Of Souvenirs and Sharing..

Well... souvenirs. Everyone love to get souvenirs especially when the giver is someone they love or well, like. But the truth is, we don’t usually get what we wanted right?

Once I had a friend who went for vacation in a country outside of Malaysia and he told me that he would be getting me something when he came back. God, was I happy that day! I waited and waited and waited for him to return and as days pass by, my anticipation and imagination grew. I was imagining wild things from him up to the point when I think about it now seems ridiculous. Then one day he came back and gave me a souvenir: a keychain. I figgin’ piece of keychain that he must’ve possibly bought at the airport on his way back. And I was of course devastated.

But that was years ago, when I myself haven’t been anywhere other that the states of the Malayan Peninsula. My first trip to other people’s land is to Mecca in 2000 followed by the college trip to Bangkok 4 years later. It wasn’t until my recent journeys to Jakarta that made me realize the harsh reality of it: buying souvenirs for people back home. To me, I don’t like to consider myself as a tourist, I want to be a traveller. I don’t know why but it seems quite natural to me that every time I go places, I tend to assimilate myself with the people around me, their language, their food, their norms. It feels very nice to be able to act like one of the locals and that is what I look most in traveling.

Honestly, thorough my trips I haven’t shopped much even for myself though I crave most of the stuffs I saw in Bangkok’s Chatuchak and Lumpini but was too broke to splurge. In Jakarta it turned out to be a ladies shopping haven with tudungs costing RM 5 on the average while Bandung played fair if you know where to look. So imagine, me having a hard time looking for stuffs for myself and imagine the thought of souvenirs on top of that. I did.. and flunked both. Thus at the end, I went back into Malaysia with roughly the same stuff I brought with me.

I like to take photos, I really do. Though I initially snap stuffs for my own personal satisfaction but upon seeing the look in people’s faces when they join me and look at the photos I took it made me realize that photos can be a very good souvenir as well, perhaps even better than physical materials even! It’s nice to share those moments with your pals and telling them the story behind every snap which is something you can’t do with a keychain. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the keychain but this is the thing that works for me.

Sharing.. now I knew I should’ve watched Bear in The Big Blue House more often...

Labels: opinion, personal