Study abroad inspires students to live simply

Rukshana Jalil Guest Writer

When students return from abroad, most find that their perspective of American life has been changed. However, those returning from developing countries may come back with more than language mastery or a renewed cultural awareness; some come back with a desire to simplify their lives and use only necessities.

Grace Tan ’09, a biology major, spent 14 weeks in the Fall of 2007 in Kenya studying wildlife through the School of Field Studies. Her program focused on helping to maintain ecological balance in protected areas and sustaining co-habitation between people and wildlife in regions around the protected areas.

“I decided beforehand that I would travel only to a developing country,” she said.

Once there, she discovered that “the people there had a different set of challenges.”

They were worried about famine because of crop-destroying elephants and restrictive local farming policies.

“These are things Americans don’t have to worry about or think about,” Tan said. After living without hot showers or the least bit of privacy, Grace said that she realized how unnecessary most things are.

Joanna Chan ’08 came to a similar realization while traveling in the Yunnan province in southern China through Undergraduate Field Study Around the World program in Fall 2007. She studied both Mandarin and environmental issues while staying with a host family in the rural Shaxi.

Similar to Tan’s experience, Chan said that the family lived simply and only had “the necessary things.” Showers were rare, and when water was available, it was solar heated to save energy.

Chan then traveled to the Lugu lake region, bordering Yunnan and home to China’s only matriarchal society, the Mosu. While there, Chan met a fisherman who lived in a shack of plastic bags that he had built himself. He became her tour guide and she discovered he had nothing but the clothes on his back, his shack and his mind. He could go anywhere and do anything.

“I started questioning if not having money would make a person happier than if they were wealthy,” said Chan.“I observed that the more wealthy people in Yunnan were less happy than the people who practically had nothing.”

Like Tan, Chan came back to the United States inspired and appreciative of water and energy, something that is precious to the people in Yunnan. She reminds people to turn off running water and to turn off lights when they can let sunlight lighten up their rooms. She has fewer clothes now, which, she said, lightens her burden and enables her to focus on the more necessary things in her life.