If I could only learn one additional language, and I wanted to travel the world, what language would serve me best other than English or Spanish?
If I could only learn one additional language, and I wanted to travel the world, what language would serve me best other than English or Spanish?
i’ll restate my question: where can i travel to oustide the american empire where my treat monster american nature won’t get me arrested, imprisoned, punished, hate crimed, etc.?
I don’t know what a “treat monster nature” is. I haven’t traveled much outside the core, so I can’t speak to this first-hand, but my impression is that most of the world is mostly a safe place to visit. There aren’t a lot of places that are going to punish you for renting hotel rooms and eating at restaurants as an American. Most people around the world know how to distinguish between America the empire and a civilian American spending money into the local economy.
“a treat monster” is sort of like “tankie” in reverse; it describes the kind of american consumerist that is placated/bribed away from revolutionary thought with treats like big suv’s & social privileges and they’re monsters because they support genocides.
this is the reason why i ask this question.
my strong american accent makes it clear that i’m a clueless american and that gates my efforts to travel to places outside the core that don’t speak english or spanish. to me; all of the cultures that speak both languages belong to the same hegemony as the american empire and i’m aware that my nature will result in harm coming to me if i can’t atleast speak the language of where i’m visiting.
Be open, humble, friendly, listen more than you talk. Try and learn a bit about the country you’re in, not to have opinions about it, but to better understand the people you meet. Happy travels!
my neuro-divergence sometimes causes people to think that i’m an asshole and if i can’t speak the local language to explain that; i won’t be able to explain away the autism induced faux pas that i created and that can sometimes lead to sticky situations.
Learning the local word for sorry is really handy! I feel you, my partner and I struggle with the same sometimes. Most people everywhere are patient and polite, and want you to love their country!
in latin america they were nice to the white passing americans like me that i was traveling with at the time and not so much to me because my words said that i was was sorry, but things like my facial expression; or body language; or intonation said otherwise and i can’t imagine how similar situations would work out if i didn’t even have the words.
also that and other related experiences over the decades teaches me that the benefit of the doubt comes rare once i’ve committed that faux pas and the local version of “sorry” by itself doesn’t work well if they’re angry about the perceived transgression.
I’ve got a few thoughts, as someone also playing on the lowest difficulty setting (cis ~straight white male, america. (Though ex patting in mere weeks, after years!)):
Japan is an incredible place to be a tourist. Learn a few phrases (すみません、ありがとうございます, etc) and a little culture, be respectful, mind your shoes and manners. You’ll do great, and there’s SO much to see and appreciate. It’s a brilliant culture and society, and so different in lots of ways. Very very safe.
Any Scandinavian country is VERY easy to visit as well. English speaking, easy to get to from the states. See how a proper society can function! (I am biased as a soon-to-be-Danish resident)
I’ll write more soon, dinner time for me
i’ll technically be “ex-patting” too since i’m an american and like most other americans i never gone past the periphery of the american empire. lol
a japanophile colleague made a similar recommendation in the past and my past discussions since then with japanese people in this country who also co-occupied my lgbt spaces with me, gives me the impression that the mainstream gay community barely exists at all in japan compared to other places like latin america or south asia; but it does have relatively well represented niches of its own that are unique to japan and mostly unknown to the rest of the world like my niches are mostly unknown to the world outside of the american imperial core.
also: my similar discussions with scandinavian expats in this country over the decades paints a fantastic and vibrant picture for lgbtq within the confines of their own american-allied imperial-core walled-gardens. they have everything that the american empire has for lgbtq plus more and it’s all a bit different with seemingly endless onion-y layers of niches. my intention of traveling is to leave the american imperial core, so i think that scandinavia would defeat that purpose considering that it’s all part of the nato now.
Oh shit, you meant not to visit but to relocate to? I think I’d have a different set of answers for longer term; I was thinking for a vacation!
Yeah, lots of LGBT+ culture in Scandinavia, and a fair bit in the rest of western Europe (Paris, London, Zurich come to mind). Though I’ve spent plenty of time in eastern Asia (and lived near Shanghai), I don’t know that scene super well there. I did karaoke with a bunch of gay people in 道頓堀 in Osaka, and it was dope, but not much else.
