-------------------------------------------- | |
Travelling more than I'd like | |
2019.05.17 06:55:47 WEST | |
-------------------------------------------- | |
I know, who would complain about travelling? But this is very | |
subjective. I guess if I asked my 25-year-old self, he would not | |
complain, but things have changed. | |
Last week, on Monday, I travelled from Zurich to Boston, then flew | |
back on Thursday to spend the weekend with the family. Then last | |
Monday I flew again from Zurich to Boston and I am returning home | |
now (I'm typing this at the airport lounge). | |
I am so glad to be going home. I miss my own place and specially my | |
family. Thankfully I won't have to go on a business trip again until | |
next month. | |
On the other hand it was nice to work with my American colleagues. | |
We even had a very nice dinner at a museum restaurant, where actors | |
re-enacted events from the Tea Party time. I took the opportunity to | |
learn and ask questions about US history. | |
I know so little about US history. What stood out during the | |
conversations was how different the term "colonization" sounded to | |
my US colleagues and me. Coming from Brazil, the term carries a lot | |
of bad context and connotation, but these weren't immediately clear | |
to them. Even when applied to other scenarios, for example space | |
exploration and "colonization" have different meaning. | |
I was reflecting on this now and interestingly my stopover between | |
Boston and Zurich is in Lisbon, Portugal. So I started asking | |
myself: how did colonization impact the Portuguese culture and how | |
does it change their worldview? I know the shock of the events | |
during WWII shape the German worldview - I know I can't compare the | |
Nazi regime to Portuguese colonization and that's not my goal, what | |
I want to know is whether there the feeling of guilt for events | |
during colonization exists. | |
I also don't want to suggest colonization didn't have positive | |
effects, but one can't just ignore the negative either. I've already | |
heard the culture was shaped by the fact Portugal was once a global | |
power and no longer is. But was it shaped by the negatives of | |
colonization too? And how? | |
Too many questions. Too little time. It's time to board. |