subject: Dangers And Mysteries Of The East [print this page] The East has forever been a region of mystery so to speak, particularly for the western man. Stories about Eastern countries forever tend to have an air of mysticism. In movies, the wise man of the story is almost forever of oriental origin and forever speaks in riddles. As a matter of fact, had Yoda been human, he would most absolutely have been oriental.
Where do these stereotypes initiate from? A grouping of things, most probably. First of all oriental people tend to look more stern appearance-wise. Secondly, the traditions of Eastern countries is extremely different compared to that of the West, combine that and the truth that Eastern doctrines generally have a lot of metaphysical overtones and metaphors, thus making the comparatively false, yet compelling illusion of wisdom along the lines of strong with the force young Skywalker is.
Whatever the fact may be, this poetical wisdom together with the stunning nature found in lots of Eastern countries, make them extremely well-liked places for a vacation and with excellent reason.
Eastern countries are loved by travelers because many of them think their culture a higher one in its close relation to spiritual teachings. Throughout the past 50 years due to the growing disappointment with Western culture, travels or even pilgrimage to the East started to seem to like a way of escaping from the material world that surrounds us daily. It makes us feel important, like we are doing something that is meaningful. Many have selected to join cults for this reason, except for those of us with more sophisticated taste, evangelism is too cliche and politically motivated. It lacks the feeling of being something from out of this world. All of this recent fame of the East is relatively frankly a pointer of the discontent with our meaningless lives. In a way it is factual, the East is a newly developed region, and so ancient traditions are still alive in lots of places. The understanding, however, that it is as well a means to profit is crucial at least to those, who are capable of rationality.
The good-looking nature just adds to the overall feeling of mysticism in the East, since a higher path of thinking is stereotypically existent only in an very old environment, being close to such places, seen in all those movies has both a romantic and a metaphysical issue. It just seems way more real.
The people as well play a huge role in this grouping. Westerners feel as much at home in the East as Pat Buchanan does in a gay bar (or do not they?!?!), that is mainly due to the completely different way orientals appear to the white man. They seem in harmony with the environment and the wisdom, or minimum one assumes that they are.
The fact is fairly possibly one that is displeasing to say the least. Though spiritual teachings are a personal thing, the truth that these are used to profit from others is not individual at all. This however is just unsafe in a moral way. There are serious threats in the east, for example disease.
