The Different Attitudes Towards Travel
Final paper: Different Ways to Value Travel
There is a Chinese proverb “Read many books and travel a long way”. In Chinese culture, knowledge and travel are both regarded as the ways to broaden people’s horizon. Or, more accurately, travel is more valued because in this way can what we learnt from the books be tested and verified, which is the Chinese perspective of traveling. However, in Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert approaches travel abroad from a more instinctive approach, following her own interests and desires, which means she didn’t read much before she traveled and this might be the typical American view of traveling. In order to make Chinese audience understand EPL better, Elizabeth Gilbert is supposed to present American opinion about traveling so that they could compare and get an insight into what she wrote. In my final paper, I would mainly expound from what Elizabeth Gilbert’s perspective and mine towards travel.
American—The people who love travel
From Eat, Pray, Love, it’s not difficult for us to discover that American value travel very much in their leisure time. Unlike Chinese, American just enjoy the process of traveling, in other words, they do not attach too much meaning on traveling because it is regarded only a single part of one’s life, normally they may have no plans like Elizabeth Gilbert do—knowing almost nothing about exchange rate and transport, or, more generally, what he or she should do next. As a Chinese American writer puts it, “The meaning of travel is to be vagrant” which I couldn’t agree more. Traveling occupies an important place in American spare time, it is a government rule that state organs and enterprises should set up two holiday plans for every staff each year, which gives lots of time for American to travel.
Why American value travel so much? Historically, American was a typical migratory nation. Early immigrants would came to the new world after a long journey, then they settled down as soon as they
There is a Chinese proverb “Read many books and travel a long way”. In Chinese culture, knowledge and travel are both regarded as the ways to broaden people’s horizon. Or, more accurately, travel is more valued because in this way can what we learnt from the books be tested and verified, which is the Chinese perspective of traveling. However, in Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert approaches travel abroad from a more instinctive approach, following her own interests and desires, which means she didn’t read much before she traveled and this might be the typical American view of traveling. In order to make Chinese audience understand EPL better, Elizabeth Gilbert is supposed to present American opinion about traveling so that they could compare and get an insight into what she wrote. In my final paper, I would mainly expound from what Elizabeth Gilbert’s perspective and mine towards travel.
American—The people who love travel
From Eat, Pray, Love, it’s not difficult for us to discover that American value travel very much in their leisure time. Unlike Chinese, American just enjoy the process of traveling, in other words, they do not attach too much meaning on traveling because it is regarded only a single part of one’s life, normally they may have no plans like Elizabeth Gilbert do—knowing almost nothing about exchange rate and transport, or, more generally, what he or she should do next. As a Chinese American writer puts it, “The meaning of travel is to be vagrant” which I couldn’t agree more. Traveling occupies an important place in American spare time, it is a government rule that state organs and enterprises should set up two holiday plans for every staff each year, which gives lots of time for American to travel.
Why American value travel so much? Historically, American was a typical migratory nation. Early immigrants would came to the new world after a long journey, then they settled down as soon as they
References: [1] Linda 2007, ‘Go to Basque’, The Travel Notes to Spain, Shanghai, p. 473. [2] Linda 2007, ‘From Napoleon to Hugo’, Bring a Book to Paris, Shanghai, p. 273. [3] Grace Lichtenstein, Heart and Soul, viewed 2011-6-14, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/09/AR200602090184.html [4] Lori Leibovich, Lost and found, viewed 2011-6-14, http://www.salon.com/books/review/2006/02/23/gilbert