We certainly will lose the open-mindedness and will no longer be malleable when we reach an older age. At that age, visiting other countries in the world would not help developing our worldview—in terms of which youth governs maturity in the case of most people—and instead would only be expensive leisure and perhaps bring only vacant happiness. This is the case of my father, who always enjoys the journeys and who does not seem to grow a bit with the delight and excitement. Or the meaning of it may be so little that we may even regret spending the time, energy and money. This is the case of my mother, who visited Australia and kept complaining how uneconomical the travel was as she did not feel getting anything. And the trip to Europe was the last straw that kills her interest in traveling abroad.
The above represents my pragmatic view indeed, the view that expects substantial returns of global traveling, yet this is not wrong. If we are to spend a considerable sum of money—traveling abroad is after all costly, we certainly should want some rewards that would help our life. If we are in substantial agreement over this view, we should agree that younger people can get the maximum benefit from traveling to the overseas. They see the world and grow.
There are other reasons why the earlier we make the journeys the better. First, traveling abroad is a major “manual labor”, and younger people have better strength and energy so that they can see as many places as possible, whereas older people, whose energy level is lower, may feel tired too soon and thus cannot enjoy themselves to the full. Second, better than traveling in a tour group—older people’s way, traveling with friends and being spontaneous—younger people’s way is more exciting and has more fun. In addition, language barrier is never a problem for younger tourists even though they barely speak a word of the local language because it is not awkward for them to use “sign language”—they may even have fun gesticulating at the local people. It would however be a problem for older travelers since the lack of language would make them uncomfortable or even embarrassed.
【本段解讀】
* 本段的內(nèi)容:補(bǔ)充說明為何選“when we are younger”,三個(gè)小理由合并在一個(gè)段落里簡單陳述。