By Stephanie Cheong
“On bended knee is no way to be free, Lifting up an empty cup, I ask silently, All my destinations will accept the one that’s me, So I can breathe…”
Guaranteed, a song by Eddie Vedder, sings about a man’s craving for freedom, the desire to get away from the mundane, repeating urban life. The song resonates with the unsaid wish of a lot of city dwellers. Kate (who preferred not to give her last name), a traveler from Macao, had been wondering around the world since she graduated in Taiwan.
Immune to the glamor of the biggest cities, like London or New York, Kate is more drawn to the warmth of people and the melancholy of small countries in Eastern Europe. “People there are really warm and welcoming. Sometimes I went to restaurants to ask for directions, the owners insisted to offer me food and tea. This compassion is now rarely found in Macao.” Indeed, in a tourist city like Macao, there are people that seize every chance to make money from a tourist. Who would have the time to sit with a tourist and offer her coffee?
After her trips, Kate realized that people in Macao are getting more materialistic. “Though people are spending more money, their living standards are not in fact getting better.” This is a sad truth. People nowadays pay double for the same noodle, but is the quality better? Students receive subsidies for learning, but are we learning better? Chanel purses, limited edition G-star Raw Jeans, do people really need those? “As long as I have enough money to travel and not to starve, I’ll be contented.” This is Kate’s answer to these questions.
“I used to think that Macao people are creative, at least when I was in high school.” It saddens Kate when she finds out her high school friends gave up their artistic talents and started working at casinos. She hopes more people in Macao can step out of their comfort zones, do some- thing out of the norm, breaking away from the inevitable rules of working in casinos after graduation. Kate admitted that when she first decided to travel, she was trying to run away. Run away from the stress of society, from the suffocating city life. However, now, she is exploring, exploring the world, exploring herself and she said she will continue to travel, forever.