How Intellectual Tourism Hurts Our Society

The idea of a ‘global village’ was once romantic to many who witnessed the rise of the internet and has remained highly appealing to the liberal-minded generation Z.  Study abroad programs, which were once affordable only to the privileged, are now part of many university curricula. My recent encounters as a law teacher in Berlin (Germany) with (aspiring) participants suggested that such programs can harm society by grooming morally arrogant and historically illiterate future leaders—bureaucrats, lawyers, and policymakers with shiny CVs who, despite their travels, remain ensconced within their ideology nurseries.

It was mid-October 2024. I arrived in the classroom early before my first lecture on freedom of expression. An exchange student from Spain, who also arrived early, introduced herself. Upon learning that I originated from Hong Kong, she revealed her plan to continue her master’s degree when she returned to Spain and then complete her second exchange semester in my birth city. Sensing her excitement, I asked her why she picked Hong Kong. She claimed to “love the city.”

I asked the student how much she knew about the place and whether she read about the democracy movement a few years back. She looked utterly lost. I was taken aback, as I did not believe that one can claim to “love” a place without at least some rudimentary knowledge of it. I tried my best to summarize Hong Kong’s history and politics in three minutes, highlighting the crackdown on its social uprising in 2019 and the dearth of academic freedom since then, well-documented in the news and survey reports. Looking confused and a little frightened, she revealed that her “love” of the city was based on what she saw in glossy program brochures. And no, she would not dare to question the authorities or say anything controversial if she goes there.

I reassured the student that I did not aim to discourage her from her pursuit. It has been argued that Hong Kong lawyers and academics, its legal scholars in particular, have largely turned into oxymorons, except for the courageous few who know how to navigate the system and express dissent in subtle ways. I nonetheless remembered the good things that remain and the decent people who still live there—which make Hong Kong lovable. I also believed that students can learn in highly unexpected places and from the most mediocre teachers and even random people. I simply could not help reminiscing about the old days, before the internet existed up until the time when most websites remained slow and basic, and when travel was a luxury to most. Back then, diligent students tended to value every news article, magazine, or book they got hold of, and saw foreign travel as an invaluable opportunity to fine-tune their knowledge. Now that the average person travels more and has instant access to information at their fingertips, it befuddled me that even the seemingly curious students could remain so uninformed about places in which they claim to profess an intellectual interest.

The Spanish student said she also considered an exchange semester in Taiwan. Her classmate, who has been listening, chimed in and said that even Taiwan might not be that safe. I smilingly replied that my friends in Taiwan did feel secure and comforted by the expectation that Trump, who is very pro-Taiwan, would be re-elected as the U.S. President in less than a month. The Spanish student instantly looked bewildered and worried. She muttered timidly, “Isn’t Kamala Harris going to win?”

Later that day, I found out that the student was already unenrolled from the course, which surprised me, as it has been quite rare for students to drop my courses so soon after the first classes. In retrospect, I realized that I confronted her with a complex reality that likely unsettled her. Since she dropped out, I had no way of knowing whether she followed through on her initial plan. If so, she might learn far more than what those brochures offered. Given that most students end up seeing what the universities want them to see, I am a little more inclined to believe that she would go on to write a glowing but hollow review, punctuated by cheery selfies, about the ‘hospitality’ of the city, the ‘great food,’ and the ‘warm’ people in her four-month stay, even if the same period witnessed the conviction of democracy activist Jimmy Lai and other happenings that only thoughtful, conscientious students would ponder over.

While the Spanish student seemed too timid to confront the truth and unenrolled from my course, one other student, also from continental Europe, carried a filter consisting of abstract theorization and unenrolled from the truth when it did not align with the filter. Near the end of that semester, I went slightly off topic by casually remarking that communism is evil and capitalism is the lesser evil of the two. Here came a sincere question by this student: Why is communism bad? While it did not work in the former Soviet Union, she argued, the belief that it will not work in non-Western nations is deeply Eurocentric. While I remained open to different opinions, I was startled by the suggestion that whether the Gulag or the free person is superior is a matter of perspective. I asked her whether she had read Animal Farm. She answered in the affirmative, but then claimed that I should not conclude from a satire by a prominent anti-communist that communism is invariably evil.

I urged this student to go and touch the remnants of the Berlin Wall erected to prevent the brave souls from escaping from their supposed benefactor and converse with people who lived under the East German regime to regain some universal perspective. Deep down, I was sobbing fiercely. It dawned on me that the blood spilled to tear down the Wall has been, and will be, forgotten by many of the people the West is now training to lead. For these people, the suffering of my distant relatives in Asia is a ‘cultural difference’ deserving respect and tolerance, and my embrace of Enlightenment philosophers to be frowned upon and dismissed as ‘Eurocentric’ propaganda. The ‘global village’ is not a bridge: it has turned into a panopticon, erected by many ‘liberal-minded’ globalists, where truth is filtered through the tinted windows of a tour bus.

Yet, for every student who retreats behind the tinted windows of the tour bus, I see a quiet few who choose to get off and walk the gritty pavement. These are the realists who move past the brochure, stay when the conversation gets abrasive, and listen when the truth makes their blood boil. I can only hope for more students and teachers who will dismantle the panoptical nursery and make the university once again a place where the courageous can still learn to see the world as it truly is, rather than how they wish it to be.