“There comes a time when we heed a certain call
When the world must come together as one…
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let’s start giving”
In my position in Worldwide Product Safety with the Merck pharmaceutical company, I got to travel frequently for meetings around the world. I began to forge friendships with people from many other countries. As my three sons were growing up, I felt it was important for them to develop an appreciation for all people, regardless of their nationality. I wanted to make sure my children got the opportunity to travel abroad.
So, in the year 2000, when my oldest son, Kevin, was 13 years old, I took him with me on a business trip to London. Eva opted to stay home with our two younger children. Kevin stayed in our hotel room during my meetings, watching TV and playing video games, I would check in on him during my breaks. He joined us for dinner in the evenings with my colleagues from around the world. I always found it a bit embarrassing that any time I got together with co-workers from other countries, English was the spoken language- everyone else was multi-lingual, so they spoke English because for most of us Americans, it’s all we know. Among my European colleagues, speaking 3 or 4 languages fluently was the norm. Ironically, of all of the international people at our dinner one night, Kevin had the most trouble understanding the person sitting next to him, whose native language was English (i.e., British English)- the accent confused him a bit, which was good for a laugh. He got to meet two other British kids, whose parents also brought them to the dinner. While we were in England, Kevin and I visited the Tower of London, saw a few plays on the West End, and visited many of the famous sites around town. When my meeting was over, I took some extra vacation time and we took the Eurostar train to Paris to visit for a few days, and then flew to Rome for some more sightseeing. We did it all- the Louvre, the Picasso Museum, The Paris Sewers, the Catacombs, the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Spanish Steps, etc. It was an unforgettable experience- a bit hectic at times, and I’m not sure if I would recommend taking children on a business trip, but we certainly had a great time exploring European culture.
I decided to do it again when Kevin was approaching his senior year of high school. It was an early graduation present, one that he could use as the subject of his senior graduation project. I asked him where he wanted to go, and he said “Japan!” particularly because he had a big interest in Japanese anime and video games. While Eva and I travelled a lot before we had children (and then again once they got older), it would have been hard to travel with the whole family, so she opted to stay home with the other boys as I established a new father-son tradition. We travelled to Tokyo, Nagoya, Nikko, and Kyoto. By that time I had already been to Japan a few times for work, so I knew my way around. I have so many great memories from the trip- meeting a shop owner who served us traditional Japanese tea as our Japanese driver translated for us; attending a Grand Sumo tournament in Nagoya; watching as an unknown Japanese man in Ueno Park introduced himself to Kevin and welcomed him to Japan saying he was happy to see a young American boy coming to learn about his country; roaming the streets of Kyoto with Kevin asking random strangers in my broken Japanese how to get to the ryokan (traditional Japanese Inn) I had booked for the evening; attending a kabuki theater show; touring Himeji Castle where parts of “Shogun” were filmed; visiting the Golden Palace in Kyoto where a scene from “Lost in Translation” was filmed; and trying unsuccessfully to understand how to work the Japanese thermostat for the air conditioner in our burning-hot room (thankfully I knew enough Japanese to say to the innkeeper “My room is hot”). We had an awesome time!
Kevin ended up returning to Japan on his own shortly thereafter, spending a semester abroad in an exchange program at Temple University’s Tokyo campus, living in a dorm with students from around the world. After graduating college, he went back again and lived with a Japanese host family while attending a Japanese language/culture program. Our whole family has vacationed in Japan as well. Kevin’s love of Japan continues to this day, as evidenced by his Japanese tattoos and his interest in Japanese video games, technology, and anime.
Now that the tradition was set, when Keith was approaching his senior year, I asked where he wanted to go, and he said “Germany!” He had studied German in school and was looking forward to seeing the land where it was actually spoken. We went to Munich, Berlin, Wittenberg, and Bacharach. We toured Neuschwanstein Castle, visited the home of Martin Luther, saw the remnants of the Berlin Wall, and respectfully visited the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp site and the Holocaust Memorial. After seeing the major tourist sites in Berlin and Munich, we enjoyed a short stay in the beautiful town of Bacharach on the Rhine River, with its half-timbered houses, cobbled streets, and ancient walls. We took a cruise on the Rhine River past the famous Lorelei rock formation. From our hotel, we hiked up the nearby hill to the Stahleck Castle, which offered beautiful panoramic views of the Rhine Valley below. It was an interesting, fun, and educational trip.
Keith later went on to major in German in college (along with mathematics). Like Kevin, he returned to Germany again on his own, as part of a college program. He lived with a German family for several weeks, honing his German language skills. And as we did with Japan, our whole family subsequently vacationed in Germany as well.
When Jason was approaching his senior year, I asked where he wanted to go. At that point, no foreign languages had interested him much, but he loved music and decided the home of the Beatles was the place he wanted to see. We spent a week in England, visiting London and Liverpool. He got to cross Abbey Road, visit Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane, the Cavern Club, the Beatles Experience Museum, and attend a Paul McCartney concert in Hyde Park. The night before, we saw Pearl Jam perform there as well. We ate lunch at the Rolling Stones’ Billy Wyman’s Sticky Fingers Cafe, with walls adorned with music memorabilia and his Gold Records. We also visited Stonehenge and took a tour of various sites where Harry Potter was filmed. Probably the most outgoing of my boys, I still chuckle when I think back to when we were walking around London on our way to a museum, and Jason saw a bunch of British schoolgirls sitting in a park in their school uniforms and went over to join them for a chat. I still don’t know what they were discussing, but I think they liked his accent. And when we were hanging out at the Cavern Club, we met another girl, Ksenia, who was traveling to Liverpool on her own from Russia- she was a big Beatles fan. Like Jason, it was her first trip outside of her homeland. It was very touching for me to see two young people from opposite ends of the earth visiting another country. She spoke great English. It was fascinating to hear her story. Although Jason never did get back to England after that, his love for music continued, and he majored in music in college (along with psychology). And he did get to join the family on subsequent trips to Germany and Japan. I’d like to think that Jason’s interest in world politics and compassion for people around the world undergoing difficult times is, in small part, related to him having the opportunity to travel outside of the U.S. when he was young.
With a family of cats, grandchildren that we love to babysit, and various health issues, it’s getting more difficult in my golden years to travel as much as I used to, but I still have great memories of those trips I took when my sons were young. In these days of nationalistic fervor, I will always be grateful that I got a chance to show our children a bit of the world. “There comes a time when we heed a certain call, when the world must come together as one…”
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