Announcing the 2010 World to the Wise Cultural Tour

We are happy to announce plans to host our first ever World to the Wise Cultural Tour. We have designed it in a modular format so that travelers will be able to choose one, two, or three one-week periods. Here are the details!

LONDON  June 12-19, 2010


Many Americans have the feeling of coming home when they discover this land that is the mother country to  many of our ancestors. Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge, Westminster Abby, Big  Ben, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Globe Theatre, some of the most amazing museums in the world, the Tube, the River  Thames, cream tea, shortbread, meat pies, homes of some of English literature’s greats, and on and on!

PARIS   June 19-26


Often called the Pearl of Europe and the City of Lights, this gem has probably inspired more songs and literature than any other city. Notre Dame Cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay, the Palace of Versailles, the Latin Quarter with its sidewalk artists, the Arche de Triomphe and Champs Elysées…not to mention the obligatory sidewalk cafés, croissants, pastries, baguettes, cheese. (Oops, got a little side-tracked there.…) One evening will be spent with local Parisian friends over dinner, comparing our impressions of each other’s culture, laughing at ourselves, and learning to appreciate the inherent beauty of every culture.

AMSTERDAM  June 26 - July 3



One of the most charming cities in all of Europe, Amsterdam has a character all its own. Journey back to the  Golden Age of the Netherlands, when Amsterdam was one of the largest and most powerful commercial cities in  the world. Visit the world-famous Rijksmuseum, home of the Dutch Masters, as well as the amazing Van Gogh  Museum. Take a boat ride on the city's intricate canal system while admiring the charm of the 17th and 18th  century row houses that line the canals. Visit the historic home of Anne Frank, as well as the Ten Boom house in  Haarlem, made famous in Corrie ten Boom's moving book, The Hiding Place. Experience the world's largest tulip fields and greenhouses, as well as the home of the famous Delft Blue China. And spend an evening over dinner with local Amsterdammers and learn the meaning of gezelligheid (hint: coziness to the max).


As mentioned above, travelers will have the choice of joining us for one, two, or all three consecutive weeks in three of Europe's greatest cultural capitals.


It's time to start planning (and saving) now! To get on our mailing list to receive updates, just click here and enter your name and e-mail address in the form on the right side of the page.


Join the culturally curious for an unforgettable adventure!

"DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?"

One great way to develop cultural intelligence is learning a foreign language. This can seem like a daunting task for many, though, and I've just begun a manuscript on how to approach learning a language in such a way that you'll feel the richer for it, not ready to hurl yourself off the Eiffel Tower.

I thought I'd give you a taste by sharing the (working) introduction with you:

I was living in the French-speaking area of Switzerland, where an American associate of mine told me of a time when she had gotten lost on a weekend outing in Germany. This was back in the late 60’s, when far fewer Germans spoke English than do today. She would stop in each village and look for someone who spoke English and could point her back to her intended route. At each stop, she would ask (in a much louder voice than necessary – something many of us tend to do, as if the other person were hard of hearing):

“DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?”

– only to be answered with “Nein, es tut mir Leid.” (No, I’m sorry.) This went on for some time, until finally, in one last desperate attempt, she approached a middle-aged gentleman who she thought surely knew at least enough English to bail her out of her predicament. In an emphatic and over-articulate voice, she pleaded,

“SIR, DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?” -- to which the gentleman replied with matching emphasis and intensity:

“LADY,

THAT’S

THE

ONLY

THING

I

SPEAK!”

He was with the American military and stationed in southwestern Germany, one of the largest American communities outside the United States at the time.

Let’s face it – English speakers do not enjoy a reputation of being particularly multilingual. After all, they don’t need to be – take the Americans, for example: their neighbors to the north speak English, to the east and west is ocean, and to the south – well, there are enough Mexicans in the tourist industry who speak English that it’s not a necessity to speak Spanish. And what of the thousands of Hispanics who now call the US home? Well, they have to learn English if they want to survive, right?

Compare this to the Dutch, for example, in whose country I lived for five and a half years; if they want to be understood anywhere outside their small country (with the exception of Belgium and a handful of Caribbean islands), they have to learn at least one other language. This is most often English, followed by German and French. In fact, many European high school students study more than one foreign language at a time.

There’s no question that one can get by with English in much of the world – which is a fact that doesn’t exactly have a motivating effect upon anglophones to learn a foreign language.

Now let’s be honest – most of us have hidden behind this fact as an excuse not to study a foreign language. Not only that, we have also somehow convinced ourselves that Americans (and while we’re at it, we may as well add Brits, Australians and New Zealanders, all island nations, interestingly enough) are simply not good at learning another language.

This is not necessarily true, nor does it have to be.

