How place influenced people
A place, with its distinctive features, always contains some characteristics that can reflect both mental pursuits and physical conditions for the residents of it. As a result, the place one lives in also shapes one’s identity. Last but not least, there is an important emotional component to the relationship between self and place, because each person stays in a place for a time and gains his or her own unique memories that make the place much more important. Even place can shape a person’s philosophy and his or her view of the world. Place is one thing around us that we can feel and we always talk about, but I still wan to describe more characteristics about it.
Place, abstract but meaningful, is usually compared to space. Although some people think place is totally different from space, I want to insist that space is unstable like a kind of movement but when space makes a pause place comes out, which means space is huge and place should be relatively small. In our daily life, we use our ears, eyes, and hands to hear, see, and touch the world nearby in order to get the sense of space. According to that, space is cerebral, place is experiential, and they need each other in order to exist. “For Augustine the value of place was borrowed from the intimacy of a particular human relationship; place itself offered little outside the human bond.”(Tuan, 136-148) Space is thus made into place through human intervention.
What makes place different from space is experience. “The relations of space and place. In experience, the meaning of space often merges with that of place. ‘Space’ is more abstract than ‘place.’ What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value.” (Tuan, 3-18) Place plays central roles in human biographies, for the reason that people endow place with value by leaving lots of memories. Though some might argue that two people who grow up around the same environment may have the same view towards a place, in my mind, no two people will have exactly the same experience of a place. Seen as a collectively generated entity of each person, place is frequently portrayed as a weaving together of various individual experiences, so we will say place has its uniqueness. Furthermore, people in different ages should also have different understandings of the same place. For children, the world is huge and place is deeply felt in their childhood. However, as they grow up, they start to extend their old ‘world’ to a new one by travelling to more outside places or meeting more unfamiliar people, which also causes place do not have influence on adults as strong as on children. In conclusion, the impression about a place will last longer and be more intense for a child, so our most unforgettable places should always be the places we grew up.
To put it another way, place different from space can be viewed in different scales. Homeland and home are important types of place. The removal from place, and even more so the removal of place, or even the prospect of an unfamiliar place, can induce emotions of anxiety, dread, terror, and even panic amongst humans. As an animal with emotion, humans have the elemental need for a place known to provide them with some familiar things that help them get comfortable. According to that, homeland is put into a position where people often regard it as the most valuable place. Jhumpa Lahiri writes, “It is generally cold, and full of rust-colored seaweed. Still, I prefer it. The waters of Rhode Island, as much a part of the state’s character if not more, as the land never asked us questions, never raised a brow.” (Jhumpa Lahiri, Rhode Island) In this case, although Lahiri at first thought she was not suitable to Rhode Island and even hated it, Lahiri still preferred Rhode Island and she with her parents even lived here for decades. I really agree with Lahiri that a place where you live for a long time becomes your haven no matter what you think from the beginning. As a result, I feel that homeland might not be the place where you are born, but it should be seen as the place where you grow up with lots of memories. Human groups nearly everywhere tend to regard their own homeland as the center of the world. As for me, I am now an international student studying abroad in America. To be honest, I have been in Atlanta for almost one year, and my feelings towards this place have gone from unfamiliar at first to accustomed now. However, I still cannot compare it to my hometown for the reason that in my hometown there are my family and relatives, my schools before, my friends and so on. My homeland, where I lived for nearly 18 years, heard and saw too many stories of mine. And when I went back to my hometown, I felt comfortable and relaxed by everything familiar. This kind of attachment to the homeland appears to be a worldwide phenomenon. It is not limited to any particular culture and economy. I think it is even known to people literate and illiterate, rich and poor, and young and old.
Beyond homeland, if we continue to reduce the scale of place we will finally get one of the most special kinds of place, home. Home, different from homeland, can be even smaller and more constricted but let you feel safe, warm, cozy and every word you can think about basic human needs. Home is often understood as a place belonging to someone and able to exclude certain people. Different from many people who regard home as a place, I would like to define it as a feeling. The reason why you will get such feelings when you are at home is that your families are here, rather than the structure of building, the things bought in your house, the property you maintain. Why people as students abroad will feel lonely sometimes? It is not because they do not have friends; on the contrary, most of them, usually outgoing and outstanding in schoolwork, do have lots of friends. It is also not a result of lack of money or a safe shelter. In my mind, I think families make a home, no matter where you live. For example, although you may be in a place where you are not familiar with its culture, language and people nearby, if you can meet your parents daily or even once a week you will never feel lonely at all. As for the reason why you will be like this, it is because there is love in a home between you and your families. Most of people, living with parents in a home for several years, should regard home as the most important place. For human as one of mammals, home always represents the base and protector and can encourage them to go ahead, which leads home to a significance position.
Ultimately, although place is abstract and hard to be seen or felt, it includes many of different specific types of existing ways around our lives. A more realistic treatment of love in relationship to place may be found with landscapes of memory, and such memory put with emotion connect people tightly with place. The nature of the human need for place is an innate component of the human soul. According to that, different places do not only shape people with different habits and lifestyles but also build their philosophy and value.
Works Cited
Yifu Tuan, “The relations of space and place. In experience, the meaning of space often merges with that of place. "Space" is more abstract than "place." What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value.” Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Paperback, February 8, 2001. 3-18 (Introduction & experiential perspective) Patricia L. Price, “indeed, the uniqueness of place is such that no two people will have exactly the same experience of place.” Chapter 13, Place. The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to cultural Geography, First Edition. Edited by Nuala C. Johnson, Richard H. Schein, and Jamie Winders. 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 119-129. Yifu Tuan, “Human groups nearly everywhere tend to regard their own homeland as the center of the world” Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Paperback, February 8, 2001. 149-160(Attachment to homeland) Jhumpa Lahiri, “it is generally cold, and full of rust-colored seaweed. Still, I prefer it. The waters of Rhode Island, as much a part of the state’s character if not more, as the land never asked us questions, never raised a brow” Rhode Island. Identity, A Reader for Writers, John Scenters-Zapico. Publication Date – December 2013. Paperback. |