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If You Could Dig through the Earth to Another Country, Where Would You Go?

By 08/09/2018September 12th, 2018blogging
blogfest

If you could go through the Earth and end up in another country, where would you go?

BlogfestThis is the question author Sherry Ellis wants us to answer for her Where in the World Blogfest which coincides with the launch of her book: Big Dig to China.

Where would I go, if I could enter the Earth and emerge into another country, On the Other Side?

I live in Singapore, one of the safest and cleanest cities in the world, with one of the most efficient service industries found anywhere on this planet. It has its share of stressors, but I choose not to focus on them. I’ve been lucky enough to travel, but really can’t imagine a place I’d love to reach after digging across the breadth of Earth!

To be honest, the way we humans are treating this planet, each other, and all non-humans, I’d say let me off this planet.

Send me to a place with more compassion and less fear, more love and less judgment, more serenity and less anger, more greenery and less buildings, more beauty and less hate, more joy and less suffering. Maybe more animals. Less people.

I sound like a misanthrope, but I’m not. Nor do I think I have the skills to survive in a jungle (a skill I should dearly love to build though).

blogfestI just wish there were a country I could move to where humans don’t see themselves as separate from (and superior than!) Nature.

Where humility rules the day, where humans respect each other, plants, animals, and their roles in Nature.

This country only exists in my dreams, but I imagine it could be built towards, one step at a time.

There are places like Norway and Bhutan, considered happier than many, but with their own set of problems.

So, for now, my utopia remains an utopia. The only escape is through the world of imagination, through books, the kind Sherry Ellis offers in her wonderful new book.

Where would you go to, if you could go through the Earth and emerge in another country? Which countries do you admire? What do you most admire about the country you live in? What do you wish you could change?


I co-host the monthly We Are the World Blogfest: I’d like to invite you to join, if you haven’t as yet, to post Fvourite Placethe last Friday of each month a snippet of positive news that shows our essential, beautiful humanity.

This monthly event has brought smiles on the faces of a lot of participants and their audiences, and somewhat restored their faith in humanity. Here’s a sampler. Click here to know more. Sign up here and add your bit of cheer to the world on the next installment of September 28!

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Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is co-editor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her literary crime thriller series, the Blue Mumbai, is represented by Lucienne Diver from The Knight Agency. Both The Blue Bar and The Blue Monsoon were published in 2023.

I appreciate comments, and I always visit back. If you're having trouble commenting, let me know via the contact form, or tweet me up @damyantig !

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55 Comments

  • minamarini says:

    This is such a good post. I’d still love to visit Singapore one day! 🙂

  • I currently live in England which has its own huge share of problems but I happen to like this place because here people are soft-spoken, polite and respectful of each other at public places. Otherwise, like you, I will prefer the wonderful places from books.

  • Vidya Sury says:

    I totally like your answer, Damyanti. There are plus points and shortcomings with every place, and mostly the shortcomings are our own making as a society. I’d rather try and improve any perceived issue than move out. As for travel, of course yes. But, I’d always come back home to where I live. What a lovely blog hop!

  • vinodinii says:

    I wish I could dig my way into Alice’s wonderland. These things only exist in fairytales! I’m sure even outside this planet there are Aliens waiting to attack us! On a serious note, it’s alarming how we’re losing hope with our planet.

    • I’ll dig right with you to Wonderland!

      We’re destroying our planet, so losing hope is good—maybe we will wake up to how we’re engineering our own extinction on this planet.

  • sumandray says:

    Nice to read your wish but you know there is plenty of good remaining in this world too. Won’t fun going there with the same set of living beings.
    I personally would like to get back to a place where people know people, they know their neighbors and treat them as extended family and they smile only when they mean it.
    I would love to get out of this Facebookian world where every one likes everything that others do while not meaning any of those appreciations…
    Cheers!

    • Damyanti Biswas says:

      Absolutely agree that there’s a lot of good in this world–that sense of community and fellow-feeling is something I long for, too. Living in a big city has its down sides.

  • Rachna says:

    Interesting question and very well answered. I think every place has its own issues. Perhaps another planet will be better. But then if so many of us move there then it will become another Earth.

  • John Maberry says:

    Well, probably not to the antipodal point in the Indian Ocean near a village on an island part of Mauritius. Have to give this more thought!

  • I once saw a plaque that said small towns were like big families. I think that’s why I like living small. There is more human connections, and more gossip. But hey, like you said, nothing in this world is perfect.

    • I do crave human connections sometimes: a lot of my online life is about that. I met a blog friend irl this week, and I was so happy for that sense of connect.

  • I’m currently staying in the US. Being Indian I always want to go back to my country but given a chance to dig earth then I would go to Italy! Pictures are too beautiful.. But for a very short period of time 😀

  • With so much chaos around and almost loosing faith in humanity, your wishes talk about hope and dreams. Singapore undoubtedly is on my top list too.
    loved this post of yours .

  • Modern Gypsy says:

    A country that’s in tune with nature, where humans treat one another with kindness and compassion – that’s my dream country too. Alas, I don’t think it exists, and they way we are going, I don’t think it ever will. 🙁

  • DJ Cockburn says:

    I don’t believe that country exists, has ever existed or will ever exist unless some of us get our act together and build it. Which is a terrifying enough thought that I want to dig a bunker to hide in rather than a tunnel to escape through.

    • We can build it, can’t we? I think of my blog as a small community/ country where people come with the best of themselves: I’ve received so much kindness and compassion via this space.

  • Natasha says:

    Hi D,

    Love your Utopian world, do take me along too.

    I quite enjoyed living in SG, but the Philippines was a personal favourite with the easy going attitudes and the great set of people I knew there. I really don’t know where I would love to live, but maybe a land minus hate, terrorism, politics, bloodshed. Maybe Galapagos, where I could be one with the flora and fauna.

