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The Three Must-Have Travel Languages
The other day a fellow traveler wrote to ask me what I thought were the most important languages for a traveler to have. I'm not much for lists (hate all those magazine cover lines that reduce the subtlety and wonder of the world to the 5 most this and the 50 best that), but once I got started on this theme, I couldn't stop
And so--with apologies to an overused meme--here's my somewhat list-like take on the language-while-traveling issue.
First up--what's the number one language you need to have in your travel toolkit? The hands down, no-contest winner is...drum roll...
1. English
Not only is it the lingua franca of the travel industry worldwide, English is also the lingua franca, amazingly, of Asia. I remember the first time I flew on Cathay Pacific, and was amazed to find, on this Hong Kong based Asian airline, that the default language was not Chinese, or Cantonese, but my mother tongue. Yes, English is the language that a Japanese traveler will use first to communicate with a Thai, and that a Taiwanese traveler will use to address a Korean.
BUT...before all you native English speakers start to relax and get lazy, thinking "Okay, well, I guess I don't have to learn a foreign language at all.", a word of warning. The "English" that has become a global lingua franca is not YOUR English. It is Global English, the contemporary version of the creoles and pidgins of the seafaring days of the 18th century. Global English is stripped down, bookish English, devoid of grammatical quirks, colloquialisms and regional/national accents. If you want to successfully use your native language to communicate with the world's community of English-as-second-language speakers, you will have to become fluent in this other English. Which means paying close attention to how you say things, keeping your sentences direct and simple, and editing out regionalisms
Okay, so you've got your basic global language. Now what? Well, I think that anyone who is planning on becoming a serious traveler should set this goal: getting a basic fluency in two other languages besides Global English.
2. One European language from the following list: Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian
and
3. One non-European language from the following A list: Chinese, Arabic, Russian
I've chosen my list based on global reach. You want to know languages that are widely spoken not just inside but outside their original countries (sorry, German). You also want to dig into languages that have close relatives, so that you can use your fluency in one to help you fake your way through another. With Spanish in your toolkit, you'll have most of Latin America in your pocket, and can slide through Brazil and Portugal and Italy without too much trouble. Even France is more accessible to the very fluent Spanish speaker.
It goes without saying that Spanish is the essential second language to own when you're in the US. Every American ought to be reasonably fluent in it, IMO. We're not just a bilingual hemisphere, we're de facto a bi-lingual nation.
French will help you throughout Africa, and even through a lot of the Arabic world. Once again, it's a bridge to other Romance languages and so extremely useful. Portuguese, which used to be an also-ran in the Romance department, has become more valuable since the rise of Brazil as a global power. Most Brazilians don't speak English, so having Portuguese is essential if you want to travel there.
Italian--well, to be honest, it's really not as good as Spanish or French in the global scheme of things. But it's so much fun to speak, and Italians are great travelers who really know how to enjoy themselves on the road. With Italian fluency, you'll be able to take advantage of their travel joie de vivre wherever you go, from the Dominican Republic to the South Pacific.
Now on to the non-Euro languages.
This is the hard part. Once you step outside of the Western European linguistic bubble, as an English native speaker you are in deep water without a life jacket. You might have to learn to use tones, uncomfortable glottal stops, or a different alphabet script. Even worse, the grammar you know will not help you to unlock the riddles of these tongues, not one little bit. So I recommend choosing the non-Euro language that matches the area you think you'll be traveling in the most, the culture you feel most drawn towards.
The big three--Chinese, Arabic and Russian---are all extraordinarily different. And difficult. Each demands serious study, cultural immersion, learning a new script. Yet each opens up a huge portion of the world to you, and a deep, rich cultural tradition. (Russian will also help you through Eastern Europe and the vastness of Central Asia and Siberia, since it is the lingua franca of the former Soviet bloc).
Some of us are really talented in languages and have lots of time. They will learn Chinese AND Arabic, Russian AND Japanese (while a second-tier language, Japanese is absolutely necessary if you want to have a serious relationship with that country...and it will help you somewhat in China as well, since the Japanese script includes many Chinese characters).
