National Geographic Traveler Magazine

First Place

Tiananmen Square, China

By Seth Walker

A University of Oregon student gets an unexpected surprise as he honors kindred spirits who demonstrated for freedom.

I thought the guard might shoot me.

I stood there, in Tiananmen Square, images of China's bloody 1989 student repression fresh in my mind, facing the guard. He held a Soviet-era AK-47 across his chest. I held a bag containing a Frisbee.

It was the 1990s, and I had come to see a country in the raw, a China fresh from the ominous Soviet shadow. China desired a greater place on the world stage and the riches associated with it. It was a unique time in history and, though I was a poor college student, I wanted to see it firsthand.

My first self-assigned mission in China was simple: Do something, some show of freedom and fun, a symbolic act, in honor of the fallen Tiananmen students. As the guest of a knowledgeable American in Beijing, I had heard details about their bravery in the face of impending doom as they called for greater freedoms.

In honor of the students, I would throw a Frisbee across the square. I didn't know how the guards would react. In 1989, students demanding more freedoms, including freedom of expression, were met with machine-gun fire there.

I arrived by overcrowded bus and stepped into the Beijing street. Tiananmen is designed to intimidate, and it does; its enormity as the world's largest public square, its forbidding walls, its brutal history.

As I leaned over to pull the Frisbee from my bag, I felt the guard's presence to my right. I stood slowly, first noticing his shiny boots, then the tip of his rifle.

I smiled. He didn't. I slowly reached into the bag, removed the disc, and gently mimicked a throw to him. He looked quizzically at his fellow guard, who was also holding an AK-47.

As he turned back toward me, a sideways grin crossing his face, he shrugged his broad shoulders, strapped his rifle to his back, and jogged away in anticipation of the throw.

With his partner at the ready, a finger near the trigger of his rifle, I let the disc fly. The guard leapt for the catch, his green uniform tugging at its seams.

He missed the catch, but he didn't miss the point. We were two strangers from worlds apart taking a chance on one another, each at risk in our own way. But we sensed then, if only for an instant, that the most rigid orders, the most brutal history, cannot withstand the power of human connection and freedom, or the desire to have a bit of fun.

Second Place

Port Elizabeth, South Africa

By Simon Niccolo Francesco Isaacs

A Middlebury College student journeys halfway around the world to study the AIDS epidemic and finds hope in the most unlikely of places.

My grandmother often said that Vermont's snow fools us into thinking that all are blanketed in happiness and that everything is right with the world.

Conscious of this scrim, during the summer following my junior year, I traveled to the shantytowns surrounding Port Elizabeth, South Africa, to study the HIV/AIDS epidemic. I hoped to transcend the faceless numbers and charts of my studies and enter into a world that breathes, sweats, and loves. I expected to witness the terror and injustice of HIV/AIDS; but amidst the chaos and brutality, I found hope and beauty.

I planned to donate a box of used children's books—classics from my childhood including Green Eggs and Ham and James and the Giant Peach—to the Emfundweni Primary School. Along the road there, I saw hand-painted billboards that advertised everything from used cars to Coca-Cola. Every so often, a sign would read "Funerals, coffins, adults, children, and infants, affordable, accidents, HIV/AIDS, call..." Death had woven itself into the everyday fabric of this community.

I arrived in time for the morning assembly in the dusty school yard. Two hundred children, all in blue uniforms, stood tall in lines of ten singing beautifully in unison. Many of those children were certainly AIDS orphans, some likely carried the virus, and others would probably become infected. But I saw happy children, not victims. The music grew louder with each verse. The teachers joined the ceremony, singing and dancing. The school principal quieted the children, opened the box of books, and introduced me. Students were called upon to say something about the donation. I felt ashamed to have only one box.

I was then asked to offer my own thoughts. What could I say that would mean anything at all? Standing alone, I felt vulnerable. I came to observe. Now I was the spectacle. I looked down at the books. One of Dr. Seuss's colorfully illustrated covers caught my eye. I began with a favorite Seuss quote, "Oh, the places you'll go, you have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself any direction you choose."

"The magic of books," I continued, "is that they can take you to far-off lands and to distant realities, no matter who you are, or where you live. When we read, we share the same emotions, go to the same places, we are all equal."

My former employer, the Global Health Council, uses the phrase "... because there is no them, only us." Standing before me was not only the future of Port Elizabeth but of all people. In that school yard, I stumbled on laughter and music, on people living their lives and getting on with the business of growing up—a scene no different then at home. Somehow this chapter got left behind in the statistics of my books at home.

Third Place

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

By Holly Anne Stiles

A University of Montana–Western student forges a special friendship while on a photography trip to Cambodia.

In December 2002, I traveled to Cambodia to photograph the temples of Angkor. I quickly discovered the true beauty of the country lies not in the majestic stone wats but within the quiet strength and selfless hospitality of its people.

My first day in Siem Reap I unwisely hired a car and driver to take me to the more prominent temples in Angkor Wat. The heavily tinted windows of the vintage Toyota Corolla masked the Cambodian landscape, and the driver insisted they remain closed the entire day in a futile attempt to encourage cool air from the wheezing ventilation system.

At sunrise the next morning, I noticed the slender Mr. Heng perched on the seat of his brightly festooned tuk-tuk, or motorcycle, patiently awaiting clients. His kind eyes and bashful smile were engaging, and he offered his services without hesitating. Riding through the complex in the open air, sheltered from the sun's intensity by the tuk-tuk's canopy, proved such a welcome change from the confining car the previous day that I hired Mr. Heng's for the remainder of the week.

Surprisingly, when we returned to town that evening, Mr. Heng requested that I wait to pay him until the following day. I didn't understand his motives until he explained that if I waited, it would show that I trusted he would pick me up the next day, and that he trusted I would pay.

For the next week Mr. Heng collected me from my hotel early each morning, with a list of sites to show me. At the end of each day, he requested that I wait to pay him until the following day. But I gently forced the dollars into his hand, confident that he would pick me up the next morning, even if I didn't owe him money.

At sunrise on my final morning in Cambodia, Mr. Heng drove me slowly to the dock. Before I boarded the fast boat for Phnom Penh, he produced a bundle of bananas for my journey then shyly presented me with a farewell gift. I opened the box and gently lifted out a colorful, hand-woven krama (scarf). Wrapping the long cotton scarf around my neck, I silently, sadly shook his hand in parting. His compassionate eyes recognized my sorrow. His understanding smile heartened my spirit.

In this nation of people who possess so very little, I encountered unbelievable generosity and unexpected friendship. Mr. Heng survived the violence that claimed millions of others in Cambodia, and with his wife and three children, he is helping rebuild his war-torn homeland. He endures hardship and poverty everyday, yet he somehow found the means to afford this wonderful gift, a gift that acknowledged the bond we had forged.

I traveled to Cambodia for its history and beauty. I will return because of its people.