Thoughts so far....

In my trip across Asia, I have discovered many things about myself, as well as the world around me. Much of my realizations have come from a collection of conversations with locals, as well as observations between citizens, and studying interactions between citizens and foreigners. I think the core of my learning really solidified with the conclusion of my trip to Thailand. You can read every book on globalization and cross cultural influence you want, but until you see it first hand, it doesn’t hit in the manner it should. As citizens of developed nations, not US, UK, France, Germany, etc but as a whole, we Westerners often fail to realize how much influence we have over the rest of the world. We actually determine the fate of the rest of the world at this point. In every country I have visited, the amount of western influence is immense, and let me tell you, not all of it is good. In many ways, we are helping many territories of the world by speeding up their development with things such as information technology and the internet, promoting free thinking and individual power. This development is also stunted by the same sources that wish to help it. For example, the horrible amount of sex trade and tourism in Thailand wouldn’t exist if it weren’t exploited in such mass numbers. Everywhere I looked, I saw a middle aged white man, toting around their ‘‘rented’’ mistresses. These men made me sick to my stomach, for not only do they leave their wives and kids behind in their home countries, where they have never had to worry about the next meal, they come to Thailand and use the women for their own degrading personal pleasure, only adding to the existing problem that has ravaged the land. How is that for Western leadership? I can only feel sorrow for the women, who have to spend the day, night or week with these sleeze balls. McDonald’s has been everywhere, getting the rest of the world fat in record numbers. Large corporations have people in these countries working like slaves to mass produce the next hot shot video game that will be the obsession of our already undereducated youth. The unfortunate thing is that only a small amount of people educate themselves on the issues above, but is it our fault? Is it our fault that the education system would rather have us take classes on table tennis and shop, rather than Global Citizenship or Global Leadership? Is it a mistake that an elaborate interpretation of the Vietnam War is missing from our high school history books? What I am saying is this; it shouldn’t take a trip around the world, for citizens of the world’s economical superpower to realize the above. I flew through High School on A’s and B’s, have kept a 3.4 at the University of Washington, am an avid reader, and have never considered myself UNEDUCATED until this point in time. Something is missing, and if we plan not to blow ourselves into oblivion in the next hundred years, we must fill the void that makes us globally unaware.
Also, I want to thank everyone so far who has been following me and replying to my posts on here, it really makes it interesting to view your thoughts.