Scenery changes. People are the same.
I long to travel. I feel it in my bones when I’ve been sedentary for too long. I yearn to be up in the air, to land in unfamiliar airports somewhere new. I love that first feeling of strangeness when encountering a new place.
Once you leave the airport and tourist infrastructure though, it quickly settles—because you realize everyone around you is the same as the people back home. Everyone goes about their daily lives, seeking health, wealth, and love, searching for purpose. We’re all the same in that regard, us humans.
My route to work and downtown Cape Town, March 2012
In a way it’s really the Earth that changes the most. People may wear different clothing and eat unique foods, but it’s the geography that shifts dramatically. I think back to how Table Mountain and the Twelve Apostles brush up to the sea at the bottom of Africa, or how the plains stretch on endlessly in northwestern Tanzania. I remember the white mountains of Svalbard, the ubiquitous ice of Antarctica. I shudder thinking of the dense hot jungle that is the Amazon, and daydream about the mesmerizing rice paddies in Southeast Asia. These are the unique features of our planet. The people are the same.
Cape Town and Beijing are unalike. They have completely different histories and are almost on opposite ends of the Earth. (To be fair, South Africa seems to be on the opposite end from most places.) Cape Town is a bowl city smushed between the ocean and mountains. Its 400 years of smorgasbord history and culture dwarfs its population of 5 million. You feel a part of history walking the streets of the Mother City. Beijing is a gargantuan metropolis of 22 million souls, modern skyscrapers slowly smothering the ancient inner rings, the city shrouded in pollution. Even though South Africa has 11 national languages and China has 300+ minor ones, none of them overlap. Denizens of Cape Town are found speaking a number of those languages, and will often switch from one to another to communicate efficiently as needed. Beijing’s residents speak Putonghua, the “standard” Chinese, which serves as the lingua franca for most of the country.
Walking alongside the gargantuan Jinyuan Mall, where I used to work in Beijing in 2013
I was equally disoriented upon landing in both countries. But eventually I found my bearings, and both became home. I look back on my time in both cities fondly, and still maintain friendships with people in each. My friends are culturally distant and have divergent perspectives on geopolitics, economics, the best food, etc. But there’s one thing they don’t differ on: a life well lived. I have proof of this—two of my friends from each country have hung out together.
My roommate in Woodstock, the first suburb outside Cape Town, is South African. Let’s call him Dirk. We became great friends while living together, going on bike rides, playing chess, and talking about the world. I’ve learned a lot from him. When I moved to Beijing, one of the first people I met was a friend of a friend—we can call him Nico. We shared similar interests, namely working out, playing basketball, and partying. We also divulged in deep discussions on politics, economics, and history. These two friends could’t be any more similar, despite their environments. They both enjoyed sport, they were both social and both good, genuine guys. Of course, not everyone has the same personality. But despite cultural differences and different scenery, they wanted the same thing: a fun, happy life.
This was verified when they met, in Barcelona of all places. My wife and I were visiting Spain in 2019, and my Chinese friend had moved to Barcelona a few years before. He served as our foreign local, showing us all the hidden gems—bars, good paella spots, and uncrowded beaches. (Always the best way to travel.) On our last night in town, my South African friend surprised me—he called me and said he was in Barcelona, having driven some 800km that day to meet us before we left. I was flabbergasted! I didn’t expect to enjoy the company of both friends in such an unlikely place. We had dinner together and went out for drinks until the wee hours. They got along splendidly. And why wouldn’t they? They’re both great guys that want the same thing, the thing we all want. To live a beautiful life.
Sunset in Barcelona the night we all met up, August 2019
Well, my wife and I had a 7am train the next day and turned in “early,” by Spanish standards at least (Dirk and Nico stayed out). The next morning was rough: scrambling to throw our things into our bags, getting a ride to the train station, and finding the right seats on the right train were all more difficult when hungover and sleep deprived. We slept the whole five-hour train ride to Granada. Upon arrival, we wandered through the maze of narrow, winding streets in the old town to our AirBnB apartment, and promptly took another nap in the dizzying heat of Andalusia.
Upon waking, I had multiple messages from an unknown number. Dirk had been pickpocketed on La Rambla, losing his wallet and phone. I immediately sent him Nico’s number and connected the two of them. It was all I could really do while 700 kilometers away.
Several hours later, Nico shared a picture of the two of them having dinner. We texted a lot over the next several days, and it warmed my heart to hear how much Nico helped out Dirk. He paid for dinner and, speaking Catalan, was able to get Dirk’s old number on a new phone and access to money. Dirk couldn’t speak more highly of Nico, and it was clear they had built a relationship of their own, independent of me as the mutual friend.
This story illustrates how similar we all are. We may come from different cultures, speak other languages, or, on the surface, have distinct ways of life. But we all bleed, laugh, cry, and smile the same. I believe in the human race. I believe we are good, and that our similarities run much deeper than our differences. Our environments may differ, but we are the same. Maybe, just maybe, if we recognize this on a global scale, we’ll all see ourselves as one race, one species, living on one planet together.