Other B list non-Euros you might want to consider besides Japanese: Bahasa (works in Indonesia and Malaysia..and it uses Western script and is supposedly very easy). Swahili (a good lingua franca for East Africa, also relatively easy) Thai (it's kind of the Italian of Asia--not so useful outside of its own country, but really lovely and fun to speak)
Most of us travelers will only have time in this lifetime to tackle one of the non-Western languages. So pick the culture that moves you the most, and dive in.
I dove into Cantonese. My linguistic love affair. Harder and more beautiful and complex than Mandarin, full of sass and splendor. It's got everything you want in a language. Great food culture. Terrific vocabulary of insults. And the best thing of all: no hierarchy of class or gender built into the grammar.
Next up: Part 2: The Most Important Words to Know, wherever you go
Winning the Gold
It's always great to be recognized by your peers, but this one is especially sweet. Today I found out that my article, "Ghosts of Hong Kong", won the 2011 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Gold prize, awarded by the Society of American Travel Writers.
I've won Lowell Thomas awards before, but this is the first time I've won for writing a personal story about my life in the city I love. There are a few characters in the article, but there is one person who is the heart of the piece, who has for many years, patiently and with great affection, taught me how to see Hong Kong through the eyes of a Hong Konger. David Lau, my friend, thank you!
In the article David is the guy who takes me shopping at the wet market, invites me to his roof for dinner, explains all the mysteries of Hong Kong, including why dead fish still jump around in red plastic bags when you bring them home from the market.
I'm back in Hong Kong now, after a few months in New York. While I was away, David and his wife moved to London. They sold their magical flat with the rooftop dining room--the "heavenly platform." So an important part of the little world that I described in "Ghosts of Hong Kong" no longer exists. Hong Kong just doesn't feel the same without the Laus. I really miss them.
This is Hong Kong--you wake up in the morning, walk out on the street, and discover your favorite coffee shop has been wrapped in bamboo scaffolding and plastic while you slept. It's gone. Something new will take its place. If you're a real Hong Konger, you just get over it.
But I can't. This is the one part of being a Hong Konger that I think I'll never assimilate. And so I sit here tonight in a muddle of feelings--happy for the prize, sad for the loss of what I won the prize for to begin with. Oh, how I wish my friends were here tonight to share some celebration and champagne with me on a beautiful evening in Hong Kong!
Dinner on David's rooftop, Hong Kong island, 2009
The Grand Parade of Pigs
The deep, dark secret of Hong Kong's world famous eating culture is this: Nobody likes Chinese banquet food.
That's the topic I tackle in this month's National Geographic Traveler magazine--my article is part of their terrific new all-food issue.
“Banquet food is always too salty, too rich and too greasy. And the dishes are always more or less the same.” This is not a person speaking, it is actually the translation of a Cantonese dialogue I had to memorize from an early lesson (“At The Banquet”) in my language classes. Little did I know how useful the phrases in this chapter would be: “This dish is too fattening and has too much MSG.” “Do you think this abalone comes from a can?”
As always, some of my favorite stuff got chopped in process. So for those of you who would like to read my original, the "Director's Cut manuscript is here.
My favorite part of every Chinese Banquet is something I call the Grand Parade of Pigs:
The restaurant lights dim, a squadron of waiters bursts through the kitchen doors balancing platters heavy with roast suckling pigs, their eyes replaced by little red electric bulbs that blink on and off and on again. (Since this wacky performance piece is the standard intro nowadays for every Chinese banquet from Toronto to New York to Hong Kong, nobody pays any attention to it.)
Then course after course quickly follows (usually 8, since 8 is the lucky Chinese number). A big soup of chicken and pork, with a faintly medicinal herbal fragrance (Soups, in Chinese culture, often do double duty as health tonics). A giant fish, steamed --usually until rubbery. Then, finally, little bowls of noodles and fried rice signal the meal’s end. (In a polite touch, the host saves the starchy staples until the last course, so that guests may fill their bellies with more expensive foods first).
Actually, I've been to some pretty decent Chinese banquets lately. One of my pals in Hong Kong is a politician, and he is always inviting me to his political party's shindigs in Kowloon. Since the purpose of these banquets is fund raising and frolic, rather than "showing face", the menus don't contain all the expensive show-off ingredients like Shark's fin, bird's nest, abalone, etc. The banquet organizers are then free to spend their food budget on--what a concept!--simple and delicious Chinese food.
