Many people, even in this day and age, are born, grow up, and remain in the same area all their lives.

I have a coworker here who is about my age and who has done just that. She has never lived anywhere else but this town, and aside from one trip up to Queensland once long ago, she has not gone anywhere. Camping trips for her quite literally involve packing up the stuff, driving about 500 metres up the road from where they live, and pitching the tent by the river for the weekend.

She asked me about the bears in Canada. She watches TV and has apparently seen shows where people get attacked by bears ... and came to the conclusion that Canada is crawling with bears and any encounter with a bear would end in death. So she wanted to know if I'd ever seen a bear, and how common they were. Obviously I'm alive so therefore, somehow I must not have encountered one. I told her that I've seen several bears in my life, some quite close up, and I did not feel that any of the encounters were dangerous.

Still, she made the comment that she was glad I was here in Australia now where I'd be safe. So I told her that the impression of Australia in Canada is that it is crawling with poisonous snakes and spiders, and that you can't go a day without encountering one and being in a life threatening situation. She thought about it a moment and then laughed.


When I lived in Manitoba, I encountered numerous people who were born, raised, and remained in Manitoba all their lives. It seemed that was a very common trait of many Manitobans. If they went anywhere it was to the cottage at the lake 50 or 100 km away, and that's as far as they went. When I talked to someone there, I could usually tell within minutes whether they were born-and-bred Manitobans or were like me (imported) based on their view of the world. The born-and-bred ones exhibited a certain degree of negativity and apprehension about anywhere outside of Manitoba.

The extent of this really surprised me when one of my older coworkers and I were talking about my upcoming first trip to the UK. He was very worried about me going there and didn't think I should because ......... of the war going on over there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! War?? In the UK in 2002????

But that's the sort of perspective many of them had about the world ... whatever little bit of information they got from TV, newspapers, old books, or whatever, and quite often that information tends to be a bit frightening.


We have a completely different perspective because we've lived and travelled in various places.