RIZAL: THE HERO AS TRAVELLER
When and Where
Description
While the words travel and tourism are often used interchangeably, there is a difference between the two: a tourist travels for leisure, he dips into a foreign culture but remains largely unchanged while a traveler aims for experience as a means of understanding himself in the context of the foreign. Every Filipino child knows that Rizal travelled a great deal when air travel was but a figment of the imagination, but what is not emphasized is how Rizal was formed by his exposure to other lands, peoples, and cultures. It is not well known that Rizal travelled to America, travelling by land from San Francisco to New York to catch a voyage to London. Looking back on Rizal’s travels helps us understand the hero, ourselves, and the emergence of the Filipino nation.