If you’re looking for longer term living outside of NATO, I’d look to some Latin America countries, Oceania, and Switzerland.
If you’re looking to just visit, Japan, Scandinavia, most of western Europe are all very easy. A few places I’ve been are a lot harder language wise, and I don’t know that I’d wanna go right to the hard mode that is Shanghai if I hadn’t even left the states
i was only looking for vacation
I’ve only been fortunate enough to travel abroad once before, but my experience had nothing like what you’re worried about. The worst that happened was almost getting scammed at the airport, which is something you’ll have to worry about in imperial core countries too. People were either kind or neutral to our presence.
Ummm perhaps do not tell Central/South Americans this while visiting their country, lol.
central and south american history was and is defined by american political intervention/interference in a similar manner to western europe in the decades following world war 2; it’s literally the reason why we have things like panama and reaggeton and why life sucks real bad for people right now in venezuela, cuba and haiti. (none of the governments in those countries are complying with the american empire’s will so they’re being punished for it with embargoes & sanctions and their people pay the price).
I’m just telling you it’s a bad idea to go tell a Mexican or Brazilian or anyone else not in the US or Canada that they’re part of the US hegemony ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don’t think they’d love being told by a tourist what the US did to their countries.
i’m aware of this and i bring it up as an example of the concerns i’ve shared of trying of traveling outside of the imperial core for me.
neuro-divergence awareness within the imperial core is weak at best like it is with my other niche lgbtq identities and it’s virtually non-existent in latin america. i’ve literally have bad experiences over the the decades caused by my neuro-divergence and had to rely on my ability to speak spanish to explain that i meant no offense. i’ve learned to leverage the entitled/clueless-american-tourist stereotype to “social butterfly” myself out of situations that my faux pas created and i can’t do the same thing in french, or vietnames, or thai, or russian, etc.
I don’t think this concern is justified in most cases, but I’m not really in position to argue. If this were a common problem, I think I’d have heard about it, but outside of the occasional sensationalist news piece or Hollywood/TV thriller, I haven’t.
I do know an old joke, though: Before visiting a foreign country, it’s important to memorize three phrases in the local language:
the cases i had in mind were in the reports from federal inquiries investigating the aftermath of the iraqi invasion for non-existent wmd’s after 2008: they detailed HORRIFIC accounts of sometimes weeks long episodes of iraqi lbtq slowly bieng tortured to death while everyone did their best to pretended not to see it happening in front of their eyes. my strong accent already immediately outs me as an american and that’s taught me that the people who live in the periphery of the american empire’s core can all recognize i’m american easily and that’s resulted in experiences like me paying higher prices as a tourist at the most common and inconsequential end of a spectrum of experiences that also includes the iraqi-lgbq-torture example at the other more extreme & uncommon end of that same spectrum.
my experiences in talking to refugees & people of privilege from/in the middle east; south asia; & europe paints a picture of lgbtq communities that resemble the ones in latin america and living in this country as a member to niche several groups within the lgbtq umbrella teaches me that some of my identities have little to no communities at all outside the imperial core like it is in latin america and in large parts of the core itself. i think that my experiences as a gay cis american have turned me into a treat monster and not planning accordingly when traveling outside the imperial core seems like a bad idea if i can’t atleast speak the language to mitigate the social faux paus caused by my neuro-divergence.
i also now wonder if the fact that i learned about the iraqi-lgbtq example from gay subreddits is another manifestation of my identities being used as a virtue signal dog whistle in the dnc’s failed attempt to bank on the presidential election and left us with the genocide, facism and an impending country wide abortion ban among a FAR rightward lurch and i wonder how that’s going to impact the MLK jr timetable.
the numbers of the casualties from the gaza genocide rival those of the hiv/aids crisis per year back in the 1980’s and i think that it’s fitting that it the controversy back then also came at another time where my government also did little more than public displays of support while they strategically allowed thousands to needless die in service to the MLK jr timetable; but this time gaza’s impact is open-secretly-couched as harris not “separating” herself enough from biden as en explanation for the presidency & senate losses rather than plainly admitting that the voter turnout pushes with beyonce et al. succeeded in distracting from the losses of voters abstaining from the election over the genocide.