 An airline captain with Virgin America, Henry Biernacki has traveled to more than 120 countries and has lived in France, Germany, Taiwan, the West Indies and Mexico. When not in the cockpit of his Airbus 319/320, he takes time to visit his destination countries whenever possible. While there, no five-star hotels or limousines for him. Most of the time, he'll get on a plane the same way he boards a bus back home: backpack, clothes on his back and a few bucks in his pocket. For him, it isn't about seeing the world; it's about meeting the people along the journey.
"I found the one universal language is human kindness," says Biernacki. "Once you get past the politics and the religions and the cultures, people all around the world value pretty much the same things. They respect a hard day's work, learning about someone new and living a healthy pleasant life."
While he makes a living as a pilot, which affords him the ability to fly around the world, Biernacki feels that his real occupation is that of traveler. Here he expresses some thoughts for the traveling readers of Romar Traveler about his 'real' occupation.
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We humans do not lose the ability to learn as we grow older but as we become complacent with the status quo, the perspective of youth to remain open to anything or anyone we see as different may become atrophied. During my twenty years of traveling I have found that the reason I continue to ramble around the world lies in the intriguing and sometimes brilliant people I have met. They have shown me their cities and the hidden and less-visited parts of their countries, and I continue to find that it is the people themselves who are the most extraordinary parts of any country.
That realization seems to be difficult to explain to a non-traveler or to a novice one. This is why it is imperative to hold on to the curiosity that drives the traveler to take continual and subtle glimpses into the lives and customs of the amazingly diverse people who inhabit the same world in which we all live. The realization is inevitable that we are far more similar than different. |
North Korea could be a country most people would never fathom to visit. I, on the other hand, knew I had to see, touch, feel, taste and hear what lay within the borders of that secretive land. As an airline pilot flying international routes, I could not have gone to a 120 plus countries without learning how to communicate and connect with people.
Upon arriving in Pyongyang I met my three guides: Yu, An and Rim. Faced with language difficulties and a culture unknown to me, I fell back on a discovery I had made early in my travels: the encouragement of a gentle smile carries the message of an unspoken language that indicates immediate respect to the people of any culture. A smile draws people close, makes them want to speak and ask questions and it’s the first step in establishing a non-threatening relationship |
The Korean guides told me they were interested in meeting someone from the United States for the first time. Due to their controlling government, I was not sure which questions I could ask of them and which were off limits. When I ventured a question I watched their eyes for clues about the propriety of my curiosity. Their words said one thing and their eyes answered another way.
I was visiting North Korea to learn about their country and not to teach them about my own. They shared with me what they felt politically comfortable in revealing, and I discovered that the less I asked the more they shared of their true feelings. Instinctively we read each others body language and quickly established that it was a friendly language. How we look at a cross-cultural encounter may be different only because we are taught to create ideologies from a very early age that separate 'us' from 'them', making us feel as if these differences are absolutes in our lives. We need to adjust our thinking. |
The world is too crowded a place to escape the inescapable fact that we must all inhabit it together. When people travel for people and not just for escape, they can truly enjoy the moments shared in less-traveled parts of the world. For those people, it is not about work, religion or politics. To me, it is far deeper than this. It's about the internal connection between people. This is where it seems I have lived lifetimes in days and centuries in seconds and existed in wondrous moments with them.
We eat, drink, sleep, smile and talk. We all want security for our families. We all want a better life. If I had been born in North Korea, I would want all of those things just as I do now. My three guides and I spoke about many topics. It was not about agreeing on anything but rather it was about enjoying the moments. We learned we had very similar emotions about life. We did not care about who was right and who was wrong about any subject. The only response was if we enjoyed visiting with each other! |
I have never enjoyed hearing the words, "My culture, my country, my people" when so often said in ways which immediately alienate the listener, drawing distance between 'yours' and 'mine'. In addition, a world where oppressed people yearn for individuality and 'free' people are mired in debt for the 'things' with which they surround themselves, why would so many people rush to identify with a particular culture?
When I hear this from a traveler I ask, "Why are you busy promoting your cultural way of doing something? Are you so afraid of losing that identity?" Travelers who reveal such attitudes have been taught from an early age to use the word 'culture' as an excuse to accentuate their differences from lesser beings.
If I am home in the United States and I hear this from a visiting foreigner, I find it upsetting and can well imagine how these same people might feel when the tables are turned and we are in their countries. I already know that people, for all their basic similarities, are going to do things differently and solve problems in ways that suit them best. Please allow people to discover the interesting differences and respect the similarities while they travel. And you will find it natural to do the same when you travel. |
| As we grow older we all could learn how to retain the ability to integrate ourselves with people rather than constantly sending out sensors to detect our differences. Of course we think in our own way yet should not let superficial differences stop us from learning new ways of living. When it comes down to it, under our cultural skins, we are human beings |
PHOTO CREDITS: Title photo of Virgin America aircraft courtesy of Airlines&Destinations.com / Christian Gjelgaard.
All others, as noted.
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