All in the Neighborhood: Want to see the world? Start by staying home.
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March-April 2009
by Rebecca Wecks, from the Sun
I realized that I couldn’t communicate with my own neighbors any more than I had with people in Japan. I wondered why I would bother to learn a language that I might use only once or twice in my lifetime and not a language that my neighbors spoke. More important, while I was in Japan I’d thought that everything “foreign” was wonderful, but here at home I would sometimes become annoyed that I couldn’t read signs or restaurant menus, and I’d think, What’s happened to my community? When I’d flown across the ocean to meet people from another country, I’d found their customs interesting, their music enchanting, and their food challenging. When those same people came to my neighborhood, I saw it as an invasion.
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They say travel broadens our horizons. I’ve decided I can broaden mine by staying home and getting to know my neighbors.
Reprinted from the Sun’s Readers Write section (Nov. 2008), which features nonfiction vignettes on predetermined themes. The Sunwon the 2007 Utne Independent Press Award for best writing; www.thesunmagazine.org.
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