But even though banquets can be fun, I prefer eating Chinese cuisine in smaller, more intimate settings (in Hong Kong, that means groups of 6-8). And if I have a choice, I'll steer away from the giant, noisy Hong Kong eateries called "Jao Lau" (literally, "Wine House", a term which tells you something about the origins of these big restaurants) and head to a quiet, more intimate place. I've assimilated a lot of Chinese culture, but this is where my Western cultural bias comes out big time--I still don't enjoy shouting across a big round table, and standing up and leaning over to reach the tasty dish with my chopsticks. Here's what makes me a happy eater in Hong Kong: a plain white tablecloth, a party of 6 to 8, and a restaurant with no red curtains or golden dragons in sight. Like this place, tucked away in an old Hong Kong converted shophouse.
The Jazz of Travel
Welcome to all Frugal Traveler fans who've landed on this page from the link in Seth Kugel's well-written and thoughtful article about women and travel. As some of you already know, I was the NYT Frugal Traveler from 1998 to 2004--an amazing, intense, and wonderful time to be frugal traveling (way back then, 1 USD =85 Euro cents. Eat your heart out, Seth!)
If you're one of my readers from those days, and finding this blog for the first time, a special warm hello to you. Hope you enjoy poking through the other entries on this blog. BTW, if you're not a blog person, you can also find me on Facebook and Twitter. (Confession: I
And every month, I write about life on the road in my Real Travel column for National Geographic Traveler.
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One thought I'd like to add to Seth's musings on the different ways that men and women travel. As I mentioned in our interview, I think that every traveler brings a different set of characteristics to the table--gender is only one of them. There are others, from our size, our race, our different abilities, sexual orientation, talents and interests. (The dean of living travel writers, Jan (formerly James) Morris, traveled as both a man AND a woman.)
The trick that we travelers, whatever size shape and skin we're in, must learn is to use all of our personal characteristics to help us get the best out of our travels.
How do we do this? Well, I call it the Jazz of Travel.
I was a musician long before I ever traveled anywhere. And when I think about it, the skills I learned in music improvising are not so different from the skill set I bring to my travels. A great trip is like a terrific jazz solo.
At any given moment when you are traveling, you can turn right or left. You can speak, or not speak, to that stranger. You can sit down at that little cafe, or ignore it and try the one around the block. You can hop the bus, or hire a taxi. Every decision you make changes your experience of a place. Every choice changes where your travel story will go. Every time you choose to do one thing, and not another, your subsequent choices change, too. You open doors, close others.
A great traveler is like a virtuoso jazz cat who understands how to play the rhythm of choice.
How does gender play into the Jazz of Travel? Well, your gender is part of your instrument. Coltrane played sax, Mingus played bass, I play middle aged, 5 foot 9 tall, blonde female who speaks Cantonese. When you travel, you have to work with what you've got. That's my starting point. Then I balance and riff in each situation I encounter, within the framework of each different culture and place, trying to anticipate where the melody is going. (Looking out for my own safety, of course, is part of this).
This all happens in a split second. Thanks to my many years Frugaling I've had a lot of practice. (c.f. Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule). Life, like music, doesn't stop while you are planning your solo. You have to take your leap of faith, and run with it.
And in the end, when I'm in the thick of my travels, that's what I do. I take a deep breath, and dance (boldly, and in my own rhythm) down that unknown street.
Follow @Daisann_McLane
Bathing In Fukushima
Part 2 of my series on traveling in post-disaster Japan was the most difficult to write. I went to a hot springs resort in Fukushima, called Noji Onsen, and unexpectedly ran into some of the most unlucky survivors: the fishermen of Namie-machi.
Namie-machi (machi means village in Japanese) is four miles from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. The village got hit by the earthquake, and then by the tsunami. It rolled in so fast and high that it took boats, houses, and people away. Here's a part of an interview with one of the fishermen that I couldn't fit into my Slate.com article:
"I looked up and saw the big wave coming. And I just gave up. I thought I was going to die. But then I didn't. The wave caught me and dragged me in through the window of someone else's house. I held on. The house was swept up like a boat. I don't remember what happened next, but when the water receded, I was alive in someone else's house."