    • Hiya, Singapore is a good place, really. Just that it is very small and tends to get very stressful at times.

      I really enjoyed my time in Malaysia: but that could be because my time there was spent in a bubble of kind friendships.

      If I find Utopia, you’ll definitely receive an invite 🙂

  • Bikramjit says:

    I don’t understand why we are destroying life in this planet and searching life in other planet. I wonder after what we are running and what is running after us. Why we are running after glitters. People are in severe chronic stress in today and rate of heart disease increases day by day. I feel respecting the nature gives a balance to the life, love, happiness, peace more. Disobeying the law, nature will punish human. I feel people are realizing, awareness is very much needed. Thanks for sharing.

    • All our running after external glitter is because we’ve managed to disengage from the harmony of nature.

      We’re animals, first and foremost, and part of nature’s cycle. The sooner we engage back with our true reality, the faster we will begin to heal our selves and this planet.

  • I like your escape, Damyanti–through writing. And books. I don’t know that mankind can fix what’s going on. We are a fairly flawed species. Fixing stuff like this might be outside of our toolkit.

    • Damyanti Biswas says:

      I agree with what you say, but we also have some amazing individuals and groups on our planet working tirelessly towards the positive and the good.
      I wish I could populate my utopia with those alone, but the Universe works on the principle of balance between opposites–for every good there has to be a bad.

  • Soumya Prasad says:

    As much as Czech Republic and Austria tempt me, I’m on team “Get me off this planet” too.

    I want to live in a peaceful country without any drama and politics, without hatred and people judging each other. I doubt if such a place ever exists on this earth now.

    • Damyanti Biswas says:

      It exists in our imaginations and our dreams, and that’s the first step to making such a country a reality!

  • I am on team ‘Get me off this planet”

    Ironically, I would have loved to have lived in Singapore!

    • Damyanti Biswas says:

      I live in Singapore, and it is literally the world’s safest country, I think. It is definitely the world’s most expensive, which often wants me to dig my way out of here lol.

      If I find a safe, ethical way of getting off this planet other than kicking the bucket, I shall send you an invite, Doc Roshan!

  • Maybe this is why we’re writers. We can create Utopia, if we want to, whenever we need to – at least on the page and in the mind.

    • Damyanti Biswas says:

      Yes. When I need to escape, I sometimes do create such a world.

      Most often though, I escape into a world created by another writer–I think I’ll always remain more of a reader than a writer.

      • You know that I don’t believe you can BE a writer if you’re not an avid reader, first and foremost. I think you’re both. But you’re a GENEROUS reader and a SUPPORTIVE writer, and that is rare and special.

        • I’ve received a lot of generosity from this blog’s readers, and a lot of support from other writers.

          I don’t think I manage to give back even a fraction of what I receive, but I try my best.

  • Amrita says:

    I kind of like Mother earth and Mother India with all its trouble.I cannot imagine living away from the earth ,sky and trees of India.Interesting post.

    • Damyanti Biswas says:

      Amrita, I hear you. I’m the same way about this planet–but if I’m asked whether I’d like to dig and emerge into another country, my answer would be Utopia.

      No country on this planet has the peace, compassion, greenery and love that I find myself craving most days.

      That country exists within, I think, within each of us. We just need to dig within, instead of without.

  • Nick Wilford says:

    I like your idea and I think there’s a book in that. Our superior attitude is not a good thing for this planet.

  • Yes we are not good stewards of the earth and animal kingdom and certainly unkind in our thinking to other humans but I would settle on Singapore as the place with the closest to ideal you can get.

  • Peter Nena says:

    For the same reasons you have cited, the only place I would want to dig to is out of this planet. Life is punished on earth as though it were a curse. Maybe it is. Or maybe the earth itself is.

  • We just have to find the best spot we can.
    Although I think New Zealand would be really close to ideal.

  • pjlazos says:

    Definitely New Zealand because I’ve been a fan since the Lord of the Rings movies, but have never been there. It looks so unspoiled (but with fewer spiders and less ways to die than in Australia!). :o)

  • aj vosse says:

    I would take a short hop to Portugal… say no more!! 😉

  • hilarymb says:

    Hi Damyanti – love the idea of Sherry’s book … Bubba and Squirt certainly manage to find their way down into China … getting back sounds difficult … but I bet they discover lots of interesting ancient Chinese things and solve lots of puzzles … good luck to Sherry – cheers Hilary

  • This just made me think of my grandfather who used to give me a spoon in the back yard and had me convinced that “you can dig all the way to china” Oh man… I think you just triggered a writing topic for me. Thank you!!!

  • I figure I’ll just stay put…more environmentally friendly than all that digging, plus this way I won’t miss out on my nap time! lol 🙂

  • Samoa. Not American Samoa. Just, Samoa. Little crime as I understand. They have the best view (the ocean) though they have their weather stressors. They have a plethora of fruits. Sun, sea, sand, fruit, friendly people. That’s what I heard, and I can handle that!

  • bamauthor says:

    I would dig my way to Australia, as it is one continent that I have not been able to visit.

    • Well, I loved all that space in Australia and the hearty Aussie breakfast. The creepy-crawlies? Not so much. But that’s more my problem than theirs, so.

  • I would dig all the way from the U.S. to Finland, whose Winter War I’m studying for my WIP. But, I’d dig there before it gets too much colder. All the saunas–more than cars, I learned from a bit of trivia–and it sounds like a place I could get used to!

  • Almost Iowa says:

    I would gladly dig my way toward a happier place – but the ordeal of getting the permits would hardly be worth it. I might fly to New Zealand though, lovely place, lovely people and the beer is not half bad either.