How far will your English get you?

        A trip across continents lets you experience firsthand how the world keeps moving closer             together language wise --or how far your English will get with you!

The attempt at creating a universal language, Esperanto, that can easily be learned by all the people of the world failed decades ago. English established itself as the communication medium of the world.  

Whenever I visit my home country I see more and more English expressions creeping into my native language. (French has the Academie Francaise who actively works to prevent Anglicanism/Americanisms gaining too much leverage in French).

In German, food related English expressions (burgers, fast food) and IT related terms (computer) were the first to make their way into the language many years ago. (The poor French still have to deal with an ordinateur; no computer for them)!

One of the first technical terms adopted into German was the word Handy; its origin is uncertain. Obviously you always have it with you, in your hand and it’s handy. What is it? It’s a cell or mobile phone. Why was that descriptive term not transferred into the English language?

American culture has long influenced the world. The music scene gave us Germans loan words that are firmly established in our native tongue now: e.g.: pop stars, love parade, pop festival.  World globalization did the rest to anglicize my native language.

 

When traveling in Germany you'll find that most people speak English to some degree. Since my childhood days learning English has been compulsory for school children as of 10 years of age. Recently that law was changed so that you now have the choice of starting at six. Therefore most people have the basics or a solid grounding even if they lack practice.

Although there are German equivalents, Germans speak of something being cool, a loser, junkies, car rental, and even more complex word combinations like Offshore wind parks or MMA :Mixed martial arts fighting challenge.

What if it was the other way round? You're safe! Only few German words made it into English:

Wunderkind, Kindergarten, Sitzbad(th), Realpolitik, Gestalt, maybe Hausfrau? I came across Kaffeeklatsch when I lived in Dublin. Then there are some tainted ones like Lebensraum or Blitz that hang around. And then there is  Zeitgeist.

Several years back, under a previous administration I felt the time was right to introduce another word into the English domain: Volksverdummung. It means “deliberate deception of the public.” (See my Ezinearticle).

Alas, it never took off.

You native English speakers were lucky: Long before I ever came to the US, I heard the story of how, a long, long time ago, the US voted on an official language. In events packed with drama, opinions were split between English and German. It all came down to the final vote: English won- by a single vote, because one German-favoring guy was sitting on the toilet.

 
Gripping as this story may be, it is not exactly true. The Legendary English-Only Vote of 1795 in which German almost became the official language of the US is an Urban Legend.

I consider myself lucky that the Chinese language hasn’t taken over world domination in spite of China having many more speakers than all English speakers on the planet combined and that I can still happily struggle trying to master my English!

Siggy Buckley 
www.Intrepidhomeswappers.blogspot.com

Happy Labor Day! Still traveling in Germany & technically challenged in the hills of the  Black Forest. I'll try to run the site from here during the remainder of my stay though the Internet connection via data stick here in the sticks in southern Germany is a hilly challenge.
I want to take this opportunity to give a big public thank you to my Internet friend and  fellow writer Scott Bury. Not only did he jump to my rescue but outdid me by far with his exceptional skills editing, tweeting and revamping the site. That plus his own contacts thrown in made WGT go from strength to strength.For me it has been an inspiring experience.
So feel free, all you readers and writers to keep up the momentum. We need you! Happy writing and good luck on your new endeavors, Scott! Don't be a stranger!

Q&A with writer Suellen Zima

Suellen Zima

Suellen Zima is a writer and blogger in Southern California. She is the author of Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird, and the forthcoming Out of Step: A Diary to My Dead Son.

Q: Why did you decide to write a diary to your late son, and how would you describe the relationship between you?

A: My son died in 2003.  As Mother's Day approached in 2011, I had a strong feeling that he was just too dead.  I needed to try to do something to make him come more alive to me.  I had half-heartedly, unsuccessfully tried a few times to write something about him, but that had gone nowhere. 

So, I thought, "Why not write a diary to him and see what happens?"  I had no plot, didn't know if anything would come of it, or where it might lead, if anywhere.  There were a lot of pieces to our mother-son relationship that were unsaid and unfinished.  We both had felt abandoned by the other after [my] divorce.  Although I always knew something about him from his dad, there had been long gaps where he had refused any contact with me. 

When being HIV-positive turned into AIDS, he knew his time was limited.  It was then he started calling me again, and visited me once.  He died two years later, a month before his 35th birthday. Interracial adoption in the 1970s, divorce when he was 12, guilt and abandonment, homosexuality, HIV-AIDS, dying and grieving were all parts of our complicated mother-son relationship.

Q: How did writing the diary affect you?

A: I wrote in the diary frequently until Mother's Day of 2012. Sometimes I talked to him as I would if he were alive, telling him about up-to-date news I thought would interest him. I discussed interesting aspects of books I was reading. I told him about my life after the divorce that he hadn't wanted to hear about. I attempted to understand him better, both as the child he had been, and as the adult I barely knew. And I wanted him to know me as the person I was now. 

