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Carrie Ma: I Will Not Allow You to Travel Alone
浏览次数:1776次 更新时间:2019-03-04

Carrie Ma is a cool girl who was born after the 90s. She went to the Middle East eight times and went to Africa alone. She visited India once a year and went to over a hundred countries all over the seven continents. 


 

ONE OUTSIDE: Hello, Carrie, I heard that you like to travel, and you have been to over a hundred countries. What made you start your trip?

CarrieIn life, I do not have a strong purpose, so I did not need a reason to travel. I felt like to travel, so I set off. My income as an intern was my economic support.






ONE OUTSIDE: Being a girl and travel alone miles away, will your parents worry about you?

CarrieNo matter how open they act like, I know they will worry deep down, so I never tell them anything bad, and I only tell them the good parts about travel, school or work. First, you need to be financially independent if you want your parents' permission. Second, you need to communicate with your parents frequently. I would video chat with my parents basically every day to let them know that I am safe, to let them feel the environment of traveling and let them meet the people I meet on the trip. Even though there is the language barrier, but they can know that their daughter is lucky at every place and protected by the strange kindness through peoples expression and body language. I also travel with my parents, and I brought my parents to Southeast Asia using my salary as an intern when I was still at school, I also brought them to New Zealand, Singapore, and other countries after I started to work.

 





ONE OUTSIDE: Which country was your first destination and what kind of interest thing happened there?  

CarrieI went to the Philippines alone in 2009 and taught English at a welfare house in a small city in the Philippines. I went again in 2018, and nine years had passed since the last time I was there. The city was still familiar and the time seemed went back to when I was a teacher there. The benefit of slow development is that all the memory of the trip can be found.

 

ONE OUTSIDE: How long did your first trip take?

CarrieI spent almost a month in the Philippines during the summer break.

 

ONE OUTSIDE: Since when did you want to write a book about your travel story?

CarrieI never wanted to write a book, and I only write about my trip and post on Douban occasionally when I went to the Middle East alone in 2009, and a publisher wanted to publish my stories. But I refused to be commercialized, and I did not want to turn travel into work, I also felt like my writing technique had not arrived publishing standard, and my father wanted me to be humble, so I refused. I went to many unconventional countries in the following years and received many strange kindnesses and I know if I do not want to spread the stories, I will waste their kindnesses. In 2018, another publisher reached out to me, so I published my old travel notes.

 

ONE OUTSIDE: Why do you name your book I Will Not Allow You to Travel Alone?

CarrieAt Iraq, a local female said, “Iraq is too dangerous, I will not allow you to travel alone. Due to fate, she brought me back to her home, and the whole family took care of me for two weeks. The publisher named the book instead of me. They think a rude expression will cause dispute and good for diffusion. I do not like this title.

 

ONE OUTSIDE: I heard that you go to India once a year.

CarrieYes.

 






ONE OUTSIDE: What attracts you most about India?

CarrieYou can not experience the Indian cultural shock anywhere else in the world. India has various races, nationalities, and languages. You can experience the enormous gap which is caused by the extreme disparity between the rich and the poor (you can find a viewing restaurant where a cup of cola will cost you 80 RMB, after you come out of a slum where the monthly income of a person is 500 RMB, and a family of 15 people lives in a small house which is only 20 square meters.) The unique religion environment formed their lifestyle and cognitive perspective. Indians are very friendly, and most of them can speak English, so communication is not a problem. Of course, I go to India a lot does not mean I love everything about India and praise it highly. Indians lack the sense of time, their town's ecological environment is going worse, their stares are inescapable, their request for taking selfies is unavoidable, and all the things above could cause me trouble. Travel is not a promotion, and we do not need always to praise it.

 

ONE OUTSIDE: Why do you keep going out?

Carrie1. Many people think that I travel because I can meet good people. But I am not looking for goodness. My definition of humanity is that goodness combines with evil. I have touched much true humanity when I am on the road, and I like to observe humanity.

2. Travel lets me see numerous different lives in my limited life which makes me more generous, open-minded and feel the thinking dimension better which was brought by different culture background.

3. The happiness of travel comes from superficialness. It is hard to see one places economy and culture when you are in one place for a short period. As a traveler, I can only see the colorful side of one city and the layer which is covered in sugar frost. The locals treat me better because I am a traveler, so the humanity I see is beautified, the breeze is soft and the water is sweet. Reality is cruel and true, lets enjoy the happiness of superficialness when we travel.

4.I love and easy to make friends. Even though I start a trip alone, I have never finished a trip alone, I make friends wherever I go. No matter how many friends I make, traveling alone gives me a strong feeling of loneliness, especially so when I took the wrong car, missed the ship, lost my money and when I was conned. But when loneliness poured down, I identified the flaws of my character more clearly, and it gives me more chance to be alone with myself to block all the noise, listen to my inner voice and sort out what I want with my life. The best gift I receive from travel is that at first, I fear solitude, then I accept solitude, and in the end, I enjoy solitude.

 









ONE OUTSIDE: Is there anywhere you want to go recently or anything you want to do?

CarrieMy curiosity for my destination most comes from book and films. Travel is like geographical reading to me. I read Fascinating Islands which is written by Danya Chen last year, and I have wanted to experience Halloween in Ireland. I also want to pick up painting to draw portraits. But I lack self-control and executive force when it comes to learning a new skill.





ONE OUTSIDE: What do you like to do except travel.

CarrieRead books;

Go to art exhibitions;

Astronomy, I used to be an observatory researcher;

Drive plane, I had the private pilot license in Australia, I fly often;

Surfing, but I am only a newbie, and I only dare to surf on beaches with small waves;

Dive, my best score is 45 meters underwater; in 2013, my request to ice dive in the South Pole was declined because I didnt have license; I hope one day I can ice dive in the South Pole; I am fascinated about sky and ocean, maybe because people dont know much about this two regions, they feel mysterious;

I like to study documentary recently, and I am filming a travel documentary with Tencent and it is the same name as my book I Will Not Allow You to Travel Alone; travel from the perspective of documentary filmmaker makes me observe more carefully and I feel more deeply; there is also more preparation to be done.



ONE OUTSIDE: What kind of life do you aspire to live?

CarrieLike right now. Free, looking forward to something, my job has a purpose, and my parents are healthy.

 

ONE OUTSIDE: Do you want to say some mottoes to your readers.

CarrieI am not wise enough to say mottoes, let me borrow the wisdom of our ancestors——

Borges: Life is not sad, there are dream and dawn.

Shi Su: Drink wines and write poems while you are young.


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