When I said goodbye to family and friends in Minnesota, I expected that the people I met around the world would be radically different from those I was leaving behind. I have seen exotic things and eaten foods that I didn’t know existed, but the most striking thing has been how similar people I’ve met are to people at home.
We have the same fears, worries and aspirations. People in Vietnam want to live in safe neighborhoods with big TVs. People in Cambodia fret about paying bills. Though we might disagree about methods or beliefs, people everywhere are working towards bettering themselves, their families and communities in their own way.
Our Cambodian tuk tuk driver Rhatany works two jobs, seven days a week, in hopes of giving his two boys a better future than his own. What he wishes for his children is that they won’t have to be drivers, earning just $50 a day. As he drove us around Phnom Pennh, there was no self-pity in his story, no asking for extra cash; rather he was proud of his work, surviving the Khmer Rouge and paying for his sons’ medical school.
While trekking in Thailand we met Chai, who works to build a better future for his community as a whole. The tours he guides stay in his village, bringing money for his neighbors’ businesses, books for schoolchildren and help for everyone to learn English—a quick way to earn more income for any employee. Chai understands that the better off everyone around him is, the better off he and his family will be, too.
Chai and Rhatany are not exceptions—from Laos to Myanmar, through Hong Kong and Japan, we have met hundreds of others like them working hard to better themselves, their families and communities.
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Erica Chua and her husband Matt are jet-setting around the world, a one-way plane ticket at a time. Read their travel musings regularly on these pages or online.