Slowly, subtly, I felt a shift in my emotions. I purposely became more optimistic. My anger and guilt became muted as I endeavored to talk to my son. I enjoyed our communication and felt more connected to him than I had in years. He popped into my mind often, reminding me of things I wanted to tell him in the diary.

Q: Your previous book, Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird, followed your travels around the world, particularly to China. What about China kept drawing you back?

A: I first went to China in 1988 out of sheer curiosity. I knew nothing about China.  I didn't know any Chinese people. And no one was talking much about China at that time. My first fascination with China was, I suppose, the third-world time machine effect. I knew I wanted to get to know the people, and I chose teaching as my tool to learn the culture from the inside. 

At that time, the students were an intriguing mixture of both innocence and depth, with incredible motivation for learning English. They not only respected their teachers, but treated them as people they wanted to know better. They took me places and invited me to visit their families. Because I nurtured the relationships and visited often over the years, my students became my friends. 

We are still in contact. Now I am a senior, and they are middle-aged.  Six of them asked me to be the foreign grandmother to their children, and this has been a continuing joy in my life.

Q: Do you see links between your two books, and if so, how are the themes you explore in both books connected?

A: Out of Step:  A Diary To My Dead Son is really a prequel and a sequel to Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird. Because my son chose not to travel with me after the divorce, our communication in a time before the ease of computers, e-mail, and long distance phone calls was limited. Since he felt I had abandoned him by choosing my life abroad, he didn't want much contact. 

So, the years covered in Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird did not include him. His rejection, plus my guilt for choosing to divorce, made it too painful for me to write about him. However, in the diary, I filled in the gaps of those years without much contact, continued the relationship after he re-connected to me two years before he died, and covered the years since his death in 2003. 

The two books offer very different perspectives on the roads I have traveled in my life. 

Q: Are you planning to write another book?

A: While the seed of writing a book about the times and cultures I explored through my travels was in my mind for a while, the idea to try writing a diary arose unexpectedly from the nagging thought that my son was too dead. 

When I had tried writing about him, I realized I didn't really know enough about him after the age of 12 to write about him. Besides, I craved a form of writing that would re-start some form of communication. The diary emerged spontaneously and I continued to write in it frequently over the next year.

After I ended the diary as a book, I missed the communication with my son.  So, I have continued to write him e-mails. I don't know at this point whether those e-mails will one day become a book. I surprised myself by publishing one book.  There is also a Chinese translation of my first book on an online website in China. And now Out of Step:  A Diary To My Dead Son will be available to all.  Because I am sure I won't stop writing, I know that I will continue my blog (www.zimatravels.com/wordpress). It's quite possible another book will emerge eventually.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Visit http://www.zimatravels.com and Follow the Senior Hummingbird as she wanders, wonders, and writes.

Required for Travel

Whether you are a tourist, a long-term traveler, or engaging in the more recent titles of vagabonding or indie travel, you will need to carry these things along with you.  They don't weigh much, are easily packed, are not expensive, and won't rot, mildew, or freeze.  In spite of all their benefits, however, they are all too often forgotten, neglected, or misplaced.

A travel website out of Australia, Bootsnall.com, has put together the Indie Travel Manifesto.  Indie has become the modern term for anything independent.  Manifesto in my dictionary is defined as "a public declaration of motives and intentions by a government or by a person or group regarded as having some public importance."  Manifesto is a strong word, but I guess it fits.  My more simple advice -- "Don't leave home without them." 

I will mention a few of them in light of having spent about 18 nomadic years wandering the world, sometimes settling in for anywhere from one year to five years.   Although in the later years I sometimes stumbled upon internet cafes, almost all my travel was just me and my Lonely Planet guidebooks.  "Be humble, good-humored, courteous and patient" speaks for itself.   It's just common sense.  Two more, "Find  pleasure in simple moments and details," and "Listen" requires being able to observe details and and truly listen.  These are harder tasks than they sound, especially with over-confident, verbose Americans.

"Adapt as you go" rightly presupposes that everything won't work out as you plan.  So, pack enough flexibility to change plans for any number of "unknowns" and the wisdom to know when and how to do so.  "Slow down; enjoy the experience"  tells you that rushing through countries and experiences ends up a messy blur.  "Make meaningful connections" opens up the opportunity to gain more from your travels than you ever expected.  Solo travel, albeit with occasional, temporary hook-ups with other travelers, gives you much more opportunity to interact with locals.

