My daughter Emily took a trip with her husband, children, and parents-in-law to India, where her husband has many relatives. During the three-week trip, I was very happy to be able to follow her travels through photos and writing she shared on Facebook. Her Facebook posts took a form that made me think of William Stafford’s poem, “Things I Learned Last Week,” and the way I use that poem’s writing strategy to help people find the specifics in their experience. I invited Emily to talk about her strategy with Writing It Real members.

Sheila
Let’s start at the beginning. How did you get the idea to write “Today I Learned…” posts?

Emily
We started our trip in Mumbai where we had the good fortune to stay with Vijay’s cousin and her husband. They were very keen to teach us about their city and their country. Our first day there, I learned surprising facts and I wanted to post the information on Facebook. I had known that on Twitter, TIL means “Things I Learned” and is used in a self-deprecating way as if to say “Duh! I should have already have known that,” but I had the phrase in my head, and it felt like a good way to share my experiences with my Facebook friends. Here’s that first post I made:

12/11/12 Today I learned: In Maharashtra a permit is required to *drink* alcohol, though this is largely ignored and people just pay fines (bribes?) on the rare occasions that it is enforced. Also, leopards live in the national park visible from Vijay’s cousin’s house. Development has encroached on the park and the leopards don’t have enough prey, so some mornings people in the buildings closest to the park (not this one) find leopards prowling around in their lobby.

Sheila
How did that original post lead to daily posts starting using this TIL strategy? 

Emily
I had a particular friend back in the States who wanted to hear my impressions of India while they were fresh. We didn’t have many chances to chat with each other online while I was traveling (especially given the time difference!), and posting about what I learned each day was a way to give her a short version, at least, while it was new and striking to me. Facebook is wonderful for that purpose.

Sheila
Writing about what you learned, rather than what you did, brings the reader along with you on the trip in a way that feels more grounded and more interesting than a travelogue about where you went in what order. Of course, much of what you learned was from where you went, so those reading your posts certainly didn’t miss out on learning more about where you went and what you saw; the learning aspect kept the posts interesting. Of course, I read them, being one of your Facebook friends.

How do you think the “Today I Learned” prompt shaped what you decided to share in those posts?

Emily
Once I decided to make these kinds of post a daily habit, I started looking for things to learn throughout the day. I’d ask myself, “What in all the experiences I was having did I note learning something that was of personal interest to me?” Sometimes, the learning was from people explaining things to me, but not every day involved a tour guide (or relative interested in playing tour guide), and so then the learning was more about direct perception. Here’s an entry from a day spent in transit, first on a long flight from Mumbai to Kochi, and then a very long drive through very windy roads up to the hill station resort of Munnar:

12/15/12 Today I learned: Rolling hills covered with tea bushes look remarkably like giant turtles. Also: There are also quiet places in India. Finally, one extra one from yesterday: Our networked world makes for an impressive amount of shared reference between my son Toby and his cousins in India. They quizzed each other on Harry Potter and then danced to Gangnam Style together.

Framing things in terms of what I learned definitely gives an unusual perspective to the writing — like taking a close-up photo of the underside of a flower departs from the expected depiction.

Here’s my entry from the day we got to ride on the back of domesticated elephants:

12/18/12 Today I learned: It’s prudent to remove all photos from the memory card in the camera before entering the wildlife preserve. Also: Elephants have 10,000 muscles in their trunks. Finally: Modern mahouts are not only trained in the care & handling of elephants, but also in the use of digital cameras.

It also changed the structure of what I was writing. I found myself writing a lot of very long sentences with something of a punch line at the end. I think this is because I needed to squeeze in enough background information that my friends could understand what it was I had learned even though they didn’t have the context. The building lobby entry I shared above is like this. The last part of this entry is another example:

12/12/12 Today I learned: In Mumbai and Pune and maybe other parts of India, honking means “I am here!” and “Coming through!” and not “Get outta my way!” or “You idiot!”. This is probably why trucks all say above the back bumper “Horn OK Please”. Also, I am able to eat an entire meal of curry & rice with my hands without getting the scarf of my salwar set dirty. Finally: when coming to India for the first time after marrying into an Indian family, even if said wedding was 12 years ago, one extra suitcase for carrying things back is not enough.

Sheila
That, in fact, is an excellent writing exercise! I am glad you see how the parameters and constraints helped you sharpen your writing.

Were there any times when it was a challenge to frame your post for the day as something learned?

Emily
Definitely. Our trip was quite varied — some days spent with family, some days spent doing tourist activities with guides, and some days reserved for just relaxing in resorts, or in one case, on a houseboat. The houseboat was luxurious but also felt very much a part of the place (the Kerala backwaters). How could I think of this as something I learned? It turned out that what I learned about in that case was a particular kind of relaxation. Here’s my post from that day:

12/19/12 Today I learned: Taking a nap not only on the upper deck of a houseboat in the Kerala backwaters under the roof woven from bamboo, coconut husk rope, and palm fronds, but on the part of the bench right at the edge of that roof so that while the rain plays its song on the roof it also sprinkles your arms and forehead is very relaxing.

