Lokahi

Freshman year of college, I took a course called Introduction to Language Change. Maybe because the class met immediately after lunch or maybe because our classroom was perfectly positioned to bring in the midday sun, I would often find it extremely difficult to stay focused (as in, awake). My narcoleptic tendencies, however, were no match for my professor's overflowing passion. Forever ingrained in my memory is one basic fact (and arguably the most important): language changes over time, and in a systematic way. This means that not just one language, but a family of languages and even languages from different families have changed in similar ways, following the same rules, over the course of history. I find this to be pretty mind-blowing, especially given that these languages were native to completely different peoples, cultures, countries. They didn't have Twitter and Facebook back then to tell each other what's what.

I've been on many family vacations over the years. We've done Kenya, Cancun, Barcelona, Singapore, Vancouver, the list goes on.

Africa was about ten years ago. I distinctly remember one afternoon in South Africa, around lunch time, when we were deciding what to eat. I was much younger then, and more stubborn about my gustatory preferences. I want a Subway sandwich. That's the only thing I'll eat. (Yeah, yeah, I know. There are starving kids in Africa who will eat anything and here I was being a whiny brat. But also, if you asked me at that moment, I could have said that I was a starving kid in Africa.) Surprisingly or maybe not surprisingly, we were able to find a Subway establishment and all was well in the (my) world.

This week, my family is traveling in Hawaii.

On our first afternoon in Oahu, I not so surprisingly was in desperate need of coffee. I asked a local-looking passerby to direct me to a nice coffee shop. She looked up at me, confused by my confusion (#meta). What do you mean? There is a Starbucks right there. I told her I didn't want Starbucks. In hindsight, this was rather patronizing of me. I commented to my dad, "I refuse to come here and drink Starbucks. I want Hawaiian coffee. Shouldn't that be pretty easy to find?" (Kona...?)

That afternoon, we watched music and dance performances native to different Polynesian islands. I appreciated differences among them, but also repeatedly remarked how all of them were so similar to Indian, African, and Latin dance and music (I'm only really an expert in the first, more an enthusiast of the other two). These ancient art forms originated in completely different political and geographical climates, but with an uncanny resemblance.

On Wednesday, we headed over to the USS Arizona Memorial. In reading through the little history boards at the museum (we don't get conned into those touristy audio tours, thank you), I noted the text to have a slight US-centric, anti-Japan point of view. Makes sense, but given the relationship of the two countries today, I couldn't help but feel a bit uncomfortable. And also wonder how the multitudes of other, foreign tourists were taking this in. I guess my sentiment was a common one. Before we boarded our shuttle bus to the memorial, a park ranger did a brief introduction. She reminded us that while this site honored those who had served and were lost at Pearl Harbor, World War II, as the name suggests, involved many many people from many different countries. Whether at war or at home, we, as people of the world, were going through similar war-time experiences.

I spent most of high school working with American WWII veterans, never really considering the war from a non-American lens. The park ranger's introduction was a point of realization for me.

This summer, one of my best friends was in town for an all-too short two months. After meeting in preschool and essentially growing up together, we parted after high school to attend different colleges, then make different post-graduate career choices in different geographies. We haven't spent huge amounts of time together over the last six years (arguably our "formative years"), but we've certainly grown and changed in similar ways. The exact experiences a bit different, but with comparable end results. I don't say this often, but to me, this is simply beautiful.

It was with her that I traveled through Europe after college. In France, we happened upon several Indien-Mexicain restaurants. A native Indian or Mexican would probably find this to be extremely insulting perhaps even blaming the French for being culturally ignorant or unwelcoming of anything non-French. But if you step back, the cuisines are actually quite similar. Rice, lentils/beans, roti/tortillas, vegetables, meat.

While there is something to be said for appreciating and accepting differences across countries, cultures, religions, what have you, true unity (basically "world peace" but I was trying to be less cliche) comes from recognizing how similar we all are. Not imposing (read: Subway-addict in Africa) or dismissing (read: Starbucks-hater in Hawaii), but recognizing and embracing. From language to entertainment to food to cherishing a $4 cup of coffee-to-go, we're traveling the space-time continuum as one.

And we should never need a World War to convince us.