What an incredible story! I tell him, and start to smile. But no one else in the room is smiling. And then another fisherman says, in a low voice: "He lost his wife. The wave saved him but swept her away."
Every human disaster has heartbreak stories like the fishermen of Fukushima. We step back from these stories, not to be callous, but in order to be able to keep going forward. The challenge of writing about horrible events is to hold your readers there with you, in the center of the sadness, so they feel it too, even if just for a moment. It's tricky--fall into cliches, and readers will roll their eyes. Ditto for sappy, overblown writing.
I ended up cutting a lot from my first drafts to keep the finished story tight and hold the mood. But my visit to Noji Onsen wasn't all gloom. Here's a vignette from Fukushima--a more cheerful one-- that didn't make it into the final mix:
Three naked grey-haired women sink into the sizzling hot, milky-white waters of the Demon Face Outdoor Bath at Noji Onsen, chattering merrily among themselves. They smile across the rising steam at the foreigner (also naked, save for the requisite wet towel draped on top of her head), and I smile back. An onsen, or hot springs, is one of the happiest places you can be in Japan. Even when the onsen is in Fukushima.Oh, by the way, because of spam issues, I've had to disable comments on this blog. If you'd like to comment, you're welcome to head over to my Facebook page--the link is over there in the left hand column. I'm also on Twitter: @Daisann_McLane.
To my surprise, one of the women immediately shoots me a question. My translator Keiko, soaking in the bath beside me, chuckles. “They’re speaking Tohoku dialect,” she says. “It’s different from standard Japanese--more raw and direct. She wants to know how old you think they are.”
I hesitate for a minute; it’s really hard to tell. In the unforgiving sunlight of the outdoor bath, the women’s skin looks droopy and wizened. But the three ladies descended the slippery stone steps into the rotenburo far more gracefully than me. I make a guess, and shave off five years just in case: Sixty eight? Maybe 70? Keiko translates, and the Tohoko-speaking women hoot with laughter. “No! Wrong! We are 85. See how healthy we are? We Japanese have the highest life expectancy in the world.”
Tomorrow: the Slate story concludes, with a stop in Tokyo.
Ah, Ah, Earthquake, Ah
The first installment of the three articles I wrote about traveling in earthquake-devastated Japan, for Slate.com came out today.
Writing these stories about Japanese who are trying to make sense out of what happened to them was wrenching and difficult. But I'm very happy I had the chance to do it.
A little behind the scenes story. I was in the middle of writing part 2, the part about the radiation-exposed fisherman in Fukushima, when suddenly my house in Brooklyn started shaking. At first I thought somebody was doing construction somewhere in the neighborhood. But the shaking got harder, and finally I ran out into the street.
There, I found my California-born neighbor, Chad. "Earthquake," he said nonchalantly. (I figured he had to be an expert).
So while I was writing about one earthquake, I was experiencing another. Earthquake stereo.
Like I said, writing this piece was really a trip. Part 2 goes up on Slate.com tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Sometimes I swear I can smell it still
"..I didn't need to explore Kerala, for it had come to me. Its herbs were on my palate, its plants and leaves lived in my pores. My scalp, after days of sirodhara, was so greasy with ayurvedic oil that even the strongest shampoo could not clean it and finally I gave up trying. The exotic aroma lingered in my hair for weeks after I left Kerala. Sometimes I swear I can smell it still."
Ghosts of Hong Kong: Director's Cut
It’s about a place very near and dear to my heart. As many of you know, Hong Kong’s been my adopted home these last 7 or so years, and I have been chronicling it (lately, alas, sporadically) in my other blog, Learning Cantonese.
Looking at the article today, I remembered it was cut and rearranged in the editing process. Like all high-strung creative ego types (ahem), I am never happy when that happens, but over many years of writing professionally I’ve gotten tough-skinned about the business of magazine journalism: it’s a collaborative enterprise, after all, and sometimes you gotta just breathe and let go.
But today, a friend asked to see my original version, and after I emailed it to her, it occurred to me: why not do what all the famous directors do on their “Special Edition” DVDs? So I decided to put up my original Writer’s Cut here on the blog.
