In March and April of this year, I conducted interviews with seven people for nearly 13 hours, focusing on the theme of “global travel”. During this period, I also searched for this keyword on various platforms, listened to podcasts, and searched for information. The driving force behind all these actions is to answer a curious question in one’s heart, which is, ‘How are those people who have traveled around the world doing years later?’ After the passage of time, what kind of existence has this travel experience become? These questions gave rise to the article that attempts to answer them.
Before getting to the point, let me briefly summarize my way of finding answers:
I posted a recruitment message on my social media account titled ‘Interview Recruitment | Searching for People Who Traveled the World N Years Ago’. In order to find a response with limited reading, I defined global travel as’ traveling to at least 10 countries’ (low-end version). At the same time, speak up in the relevant WeChat groups where you are located. Finally, one-on-one thematic interviews were conducted with 7 individuals both online and offline.
On the Internet, search direction 1: keyword search: keyword search on platforms such as Xiaouniverse, official account, Zhihu, Instant, Google, etc. Direction 2: Targeted account search collects information on travel influencers from many years ago and conducts account searches, such as Maoli, Fu Zhen, Gu Yue, Lvxing, etc; Always keep an eye out for occasional traveler information, such as Wen Luxin in a video or Drew Binsky mentioned in a comment. Direction 3: Borrowing AI for English material search
Write a rookie version prompt:You are a researcher, currently focus on the research about the personal stories of people who have come back from world-traveling years later. You want to figure out what their life looks like now.
Search the Internet for relevant information, and collect the original links in a list, concluding the post time, website links, and content digests.
I spent 10 years letting this experience slowly ferment
Ten years ago, Qing Zhi boarded a sailing ship that could accommodate hundreds of people. With the established route, within a hundred days, she went on land trips to more than ten countries while attending classes and participating in activities on the ship. Ten years later, we will meet at a book bar. The experience that was originally stored in the memory refrigerator suddenly came alive again. The visuals, emotions, and sensations are like yesterday. “I went out in my senior year. A key question about life at that age would be what I would do after graduation. I was in a finance and economics school, and there was a strong atmosphere for people to find jobs. The best way is to consult companies, and then to connect with the Internet. If I didn’t go out, I would probably be involved in the standard of ‘I want to become excellent’, and continue to choose the path of ‘I can become excellent’.
But at that time, I had a very obvious confusion. I didn’t know what my life was going to do, and the university education I had experienced couldn’t answer my question at all. So my goal for going out is very clear, which is to get to know myself and the world. There is a painter named Cai Zhizhong who knew at the age of four that he wanted to paint. I am not that kind of genius. I spent 10 years searching and getting closer since setting sail. When I returned from sailing, my friends and I started an art education entrepreneurship project called ‘Lingmei’. At that time, I didn’t know what entrepreneurship was, nor did I say that I wanted to achieve something or make a living from it. I just felt that it became my next step at that time. I have always loved art, it has given me an opportunity to start this thing seriously. The biggest impact of this experience on me was that after graduating from college, I didn’t let myself become fixed. I spent 10 years letting the impact of this experience slowly ferment.
Later on, I left the entrepreneurial project and continued to study abroad. I also came back to try things related to art and youth communities. During this fermentation process, I had both good experiences and failures. I can roughly feel that the theme and context of my life are beginning to emerge, and my interests and strengths are becoming more clear, slowly forming some solidified things. In the past decade, I have finally discovered that the path that suits me is not about searching for a company that can fully meet my expectations, but about creating a position where I can truly fit into the world. This is a step-by-step process.
