To entertain Brandon and myself at breakfast one morning, I began looking up words in other languages that don’t translate directly into English. Some of my findings, such as kummerspeck, a German word that literally translates to “grief bacon” but means something more like “eating one’s feelings,” cracked us up. Another German word, waldeinsamkeit, or the feeling of contented solitude that comes from being alone in the woods, made us wonder why such words do not exist in our native tongue.
One word stuck with me in relation to our conversations about being travelers or tourists:
Dépaysement (French)- The feeling of not being in one’s home country; often described as a “fish out of water” feeling
This word got me thinking about whether this feeling is universal. Does the seasoned traveler become immune to this feeling, or does it always smack you in the face, if not just for a second, when in a country that is not one’s home?
It also got me thinking about the connotation of this particular word. The feeling of not being in one’s home country can be enlightening, lonely, joyous, overwhelming, etc., but in terms of this word we deal with the uneasy feeling of being outside of one’s comfort zone. This lack of comfort can make us search for the familiar, to draw inward.
This is where the traveler/tourist ideas come to play. Obviously, the longer that one spends outside of their home country, the more they feel comfortable in a new space and culture. I believe, though, that one of the strengths of the traveler is the ability to transcend this “fish out of water” feeling and embrace the strangeness and unfamiliarity of new surroundings.
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Some other cool words I found during my research:
Iktsuarpok (Inuit)- going outside to check if anyone is coming
Cafuné (Brazilian Portuguese)- running your fingers through someone’s hair
Komorebi (Japanese)- sunlight coming through tree leaves
TravelWritingAcrossEurope 