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  • Love Really Makes the World Go Round

    2/12/201011:58:40 AM Link 1 comment | Add comment

    This month the Owner of Cultural Embrace, Emlyn Lee, was featured in Rare -a local Austin Texas Magazine. Read Emlyn's interview below, and the story behind the lady who daily inspires Cultural Embrace!

    As the founder of Cultural Embrace, an organization aimed at sorting out the intricacies involved in traveling abroad, Emlyn Lee knows that love comes in many flavors. Her dedications toward spreading awareness and acceptance of other cultures proves that there is no limit to the compassion of the human heart.

    Lee began Cultural Embrace in January of 2002, shortly after the tragic events of 9/11. In spite of many Americans' anxieties in the wake of such terrorism, she chose to help people overcome their newfound trepidations about crossing America's borders by promoting tolerance through foreign excursions and interactions with other societies.

    Now, almost a decade later, Cultural Embrace continues to nourish people's desire to explore the world around them. The organization helps travelers make all of the arrangements necessary to visit a foreign country, from finding a host family to getting a passport. Whether organizing work placements, English teaching positions, internships, vacations, or volunteer opportunities, Lee's brainchild fosters a comfortable safe environment free from the sink-or-swim mentality that often leaves travelers frantically flipping through an Italian-English dictionary in a crowded piazza.

    Instead of worrying about being in a strange land and having to journey from hostel to hostel, Cultural Embrace participants can focus on truly experiencing all that a country has to offer, from the food to the people. And, in doing so, they create a more personal experience as well.

    "When you are able to stop and breathe and take tha tplunge to go abroad- to go to the unknown- and take that risk of being outside your comfort zone, that's loving yourself," explains Lee. "That's being so comfortable and so secure of who you are, even when you're unsecure of what you're doing when you are abroad. It's saying hey, I want to do something different for my life and make a difference in somebody else's."

    Lee knows first hand what it means to touch another's life. She traveled extensively before starting Cultural Embrace, trying everything from teaching English in China to working on a riverboat. She also explored the finer side of the world travel via a position at a luxury tour company. But even in the face of wealth and leisure, she managed to zero in on the essence of the human spirit and bring joy to those in need. She recalls her time in Kenya, in particular, as a poignant reminder of why she places such high importance on traveling and experiencing different cultures.

    "One day I brought a suitcase full of clothes, vitamins, medicines, and school supplies, and ended up going to some orphanages with one of the [company] drivers," she says. "From that point on, I would actually take groups and ask the drivers to stop at these places if we could- at orphanages, villages, or schools- and it really became a highligh of these itineraries. I just realizd that, as amazing as these sights were that we would see, what is most impactful and really meaningful is that interaction with people."

    The interaction is so meaningful, in fact, that Lee is in the process of bringing a new element to Cultural Embrace- adopting villages. Locations in Kenya and Guatemala are at the top of her adoption list, and the endeavor is one of her primary goals for 2010. It is just one of the many ways that Lee strives to tear down the walls separating us and build bridges in their place.

    "When you're able to embrace other people's culture and diversity and say, okay, that person's different from me, but I'm going to embrace it, and love it, and grow from it- that's exactly how we have a more peaceful world, a more educated world, and just a better world," she says.

    In the world of Cultural Embrace, love is not just an emotion. it is seeing the Eiffel Tower for the first time, praising a Vietnamese student as he learns to conjugate verbs, and providing vitamins for a pregnant woman in a third-world country. It is, in the words of Lee, "expanding your eyes, your mind, and your heart," and learning to "discover the similarities and share the differences."

    So no matter where you travel or who you meet while there, one thing will always hold true- love really does make the world go round.

    Story Written By: Amy Wald, featured in the February 2010 issue of Rare magazine. Photo By Cory Ryan.

  • Jodi Lane

    4/19/201010:46:28 PM

    Emlyn- a friend just sent this to me, as so many of my friends do whenever they see the word Kenya! So proud of you and what you are doing. We should get together, we have lots of fun things happening these days as I'm sure you do too... glad to see you're getting recognition in such a beautifully described way. All the best! Jodi Lane

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