If you have traveled abroad, and I have to over 60 countries, the excitement of the next trip always stays with you. Growing up in California, and living in the East Bay Area of San Francisco, we frequently traveled domestically–places like Lake Tahoe, Yosemite National Park, the Napa Vineyards, Disneyland, Hollywood, and San Diego. All have their own distinct vibe, and their own attraction. Going abroad, however, amps up the excitement because of new cultures and cuisines, new languages and currencies, novel approaches to life and politics, and yes, getting a new stamp in your passport! I have had many such experiences, which I will summarize here, and link to my forthcoming trip. Am I excited about this one? You bet I am!
I first traveled to Canada as a child in the 1960s, where my grandfather Tom had served as a Mountie, and where my father introduced us to high-tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia. At that time, one did not need a passport to go to Canada, just a driver’s license. We took a ferry from Port Angeles, Washington, where my grandmother lived. I distinctly remember making my way outside to the ship’s bow, and experiencing the cold wind hit my face as the ferry chugged its merry way toward somewhere different, somewhere unknown, somewhere exciting. Of course, it made it easier that the Canadians in Victoria spoke English, and were terminally polite. Their currency–both coins and bills- donned the image of Queen Elizabeth, which made me wonder more about Canada’s connection to the United Kingdom as part of the British Empire. This eventually led to a love of European history, which would become my major later at the University of California San Diego, and later, to many more professional adventures in something called international relations.
My grandfather Tom Bee had learned French and German as a child so I told myself I should, too. Most of my high schoolmates took Spanish because of California’s Spanish-Mexican heritage but I chose another route. My French teacher, Madame Marie Wagnon, came from a town in Normandy, France, called Sainte-Mere-Eglise. She met her American husband there when he, as part of the American 82nd Airborne, liberated her town from the Nazis after the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944. Marie had high standards for learning French, and high praise for her students. She kept in touch with many of them, including me, for decades until her death. Her strict standards enabled and motivated me to go on my first study abroad experience while at UC San Diego: a year at the University of Grenoble, France, where I took history and international relations classes all in the French language. By the way, you don’t really learn a language until you live it, get hungry in it, watch TV in it, go to a market to buy food in it, as it were! I learned quickly that the French don’t speak like Moliere, which I had studied, and in a modern slang you must acquire soon or remain dumbfounded.
Coming home from France, I had to readjust to California for a number of reasons. I was thinking and dreaming in French, so I sometimes had reverse culture shock, even to the point of having to think about choosing the right English words! I had changed and my friends had not. My experience that’s hard to describe if you did not live it yourself, and even harder to articulate to those who have neither studied nor traveled abroad. I am still in touch with both American and French friends I studied abroad with in Grenoble, yet another benefit of travel–making new friends. The French language enabled me to teach skiing to young children on the Olympic slopes of Chamrousse, and later, to be invited to study French foreign relations at the Quai D’Orsay in Paris, to be interviewed by French TV regarding Operation Desert Storm, and to interview French leaders for a Presidential Commission, among many other opportunities. And to think I got into this business because I loved history, languages, and travel. Who knew?
I had caught the travel bug, you know the one where you need to go again as soon as possible because you learned so much, you just could not sit still for another second? Gotta get more stamps in my passport ASAP! So I applied for a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University and made it to the California State Semi-finals at the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech). The interview process went over three days, starting with a reception, individual interviews, and group interviews. The first student ever interviewed from UC San Diego, I had to borrow a suit because I was told wearing a Mexican wedding shirt, Ocean Pacific shorts, and flip-flops (my preferred attire at the time) would not be seen as appropriate. While I did not receive a Rhodes, I applied independently to Oxford University to study Modern History at Worcester College, and got in. I took out a student loan to finance the trip, which has paid for itself 20 to 30 times over–maybe more. When you have Oxford on your resume, it stands out and always sets you apart from your peers.
Moreover, going through the Rhodes interviews prepared me for a similar interview process called the Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship. I did win that Fellowship, where as a young professional, I went to work for the German Parliament’s Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and for the Governing Mayor of West Berlin the year before the Berlin Wall fell! Yes, learning German in high school and college helped me get this golden opportunity, too. Having invested my time in France and the UK helped even more. The friends I met there led to other trips to observe the first all-German elections after unification, and writing opportunities on European affairs with other alumni met during his experience.
I’m reflecting on these moments in my life as I prepare to leave for the Oxford Study Abroad Programme in International Relations that begins on July 5 and goes through July 30. Since 2015 I have been a professor of practice for this 3-4 week program that enables me to bring college-age American students and life-long learners to the city of spires, to the oldest and most revered English-speaking University on the planet. I am just as excited now to introduce others to the benefits of learning through travel as I was when I stood on the bow of that ferry cruising to Victoria, British Columbia. The circle has come round. Moreover, my wife Sandie and I, after the Oxford Program ends, will travel to the beaches of Normandy in August, pay homage to those who died on D-day for us, and yes also visit Madame Wagnon’s home town, Mere-Sainte Eglise, where I will not only order our meals in French, but toast the locals as I thank them in their own language for remaining one of America’s oldest allies.
Stay tuned as I document the trip to Oxford and France! With some luck I will also post video-clips to give you a glimpse of our adventures in the hopes that someday, they may become yours. Thanks for reading, keep learning, and keep travelling! Ron Bee, June 21, 2022, San Diego California