In the 21^st century, where globalization has reduced the size of the planet we live on, our excuses not to learn another language hold less and less water. The only reason we’re not good at it is the mysterious and formidable power of suggestion; and if we are capable of convincing ourselves that we’re a lost cause, then surely we are capable of the inverse. As a matter of fact, there are lots of us who are living proof. We’re also proof that learning a foreign language not only opens up new microcosms of the brain, but also opens up a whole new macrocosm waiting to be discovered and explored. Learning another language isn’t simply about forming sentences like assembling a machine with a new set of tools; it’s about discovering entire cultures behind the language. The more we resist the idea, the more we deprive ourselves of untold riches.

It’s like suddenly being able to see in vivid color what you once only saw in black and white.

What follows are some tips on how to approach learning a foreign language that will not only make the process make more sense, but also make it a little less painful, and – who knows – you may even find yourself hooked for life, as is the case with yours truly. Some of the tips might seem like no-brainers; but you might be surprised how a simple mental shift can make a world of difference.

(The above content is copyrighted material and may not be used or reprinted without written consent from its author.)

A President Wins the Prize

Many Americans were surprised as they awoke this morning to the news of President Barack Obama's being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Some have asked if the prize is now given for good intentions and not just accomplishments. One thing seems clear: the European image of Obama is still one of hope, while at home he faces criticism from all sides on multiple issues.

What is your opinion? Do you think President Obama earned the prize? If not, whom would you have proposed in his place?

A House Divided

It is impossible to talk about culture without talking about politics and government, although this is a subject I don't often address in this blog. But last week I heard a comment that pushed me over the edge, and I uncharacteristically vented about it on Facebook with a simple and admittedly unbalanced comment.

79 comments later, it was clear that at the heart of the current debate on healthcare in the US is not healthcare itself, but a fundamental difference in perspective on the role of government. Many non-Americans talk of the Christian population in the US as a monolithic, extreme right-wing movement, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

A recent religious activists survey showed that, while many conservative as well as progressive activists call themselves Christians, they differ greatly on issues such as social responsibility, biblical authority and the role of government. The spokesman for the survey explained this phenomenon with a quote from C.S. Lewis:

'Most of us are not really approaching the subject in order to find out what Christianity says; we are approaching it in the hope of finding support from Christianity for the views of our own party.' (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

Many conservative Christians believe that most of our social ills would be taken care of if more people would come to Christ, thereby eliminating the need for expensive government programs. Progressive Christians, on the other hand, point to present realities that they feel cannot be ignored, such as prohibitively expensive insurance policies for middle-class Americans, not to mention the disturbing number of Americans still living below the poverty line.

Please go to the blog to leave your comments, which are welcome.

'Playing for Change'

When music producer Mark Johnson came across street singer Roger Ridley's soulful voice in Los Angeles a few years ago, he had a brainstorm: record and film Ridley's raw and powerful rendition of an international hit such as "Stand By Me", then add voices and instruments from around the world to the arrangement. 40 people, to be exact -- from nations ranging from Nepal to South Africa, from France to India -- who have still never met each other. The "Stand By Me" video has gone viral on YouTube and is one of ten songs on the collection called Playing for Change, all produced by Johnson with his extremely mobile recording equipment.

Johnson even captured the voice of the late Bob Marley singing "War/No More Trouble" by creating a track in the same key and tempo as Marley's version and overdubbing Marley's vocal onto the track.

Facebook and e-mail readers can click here to see the "Stand By Me" video.

Multilingual Mosaic

I was recently made aware of this audio montage of 25 different languages on the song from The Prince of Egypt, "There Can Be Miracles." I was originally told it was all the same singer, presumably Sally Dworsky, who recorded the original English soundtrack along with Michelle Pfeiffer. (Check out Sally's MySpace page to hear some of her own original songs -- very nice.) My research indicates that probably was not the case -- but it is nevertheless a stunning patchwork.

If you have some inside information on this soundtrack that would be useful, post your comment!

Facebook or e-mail format readers, click here to see the video.

Happy Day for Hungary

In 1989 my family and I were living in Lausanne, Switzerland, when the earth beneath Europe began to shake. The fall of the Berlin Wall is what attracted the world's attention; but the necessary shaking had begun three months earlier when Hungary decided to open its border with Austria, allowing hundreds of people to flee communist Eastern Europe.

Twenty years later, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is from formerly communist Eastern Germany, travelled to Hungary to thank the Hungarians for their courage at an event celebrating the so-called "Pan-European Picnic" on the Austro-Hungarian border. In Merkel's words, 'they gave wings to East Germans' desire for freedom.' What ensued was an irreversible domino effect such as the world has rarely seen, symbolized by the culminating fall of the Berlin Wall.

We have a piece of that wall. Just an ordinary piece of concrete -- but it's a simple reminder of a momentus event that changed history forever.