they’ve learned tourists are more likely to give when they give that answer.

It was relieving to see another side of Cambodia when I travelled to Phnom Penh, the nation’s capital. It felt urban, everything was priced in their local currency instead of in the tourist’s currency. There were children in school uniform, advertisements for language schools, and common global chains visible. It was as different as it could be from Siam Reap. In Phnom Penh, we visited a former school that was turned into a prison during the dictatorship of the Khmer Rouge. The pictures and stories that were displayed were as horrifying as any I had ever 

heard. Families were torn apart, children were tortured and murdered, and entire generations of educated and skilled Cambodians were slaughtered.

The visit was a somber moment in my trip that showcased the devastation that war can bring to not just a country, but humanity overall.

Vietnam

One of my first stops in Vietnam was the Vietnam War Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon, as the southern Vietnamese still prefer to call it. Coming off from a somber moment in Cambodia, I was ready to have yet another when seeing what the “American War” felt like to the Vietnamese. While the museum understandably focused on American atrocities and left out those committed by the Viet Cong, it once again was a powerful reminder of the damage that people can inflict on each other, and the horrors of war.

But as I worked my way up from the south to the north of Vietnam, there was no obvious feeling that the country had so recently underwent a vicious war. The people were friendly, happy, and the younger generations especially, educated and eager to learn. It was a bright testament to the strength of human endurance, and a will to live life to it’s fullest.

Vietnam was also beautiful in its geographic diversity and rich culture of different ethnic tribes. The South was warmer and lined with beautiful beaches along the coast. Meanwhile, the North was drier and had beautiful mountains (which occasionally ended in a beach). In particular, the Northwest was full of cultural diversity from the Hmong, Thai, and Mao peoples who lived an agricultural life there and farmed rice in terraced paddies on the mountain slopes.

Conclusion
I spent a lot of time thinking about how to best spend my post-summer graduation, and I am so happy with how I ultimately spent it. There’s nothing more eye-opening, mind-expanding, and maturing than travelling for more than the standard two weeks, not always in the most comfortable of conditions, by yourself or with friends, to a location you’ve never been before.

I have come out of this trip having done things with a broader understanding of the world, a reminder that the life I know having lived in New York ever since I was born, is just one way of life out of an infinite number of possibilities. I’ve tested my boundaries, tried new things, and I am all the better for it.

While there’s a lot of things to consider when picking places to travel, safety being a huge component, I encourage all Scholars, especially rising seniors, to pick somewhere new to go to, and then go one step further in the unfamiliar. If any of those places happen to be places I mentioned here, please feel free to reach out to me for more recommendations! If they aren’t on this list, let me know, I want to go with you!