Over dinner in Bangkok, while drooling over the best crab angel hair pasta ever at Il Bolognese, our conversation inevitably moved to travel. The three of us, all working in the travel industry, had flown in from different places, one from Taipei, one from India and myself from Singapore via Hong Kong and Seoul.
Brussels had just happened. The EgyptAir loonybin hijack story had just occurred. In Taipei, a horrific and random beheading of a little girl named Little Light Bulb by a deranged man had just taken place.
“Do you notice how these days when you go on a trip, people say ‘safe travels’ now?” reflected Morris Sim, CEO of Brand Karma. We all nodded. Uttara Sarkar Crees had just been in India where one day, when she was in Mumbai airport, she was advised there had been several bomb threats and there was stepped up security everywhere.
Just as the greeting of “How are you?” changed to “Where are you?” when mobile phones changed our lives, this is the new greeting for the world we live in today.
Just in case you are not convinced, this antique lift in Saigon reassures you three times that it’s safe to use.
Random acts of violence by loonies have always been there, I guess. Just that we now hear about it instantly and the entire drama is played our real-time with social media allowing every man and his dog a platform to voice their opinions, and so we all get caught up in the emotion of it.
The Brussels bombings were a shocker. At the airport, no less. The place where all travellers congregate. A shut down of an airport literally means a shut down of a country.
And it leaves everyone saying, “It could have been me.” Any of us who travel frequently could have been at that place at that time when something horrific happens.
Life has always had its risks – more accidents happen at home than anywhere else. And as I am writing this in Saigon, I am aware that there are probably more risks associated with crossing the road here than anywhere else.
Saigon, caught at a rare moment of light traffic. Usually crossing the road here is fraught with risks if you aren’t used to it.
But there is no doubt that travel seems to be so fraught with more risks these days, not only with random acts of insanity but systematic and coordinated acts of terrorism that could happen anywhere.
In Singapore, a survey showed 50% of Singaporeans believe an attack on its soil is inevitable.
At airports now, you also see other signs of travel risks. You are warned about Zika, MERS and SARS. It’s changed that first impression travellers get about a destination when we land.
The queue at immigration at Incheon Airport, Seoul
Landing in Seoul, and waiting for an hour to get through immigration, I had plenty of time to read those signs and looking at the crowds of tourists waiting to get in – China makes up one-third of inbound arrivals to South Korea – I thought, there is no way a couple of signs will stop a virus if it wants to sneak in.
In medicine, we are told that if a new virus infects your body, your whole system has to coordinate a response to it – not just one part of the body, but your entire immune system.
Today’s random acts of violence would appear to need that kind of response, from all of us. I think we can no longer rely on governments, authorities and institutions to keep us safe – they can to a certain extent and put in the basics necessary – but as Brussels showed, no amount of mental preparedness and intelligence gathering and sharing can prevent something from actually happening.
This new virus is way too smart, too embedded in our societies, communities, villages, for the higher-ups to contend with on their own.
What this means is we all have to be vigilant, when we travel as well as where we live. Our whole society has to respond to this new virus. That crazy guy you hear screaming in your apartment above – should you take notice or dismiss him? That stray bag you see anywhere? Should you report it or walk by and hope someone else will do it.
Perhaps all of us could learn from the mother, Claire Wang, whose four-year-old daughter was slain in Taipei. Calling for calm from an enraged public who wanted the assailant executed immediately, she said, “This is not a problem that can be solved by passing a law. I hope we can address the problem from its root, from the perspective of family and education, so that there will no longer be people like him (the perpetrator) in our society.”
We certainly shouldn’t stop travelling because that’d be like stopping life. But safe travels, my friends.