The two questions of self-awareness and understanding the world have been crystallized into the next steps that can be taken after a hundred days of circumnavigation. Afterwards, whenever the next path appeared, I bravely stepped on it. After this journey, I embarked on a lifestyle that allowed me to continue answering these two questions Qingzhi remembers the end of the journey, as she waited at Berlin airport with her bags in tow. A clear feeling emerged – “I Will Never Stop,” a state of being on the road. Ten years later, Qingzhi self mocks that her current economic foundation is not as good as her peers. She doesn’t have a house or a car, but she also doesn’t have children or a mortgage, so she can be relatively carefree. There will also be many times of melancholy, but because poetry and distant places have already intersected in life, it is still possible to frequently leave melancholy and return to that state of poetry and distant places. “The global journey has ended, but the passionate moments of poetry and distant places still exist vividly, even after ten years. When chatting with different people, I also saw the poetry and distant traces left on them by this experience. In Yi (the friend interviewed), it is a fortunate subconscious. This experience is a great stroke of luck. You feel like I have no regrets, and every day after that feels like an extra bonus. Of course, every day you wake up feeling bored and uninteresting, but if you have had this experience, you won’t feel like I’m living a boring life or following someone else’s standards. I will live with more confidence. No matter what setbacks happen, I always feel like I’m a very lucky person, and this is nothing to me. “In Ziwei (a friend interviewed), it is an enhanced individual initiative. In the past, I was a bit pushed by people around me. To put it bluntly, I was biased towards utilitarianism. During this travel experience, I underwent a transformation from passive to active. I had my own thoughts about life choices, not being pushed by purpose, but more wanting to have a sense of control over my life. Now I know that I have to face many things, but I feel a lot of preparation in my heart. This preparation is not deliberate, but the kind of courage that I am already prepared to face some problems in life. “In M (a friend interviewed), it is a courage to express and explore. I wasn’t a very outgoing person before, but I loved adventure. The biggest takeaway from this round the world trip is a ‘once in a lifetime’ courage. You will realize that there are many places where you may never come again in the future, and then you will become brave and cherish everything. This includes emotions. Now, I will be braver to express my needs. “Eight years later, M, who has traveled around the world, now realizes clearly that the current marriage system is not suitable for her, and she is exploring and defining intimate relationship models that suit her, such as open relationships.
On Quora user Lauren Luke, it is a form of social care. I have so many positive memories and it has changed the way I think about everything. It made me more passive than everything about political issues like human rights, poverty, immigration, racial discrimination, refugees. It sounds all so clich é but I don’t know how else to put it in. On netizen Ellis Wu, it is a kind of not worrying about reality. After returning to my home country, I don’t really worry about not being able to afford a house. Although I’m already 29 years old, I’m not worried about not being able to find a girlfriend. Because I’ve seen all kinds of people and encountered many novel things, the sense of achievement brought by money keeps decreasing in my heart. Meaningful things like protecting the environment keep increasing my sense of achievement. “Ellis’ comment time shows 2018. I don’t know if his sense of achievement is still the same after 6 years. Although this global journey brought poetry and distant lands, when the journey ends and the environment changes, can poetry and distant territories withstand the harsh daily surroundings? Qingzhi said that when traveling, she wrote a sentence in her diary called ‘Travel makes me humble.’. I think Humble also means a kind of openness. At that time, I had nothing and was willing to learn and understand everything after being thrown into a place. But now, I rely on things such as whether the hotel is comfortable during travel, how others evaluate that place, whether it’s fun or not. There are too many preconceptions, and there will be a lot of discrimination. “During the interview, Qingzhi realized that a certain open state of life seemed to be partially replaced by sensory enjoyment.
For Yi, she is currently engaged in innovative research and development work in a large company, following the targeted customization of market demand. After working for a long time, there are always some tricks, and the limitations of domestic information resources have made her feel that writing, which shines brightly, has become another tool paradigm. During the interview, she realized that it seemed rare to enjoy the energy of aimless exploration nowadays. After returning to China, M went into the theater industry that he loved. After a period of accumulation and creation, he is undergoing a career transition this year. She said that the overall energy has been slowly declining in recent years, and the desire to express has also significantly decreased. On the one hand, it is due to the art environment in China, and as a returnee art student, she is facing many challenges, including changes in her work this year. On the other hand, it is due to the energy consumption in her previous intimate relationships. She is now slowly walking towards the path of coaching and healing. Global travel brings poetry and distant fermentation, opening up new moments in life. Of course, many years later, they resisted some of the gullies and were also eroded by some of them. Is there any other possibility?