But the day that I spent just at the very fancy hotel in Kochi (staying back with the kids when Vijay and his parents did that days’ visiting), I felt like I didn’t get much of a chance to learn about India. That day’s post was the only one that didn’t start with “Today I Learned”:

12/25/12 Today was a rest day for the kids and me, spent entirely at the hotel. (Vijay and his parents visited Amma’s professor in the afternoon.) The hotel is lovely and relaxing, but something of a bubble … there’s less to learn here. One thing I have learned is that it seems that when someone is treated as important here, what is protected is their effort (rather than, say, their time). Tonight this was confirmed for me in the Chinese/Thai restaurant in the hotel when I reached for the dish that my duck with water chestnuts came in, planning to add a few water chestnuts to my plate. I had barely reached my hand in that direction when a waiter sprinted over to serve me some more (duck included, of course).

Sheila
You also have learned that relying on specific images and details with sensory information is going to lead to finding out what you learned. The entry about napping is poetic and has that little edge of surprise coming from the sprinkling of water, not something you feel everyday and something that helped you understand the mood and ambiance of Kerala. Nice!

When you didn’t think you had anything you’d learned at the fancy hotel, you realized it felt like a bubble–probably a bubble of familiarity since it must have been like other hotels in other places. When you searched your experience using your strategy of TIL, you found that you saw something unexpected in what seemed familiar and that the custom meant your intentions were misunderstood to a degree — wanting the water chestnuts rather than duck, too. So this makes me see that you were learning about customs and expectations and how there can be so much overlooked when people are assigned roles, you the important guest, the waiter being a good one.

Emily
I was feeling a little bit grumpy about being stuck in the bubble that day, and writing the TIL entry helped me realize that even there I was able to keep learning about the country I was visiting, and the importance of seeing the people in interactions, even when the interactions feel very scripted.

Sheila
How many TIL posts did you make in all?

Emily
I managed to do them each day of the trip — there are 20 in all. I didn’t have internet access on the houseboat or a couple of other days, but by then I had the habit established, so I wrote the TIL and then posted them to Facebook the next time I did get on the internet.

Sheila
Do you think you’ll do more of this kind of writing?

Emily
Yes, I think I will try to do it on our up-coming family trip to Japan. That one will be different, because Japan won’t be as new to me. I learned a lot living there when I was an exchange student in college. But I’m sure there will still be new things to learn about Japan, about traveling with my family, and about how my kids in particular react to traveling to a country where they have been studying the language for a few years.

You visited me in Japan when I was an exchange student there. I’ll write a retrospective “TIL” from one of our days there:

TIL: When you’ve arrived in a new city and checked into the Japanese inn and another Western tourist invites you to join her in her cab to check out a once-per-year festival that just happens to be going on in only a few minutes, it is definitely worthwhile to go. Also: While most of the wooden temples in Japan have burned down and been reconstructed at least once, this side temple of Todaiji in Nara, which has the annual festival we saw — in which monks parade out and then run back and forth along a balcony with bunches of burning pine boughs suspended by bamboo poles out over the railing — hasn’t burned down once in 1,204 years, and it is believed, of course, that this festival has ensured that. And if you are lucky enough to be there, it is prudent to position yourself under the balcony, as being hit by an ember from the pine boughs brings good luck.

Sheila
I remember that evening, how though we were tired, the other traveler’s insistence struck a chord with us. Here’s a TIL for you from that trip:

TIL: Although in Japan one cup of pressed coffee can cost over five dollars and entail an elaborate preparation ceremony, near almost every train station, there are Mister Donut (Misutã Dõnatsu) stores that serve coffee in mugs with refills to customers seated in orange molded plastic chairs just like at Dunkin’ Donuts, while familiar rock music with English lyrics plays in the background. If you are as lucky as I am, your daughter, who knows Japanese and has lived there, won’t belittle your desire and will not stop you. And she won’t find it too odd that you are suddenly zealously collecting little plastic characters given with purchases.

Have you taught the TIL exercise to your children?

Emily
They certainly enjoyed reading the ones that I wrote while we were in India. I haven’t asked them to write any yet, but we have a family tradition of keeping “trip diaries”, which we will continue on our trip to Japan, and I will ask if they want to try writing TIL’s for any of their entries.

Sheila
You are a professor of linguistics. I am wondering if you can see an academic occasion for writing this way or a way to use this as an exercise for students in your field?

Emily
I think this exercise is particularly good for short-form writing, which is not usually something I ask of my students. I do, however, have an assignment that I use in all of my seminars called “KWLH”. At the beginning of the term, I ask them to write about what they already know that’s relevant to the class (K) and what they want to learn from it (W). Then at the end of the term, they write two more parts: what they learned (L) and how they will apply it in their research (H). The goal of this assignment is to encourage the students to take ownership of their engagement with the class. By reflecting on what they already know and hope to learn at the beginning, they create a better framework in which to integrate what they are studying. By articulating what they have learned at the end, they reinforce that learning. And my hope for the “H” part is that it will help the students see the relevance of what they have studied to their larger research goals and thus make the class more useful.

One of the things I love about travel is learning: about different places, languages, cultures and (as a German friend of mine puts it) how other people “organize their world”. As with more formal studying, the reflection that comes with writing can help me deepen and retain these lessons. I’m not a writer by trade, though, and so don’t usually write just for myself. The ability to share what I’m experiencing with an audience (in this case, through Facebook) is just the motivation I need to take on the assignment.

Sheila
Thanks, Emily. I am as always impressed by your writing and your teaching and I appreciate your method of travel writing. I think that many of us might use the TIL approach to recording what snags our attention as we travel — whether that is away from home or during the course of our days. Again thanks for a great idea and for your examples. I learned (again!) that I have a daughter whose perceptions and sharing offer enrichment and delight.