This past summer, Abraham Kanter had time before beginning graduate school to take a two-month vacation. “I wanted to go somewhere unique, different, and far away,” he said. “Someplace that most people had never visited."
He decided on Taiwan.
Abe had studied Chinese for a year during college, which gave him some familiarity with Chinese tones and characters. He said that he was still more or less inarticulate and illiterate though. “There is nothing more humbling than traveling in a place where few people speak your language,” he said. “We usually take our ability to communicate for granted.”
Abe still managed to get around, and eventually carry on some pretty interesting conversations for the two months he was there.
While in Asia, Abe also visited Japan and Korea. It was very important for him to see Hiroshima, Japan, the capital of the largest island of Japan where the Atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. Abe is now a Department of Defense employee. He wanted to learn more about the destructive capacity of nuclear weapons because ultimately, promoting peace in the world is extremely important to him. He said that he was impressed with the way that Japan has been rebuilt itself in the last 64 years since World War II.
One of Abe’s favorite parts of traveling was the coincidences that occurred along the way. He described meeting interesting people on his path and then bumping into them, unplanned, further down the road. In Taipei, he met a Belgian kung fu student, then again randomly in Taidong, SE Taiwan. Abe continued to travel around the Western coast of Taiwan, and to Korea for a week, after which he returned to Taipei and met his Belgian friend again for a third time, all through serendipity.
Abe recommends traveling to anyone unsure of what to do, who is trying to obtain perspective in life, or who is trying to beat the employment drought. His advice is, “Bite the bullet, and try it. You don't need a traveling buddy, a guide, or any ability in the language spoken in your destination country. Go there, and learn how much you bnever knew you never knew.”
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