I know that some of you are also aspiring writers, and it might be interesting for you to see how an article moves from writing, through editing to final publication. And so, my unedited draft of “Ghosts of Hong Kong” follows. You can contrast, compare, decide whether you like the piece better as it was edited or in the “unplugged” original.
(Administrative note: I had to turn off the comments section in this blog, unfortunately. The spam is just too much for me to keep up with. Hopefully I will figure out a way to get around this, but for the time being you can keep in touch by joining (liking) my Facebook page--the link’s over there in the left hand sidebar and it will take you straight there.)
The original Ghosts of Hong Kong is here. Have fun reading!
Walking in a Brooklyn Wonderland
It's official: New York City is the most walkable city in the U.S. But what's even more exciting, for me, is that my Brooklyn neighborhood, Park Slope, ranks even higher in walk-ability than the city as a whole, chalking up a score of 97 out of 100 on the walk-o-meter. As a hard-core walker who's never owned a car in her life, it figures I'd end up in one of the most foot-friendly corners of the walking-est city in the nation.
"Until I learn a place with my feet, I never really feel like I know it." That's what I wrote in a Real Travel column of mine called "Traveling in Stride.", and it's especially true for me and my Brooklyn nabe.
Here, I walk everywhere, and it is an endless pleasure, particularly in the summer and early fall in this tree-filled enclave (trees--their shade, anyway--are a walker's best friend).
There is so much to do, and all within a ten minute walking radius of where I live. This is my benchmark for "place", when I travel. No matter where I am in the world, I'm always looking for a hotel or guesthouse that's located in the center of an area I can comfortably explore on foot. It doesn't have to be a famous place--in fact it's better if it isn't. I prefer digging into what I call the "hyper-local"--picking a few blocks, and letting my feet guide me to the surprises and delights of everything inside the perimeter.
What I'm really looking for, of course, is a hotel that's the equivalent of my Brooklyn apartment.
So,
let's pretend you are all guests in my Brooklyn "hotel." And, in the
spirit of the hyper-local, I'll give you a personal guided day tour of
my super-walkable neighborhood. All the following sights, eats and
activities are within a 15 minute walk of my nearest subway station, the
Q/B stop at 7th Avenue, Brooklyn.
Let's start where everything begins: with morning coffee, of course. We're spoiled for choice here, so I tend to hang out where there's also good stuff to eat. Cafe Regular, a tiny French-style coffeeshop with four cafe tables outside, has free wifi and delicious chocolate croissants, so I often head there. But the competition is stiff, since my other "regular", Prospect Perk Cafe also has free wifi and carries the best bagels in Brooklyn, from the Bagel Hole bakery. They're small, chewy, not at all like any you've ever tasted before, and worth a subway ride to experience!
After coffee, it's time for the mandatory neighborhood experience: a stroll through the magnificent Prospect Park. It was designed by the same architect, Frederic Law Olmstead, who designed New York's Central Park--except Olmstead considered his Brooklyn park a great improvement over the Manhattan one. It's wilder, with beautiful broad open vistas (there's an enormous "Long Meadow,", real forests and a giant pond.
Walking here is really great at any time of day, but it's particularly cool to come to Prospect Park in the evening, when the Celebrate Brooklyn concert series brings top musical artists from all genres to the park bandshell--for free ($3 donation suggested).
Worked up an appetite for lunch yet? Come with me! The Brooklyn Larder is a locavore's heaven of a charcuterie, where slow foodies can luxuriate in exotic farm cheeses, hand-picked condiments, crackers and chocolates from all over the world, and a selection of killer handmade sandwiches. When I'm far away in Hong Kong, I actually dream of their BLT, made with homemade bacon, handmade mayo, and ripe heirloom tomatoes. (Better get one soon: when tomato season is over, so are the BLTs at this very serious locavore foodie emporium).
The antidote to the indulgence of Brooklyn Larder is right around the corner--Brooklyn Yoga School. It's housed on the second story of a beautiful old brownstone with a rounded glass greenhouse-style window--in the early 1900s, the building was a fancy restaurant. But the architecture isn't the only special thing about my local yoga center---the classes are donation-only, pay what you can ($5 minimum suggested). So if you feel like you need to stretch your heels and hamstrings from all that walking, this is the place.