"Seek to understand other cultures," is perhaps the best advice for indie travelers.  That was the driving force that kept me endlessly challenged and happily on the move for so many years.   You can read about other cultures, but the experience of living in these other cultures adds many dimensions to your understanding of the world we live in.  Go with questions and open eyes to see "the nuances of the world."

But don't forget to smile.  I remember looking out the window on a stopped train in rural China in 1988.  A Chinese peasant was walking near the train and stared hard at me.  I'm sure I was the first foreigner he had ever seen in person.  He looked surprised, fearful, and quite like one would look at an alien from another planet.  I broke into a wide smile.  I could read his mind and see his relief.  "She's a human being too," he must have thought because he shyly smiled back.

Travel can be an adventurous time machine either forward or backward.   So, don't gripe and whine about what's not the same as at home.  Explore and appreciate what is around you instead of what you left behind.  I can't say what travel with technology is like since "live streaming, filming, blogging, and vlogging" aren't my style.  But Mark Twain's words are as true today as when he wrote them - "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it solely on these accounts."

Chances are high that you won't come back the same.
Suellen Zima
Visit http://www.zimatravels.com and Follow the Senior Hummingbird as she wanders, wonders, and writes.

Ever Swapped Homes?

With more dash than cash it's hard to fulfill your traveling needs...Thinking of the top '100 places you should see before you die' always makes my tummy churn and my face green with envy.

After a wonderful but expensive vacation in the Fatherland I had a brainwave. Somewhere and somehow I had heard about swapping homes. Well, on TV families are known to even swap spouses. With a little bit of investigation (thank you Mr. Google!), I found an app for that or rather several websites. Looking at all the beautiful homes worldwide nurtured my travel bug that bit me years ago. He started to grow and make himself heard: If you swap houses with some of these people, you can stay longer. Hey, there is a way to swap cars too. That takes a big load of your pocket book. The bug could no longer be ignored.

Cheap package tours are an option, at least occasionally, but not in our circumstances. Especially if you live in "Paradise" anyway. We want to travel to Europe as much as possible because of family reasons. And hubby loves France and Italy. And his employer is too stubborn to let us relocate and pay for regular trips.

I was all for it immediately.

But: I hear you ask a) Do you want strangers in your house? b) even sleep in your bed? Guess, how many different people share a hotel bed over time? c) What about valuables and personal stuff? Well, lock it away! And if a glass or a vase breaks, or a book gets mislaid...so be it. In any case, people have insurance.

Well, we women can be very persuasive with the right arguments and the right open-minded partner who wants to please his wife who is a long way from home...

That's how it all started. Hey, Europe here we come: The Intrepid Home Swappers! The world is your oyster- if you like oysters. Who knows where we'll go next if this works out?

Being an old hand on dating sites, my experience with a home swapping site took me right back.

As new hopefuls on a home exchange website, my hubby and I enthusiastically put up photos of our house, plus a catchy description together with details about us. We felt like kids in the candy-store: all these great places and houses all around the world up for grabs at the click of a mouse.

We approached desirable potential partners, sometimes we got replies, and sometimes not: “sorry but...or you're too late”. Then we thought we had found the right fit and we started to communicate by email with the prospective swappers.  At the same time we asked a couple of questions about what they were offering on their part. After a bit of research, at last we were ready to commit: “Let’s do it” only to get blown off: We've found somebody else.

It reminds me of Internet dating. After crafting a compelling personal profile, you click though gazillions of pictures and prospects; you wait for responses or actively approach potential partners. You communicate, sometimes slowly; sometimes unexpectedly excited, making quick progress in getting to know the other side. Then boom—you’re blown off and don’t know what hits you. They disappear from the radar or have the courtesy of informing you that they have met somebody else while you were getting your hopes up. Happens all the time. It’s called double timing.

We lost out while trying to cover our backs and avoid being disappointed if things turned out to be different to what they were portrayed to be. 
We are still "virgins" on the home swapping front so to speak, but we learned our lesson: Apparently one has to jump "into bed" here even more quickly than on dating sites.

You can follow our steps for about months on our travels to Germany and France. The first home swap near Frankfurt turned out to be an all-round positive experience. We absolutely loved it and felt totally at home away from home. Our second exchange made me want to scream when we arrived and then take the prefix ‘in’ out of Intrepid Homeswappers. The location, however, was hard to beat and even the lack of good weather wasn’t that important once you see the sights of Paris.

The topic solicited even more interest with the local media than my book on dating, i.e. the interview with NPR will concentrate on this adventure, yet still plug my book I was promised.

For us it was a great, invaluable experience. We were drawn out our comfort zone, left the rut of daily routine in the US, and managed to enjoy ourselves even though my husband was working for five out of the seven weeks. While we’re still unpacking our six enormous suitcases -68lb.each-, plans for next year are being hatched and little safeguards discussed in order to guarantee an even better exchange next time.

Siggy Buckley