TEACHING KIDS TO TRAVEL WITH Purpose
Our family and I took a little trip in Seoul last year during the summer months. Included in the itinerary were a trip to the well-known Alpaca World, which all three of my children were very excited about, and a day’s journey to the Demilitarized Area ( DMZ), which both of the boys found to be much more exciting.  ,
True to form, Alpaca World had great pleasure price. As swarms of animals rushed down the hill in a serving frenzy, I squealed in happiness. We wandered around the area for hours, stopping to observe adorable animals, but in reality, we only learned so much about animals in the end.  ,
In contrast, the DMZ was big going, weighed down by a sense of politeness and sincerity throughout.  ,
My children respectfully followed our guide from one combat site to another. They viewed North Korea from viewing platforms. They listened to the loud music blaring through monitors on both edges. Yet they made a wild game-of-aggression trip down the Third Tunnel.  ,
They listened ominously to our guide’s poignant account of North-South family meetings and how battle has shaped Asian food (army stew was made from scraps of food from American military installations, and dakgalbi is riddled with cabbage because it was cheap and filling ) at Freedom Bridge.  ,
Decades later, no one talks about Alpaca World.  ,
Every now and then, we find ourselves discussing everything we learnt from that “less interesting” DMZ vacation.  ,
My eldest, aged 14, speaks about why claims like” the Chinese have thinner food” don’t take into account the whole picture. My second-born, post-PSLE, displays problems that one government’s version of history could be so greatly different from another’s. My seven-year-old finds it “gross” that poop-bombs are a warfare strategy.  ,
Singapore’s individual National Gallery Museum encourages a three-prong approach to start discussions about art: Discover, believe, wonder. I’ve adopted this for a complete myriad of things, including vacation.  ,
Whether you are at the DMZ, Disneyland or a social project in the middle of a remote Chinese town,” see think wonder” invites you to pause, join and ask questions. It reminds us to be present and wondering, regardless of where we are and what we’re doing.  ,
Whether we’re at a border area, a gallery, or even a park what we get out of it is up to us. Do we emphasize optics or knowledge? Mirror or action? Presence or efficiency?  ,
That’s what distinguishes a journey that ends when the bags are packed from one that sticks in the mind for a while.  ,
A mother of three, a mother of three, and director of The Birthday Collective, Cherie Tseng is the main operations officer of a local banking company.