Fifth Avenue, nearby, is becoming the go-to strip for vintage, and locally made clothing in Brooklyn. I can easily while away a few hours poking through the second-hand racks at Beacon's Closet, or trying on cool retro-style dresses at Flirt, a store that not only showcases local designers like Karina, the creator of my "perfect" travel dress, but also offers sewing lessons!
Fifth Avenue and its cross streets are where most of my fave local restaurants are located, too. My favorites are always changing, and the scene is fluid, but right now my shortlist of recommended dishes includes:
the tasty fresh Atlantic oysters at Brooklyn Fish Camp,
the spicy Chicken (franguhino) de piri-piri at Portuguese/Corsican/Spanish spot Convivium Oesteria, and
whatever's on the daily menu at the pan-Latin resto Palo Santo.
I'm just scratching the surface here--I'll have more for you on the culinary delights of what is arguably one of America's most buzzing new areas for food and restaurants in a future post.
In the meantime, I hope you'll put on a good comfortable pair of shoes and explore the hyper-local wonders of my neighborhood--and let me hear about some of the delights in yours, too.
For more of Daisann McLane's Real Travels, check her National Geographic Traveler column, and look for her on Twitter @Daisann_McLane
At Home, I'm a Tourist
I split my year between Hong Kong and New York, and just got back to my Brooklyn apartment a couple of weeks ago. Of course I'm feeling discombobulated--brutal jet lag and all--but I think that's a good thing. One of the advantages of never completely settling into a place is that you never get a chance to stop seeing it with fresh eyes. That's the great gift that traveling gives all of us. Even (especially) when we're in the most familiar surroundings, we can still feel the thrill of discovery. At home, we're tourists.
(Apologies to new wave rockers, the Gang of Four for stealing the title of their spectacular chugging guitar anthem!)
By the way, I use the word "tourist" in a kindly, not a pejorative way. You can be a Real Traveler and a tourist at the same time--it's a matter of attitude, thoughtfulness and point of view. As those of you who follow my National Geographic Traveler column know, I occasionally sign myself up to wear a little badge and follow a fellow with a yellow pennant and whistle. Because you can learn a lot about a culture by taking that great leap forward into its tourist attractions.
Anyway, I've been enjoying this time of readjustment to my Brooklyn haunts. Since my mind is still kind of in Hong Kong, and my ears are still poised to hear Chinese, the streets of my "new" neighborhood, Park Slope (where I've lived more than 15 years) feel truly foreign to me. I find myself wandering up and down the gorgeous, mid-summer avenues, some so lush with trees that they tunnel over the roadways, and absorbing the architectural details of the gorgeous brownstone rowhouses as carefully as if I were in Paris with a Michelin guide in hand.
I've actually had several weird encounters with checkout clerks, because I couldn't understand what they were trying to tell me (I've haven't yet switched from Cantonese to Brooklynese).
And I'm noticing stuff about the sometimes peculiar local culture that I doubt I would have noticed if I stayed at home year-round. For instance, there's this:
This is the fourth or fifth tableau I've seen like this in the last two weeks. Nobody in Park Slope, it seems, can bear to throw away a book. The love of books is hardwired into the local culture of my dear old neighborhood. We leave them, like foundlings, piled on doorsteps, balanced against wrought iron fences, even propped on top of walls. They stare at you as you pass by, begging like lost puppies, for a new home. And they say that print is dead!
I'll tell you more about the multiple attractions and delights of my quirky Brooklyn neighborhood (rated the #1 in New York by a very trendy magazine!) in an upcoming post. Meanwhile, I'm going to dive into one of my "foundling" book finds (yes, I picked one up for myself. How could I resist?)
Martin Yan's Culinary Journey Through China. I have been wondering why someone left it sitting, all by itself and lonely, on their Brooklyn stoop--were they daunted by the recipes? Did they move to China and figure they didn't need it anymore?
Mysteries never to be solved by this urban tourist. But the Chinese cookbook by the Canadian author is the perfect book for the neither-here-nor-there place I'm in right now.