Your time starts now! Choose one place. Then, tell us why you chose that place instead of the other. Well, there are no right or wrong answers in this game. But there are some simple rules.You have to make a choice quickly and give a logical reason for it. As an example, if I ask "Egypt OR Romania", the answer could be "I would like to go to Egypt so that I can visit the pyramids, see the Sphinx or cruise through Suez Canal". The reasons could range from factual to personal. However, general answers like "I would like to visit because I want to stay in a hotel, eat food from a restaurant, have fun in a swimming pool or any such activity that can be done from most places" are not acceptable.
Okay, now you must be thinking what game I am talking about. We call it the "country" game. It started off during one of the school breaks when the kids were eager to visit the places they had heard about. We had no plans to travel but the kids would keep discussing options, sometimes both deciding on the same place, and other times, choosing polar opposites. Their travel wish list was getting jump started by their geography knowledge and being fueled by their imaginations. Soon, it turned into this game of choices, an interesting time-pass to tide over long drives, frustrating waits in queues or boring dinners.
Taking a detour from the game, I would say the new generation has a lot of avenues to get information. There are numerous fictional book series with travel stories for young readers. My daughter's favorite series, "Thea Stilton", narrates adventures of five mouse friends traveling around the world, trying to solve problems ranging from environment protection in Alaska to capturing jewel thieves in India. Even non-fiction book series like "Enchantment of the World" are filled with great pictures and interesting facts making them a fun read. Once you add electronic options like "Oregon Scientific Talking Smart Globe" and app games like "Stack the Countries", kids have substantial amount of geography information at their fingertips. On top of all this, my brother, a marine engineer, sails around the world and tells us interesting facts about different places.
Time to get back to our game! Though it may seem like a geography test, it can provide great insights too. To the question "Would you like to visit XXX big city OR a beach resort in YYY?", the answer can tell a lot about a person!
For us, it is interesting to play this game with our kids to see things from their perspective and learn about their interests When the winter Olympics was in session, Russia would always get picked irrespective of what the other country was. At another point in time, when our daughter wished to be a wildlife
photographer, almost all countries in Africa fell into the "automatic
selection" category. To her, Africa was filled with exotic animals that
she could photograph. When one of the choices happen to be a country where our relatives live, that would get picked so that they can visit them. India, U.A.E and Singapore fall into this category. In fact, Sri Lanka, the closest southern neighbor of India, also falls into this category. Our son thinks that he can jump from Sri Lanka to Kerala, a southern state in India, where his grandparents live!
Just as they have countries that would always get picked, they also have couple of countries that are blacklisted. Nepal is one such country. Even before the recent earthquakes, they were afraid to visit Nepal because of snippets of an Indian movie they watched. In this movie, they had seen a cute little boy being chased around by black magicians all around Nepal. So, that rules it out for the time being. Chile is the other country that they are scared to visit as it is so "thin". They say "If you step out of your hotel in Chile, you will end up in the ocean!". Well, picture it on a map to see their point!
I guess many of us would have played this game in our heads. And, I guess we all have some places that we would always choose irrespective of the lure of a dreamier, more exotic destination. And many times, we have places that are blacklisted from our itineraries, because of some fear or a bad experience. While some choices are preset, there are others that can open up our imaginations to visit the beautiful world around us, at least in our minds.
So where are you headed to next ?
Okay, now you must be thinking what game I am talking about. We call it the "country" game. It started off during one of the school breaks when the kids were eager to visit the places they had heard about. We had no plans to travel but the kids would keep discussing options, sometimes both deciding on the same place, and other times, choosing polar opposites. Their travel wish list was getting jump started by their geography knowledge and being fueled by their imaginations. Soon, it turned into this game of choices, an interesting time-pass to tide over long drives, frustrating waits in queues or boring dinners.
 |
| "Country" game players |
Taking a detour from the game, I would say the new generation has a lot of avenues to get information. There are numerous fictional book series with travel stories for young readers. My daughter's favorite series, "Thea Stilton", narrates adventures of five mouse friends traveling around the world, trying to solve problems ranging from environment protection in Alaska to capturing jewel thieves in India. Even non-fiction book series like "Enchantment of the World" are filled with great pictures and interesting facts making them a fun read. Once you add electronic options like "Oregon Scientific Talking Smart Globe" and app games like "Stack the Countries", kids have substantial amount of geography information at their fingertips. On top of all this, my brother, a marine engineer, sails around the world and tells us interesting facts about different places.
Time to get back to our game! Though it may seem like a geography test, it can provide great insights too. To the question "Would you like to visit XXX big city OR a beach resort in YYY?", the answer can tell a lot about a person!
 |
| Sri Lanka to India - an easy hop away! |
Just as they have countries that would always get picked, they also have couple of countries that are blacklisted. Nepal is one such country. Even before the recent earthquakes, they were afraid to visit Nepal because of snippets of an Indian movie they watched. In this movie, they had seen a cute little boy being chased around by black magicians all around Nepal. So, that rules it out for the time being. Chile is the other country that they are scared to visit as it is so "thin". They say "If you step out of your hotel in Chile, you will end up in the ocean!". Well, picture it on a map to see their point!
 |
| Can you see the thin yellow line that is Chile? |
I guess many of us would have played this game in our heads. And, I guess we all have some places that we would always choose irrespective of the lure of a dreamier, more exotic destination. And many times, we have places that are blacklisted from our itineraries, because of some fear or a bad experience. While some choices are preset, there are others that can open up our imaginations to visit the beautiful world around us, at least in our minds.
So where are you headed to next ?
No comments:
Post a Comment