Norman Sung

I started my first solo backpacking trip right after school and I have never really stopped. The world is one gigantic onion, and I wander both on the surface and to the infinite layers beneath. Museums are the inukshuks that guide me through that immense beauty and fascinating richness, through time, by connecting places, and focusing on themes.

I have visited many museums, and these serendipitous experiences have left an indelible mark on me: the dazzling glitter of the Treasury of National Jewels and the fine craftsmanship on display in the Carpet Museum in Tehran; the engaging curation of the Smithsonian in both the American History and the Air and Space museums; the fascinating artifacts in the Anatolian Civilizations Museum in Ankara that traces the course of history from the Neothlic to the Bronze Age with cuneiform tablets detail treaties and invoices between the Hittites, Assyrians and other peoples far beyond; the MoMA in New York in which modernist designs from 80 to 100 years ago remain elegant and avant-garde today; the outstanding collection of bronze works in Shanghai Museum that reflect Ancient Chinese history; Topkap? where the East meets the West; the National Museum where I saw Lucy and the Ethnology Museum just up the road in Addis Ababa with masinkos, water-tight baskets and beekeeping history that shaped the Highland Cultures of Ethiopia; the Gold Museum in Bogotá and the Anthropology Museum in México City that tell the other side of the story of the richness of the Americas...these are just a few of the many top of mind. But many smaller, lesser-known museums can be equally fascinating in immersing me in the place, such as the Anthropology Museum in Azapa, Chile that displays the world's oldest Chinchorro Mummies and the evolution of the region into part of the Tiwanaku federation high in the mountains, or in-situ museums such as the abandoned nitrate mining town of Humberstone in Chile and how resource extraction and rigid class structure shapes Chile till this day.

I will undoubtedly keep adding to the list. Many more miles, many more museums, yet to go. Virtual is a helpful brochure, it is not a substitute for the immersiveness of the physical. Go everywhere in the onion.