Talking about how I met this man originally from Johannesburg now is an excellent segue into how I spent most of the weekend. Sunday evening marked the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and the most important day of the Jewish year. It follows Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and encourages people to repent for the sins and begin the year with a fresh start. The holiday went until Monday night, which also happened to be Labour Day in Australia. Now, I’m not particularly religious but I do try to observe certain traditions and show respect for my background. I spent the holiday fasting, attending synagogue, and sleeping (sometimes all three at once!) in St. Ives, a predominantly South African community of Jews not far from the university. A good friend of mine from a class invited me to join her family for the holiday and it was absolutely fantastic. Despite having spent the previous two nights on a train and a plane, I tried to make the most out of this difficult holiday. I don’t usually enjoy services—when I’m standing I want to sit and when I’m sitting, I want to leave. I was anticipating customs I would be unfamiliar with, observing the holiday in Australia with a South African family, but I felt right at home. The level of religiosity in the synagogue was a bit higher than I’m used to. I sat in the crowded service separated from the women by a long, white curtain that ran the length of the room. There aren’t many Jews in Australia, only about 30,000, and I have a feeling a good number of them were packed in there with me at Kehillat Masada in St. Ives. Unfortunately, there have been issues at many synagogues in Sydney with the city’s large Muslim communities and security was tighter than I’d ever seen at home. It made me sad to think about the firebombs and other attacks on the synagogues here and I’m sure full-time security isn’t far off for many religious centers in the US. Only the melodies of the Kol Nidre, the prayer that marks the beginning of the holiday, and a few others were the same as I ones I learned growing up and the services were almost entirely in Hebrew. The only part that didn’t surprise me at all was when the rabbi delivered, in English albeit with a South African accent, a sermon that focused largely on congregants’ responsibility to donate money and attend the synagogue more than three times a year. Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed my Australian Yom Kippur. Fatigued from not sleeping or eating, I probably enjoyed services less this year than I usually do but the rabbis’ British and South African accents more than made up for it. I broke the fast with a delicious meal and a group of people I’m glad to call my new South African family in Australia.

It’s hard to understand how important tradition is until you’re thousands of miles away from it. I said to some friends when I came back from Thailand that I could’ve sworn I heard a shofar, the ram’s horn Jews use to announce the coming of the New Year, blowing in the distance during one of my nights in a hilltribe village. I even visited a Chabad House, a Jewish community center, in Chiang Mai and was amazed at how similar it felt to the one at Rutgers. Whatever the reason is, when you do the same thing at the same time every year with the same people it’s hard not to feel like something’s missing when you don’t have it anymore. Culture is so ingrained in all of us that, as exciting as it is to travel, it’s impossible not to feel at least some discomfort upon arriving in a new place for the first time.

The Chabad House on Khao San Road, Bangkok

I am very happy to be back in Sydney. My stomach hurt worse today than it did anytime in Thailand. Doesn’t say much about my cooking, does it? As much fun as I had exploring a completely foreign country, Australia is similar enough to the US that I’m comfortable here. I feel healthier here and generally have an easier time finding a public bathroom when I’m able to ask someone where it is. While I was in Thailand, I asked PC, my tour guide, why he lived there. He seemed determined and hard-working enough that if he chose to move to America, he would probably fare pretty well. Growing up in a largely immigrant family in New Jersey, I’ve spent most of my life believing that I’m lucky to be where I am. I grew up thinking it was normal for grandparents to speak English with foreign accents and that the only reason people in other countries worked their entire lives was to immigrate to the US. PC said he stayed in Thailand, a second world country, because of the expense of Western life but also for the culture. He believed that, as a Thai person, his place was in Thailand. He didn’t rule out leaving the country but he told me that life for him was easiest in Thailand. That stopped me in my tracks. Never did it occur to me that life could be easy for anyone in Thailand. It never occurred to me that a person from Thailand could hold such a similar view to life in their country as I do about life in America.

Classes started again today and it felt great to be back. That is, of course, until I found out I failed an essay I handed in before I left. 47th cultural lesson to be learned: (this is for all of the Americans out there who plan on studying abroad) Find out exactly how your professor expects sources to be cited before you submit your work. I learned the hard way that Australian universities (that’s Macquarie) are extremely more demanding about references than American universities are (and that’s Rutgers) and my tutor was kind enough to allow me to make the changes and resubmit the piece. Looking over her comments, I was shocked at the things she noted down. I never would have thought to cite half of the things I lost credit for and hopefully someone reading this will learn from my mistake.

Another reason it’s felt good to be back is because, well, I got a lot of attention today because I went to Thailand. (What do you think of my honesty?) People wanted to know what the people were like. They asked me about the cities and the food. They also wanted to know what it was like being there during a coup. Did you see the tanks rolling into Bangkok? Were you nervous? How did General Sonthi Boonyaratglin look riding into the palace on an elephant? Ok, I made that last one up but the stories, wow. I am going to have amazing stories to tell just from this trip, this semester, for the rest of my life. My list of reasons for wanting to see the world gets longer and longer the more I see of it.

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