I think many Chinese people would remember when they were children, there were once a world map and a map of China hanging on the wall of their home or the wall of their primary school classroom. At that time, science and technology were not as developed and advanced as they are now. Maps on the wall seemed to serve decorative functions but actually they were the first windows for a kid to form a comparatively objective perception about how the country looks like and how the world looks like, to know where he or she was under the geographical context of the whole country or the whole world, or just to have an idea about where a particular place is . That is to say, at that time, maps were more of a kind of tool to people.
(this is how a map of China on the wall might look like)
For me, maps were also a kind of medium of knowing more about the world I have been living in and were also what triggered my interest in exploring more places in the world when I was still a child. I remember when I was little, my dad was studying abroad in the U.S and my mom went there to visit and stay with him for months while I was in China with my grandparents. I asked them where my parents were, they pointed to the U.S on the map and told me that it is a country very far away from my country. I compared the distance between China and the U.S and the distances between China and some other countries and finally knew that America is indeed very far away from China. As I grew up and became a student, especially when I was in junior high school and senior high school, my understandings about countries in the world were continually developing and enriching as I started to learn geography. A map became the thing that I had to memorize to get good grades, but apart from that need to get familiar with a map, a map is still the thing that connects me to a lot of places that I have never been to but still know where it is in this world.
But now, I find that the meaning of a map to me has changed to one that is completely different from what it was before. In my daily life, when I think of a map, an outline of the whole world does not appear in my mind anymore. Instead, the word map now means the tool that I use to know how to get to a destination in a city, how to take public transportation, how to choose the fastest route to drive to some places. A map is no longer a piece of paper. It becomes an app on my phone that can solve almost any problems I have about my destinations in a city, but I seem to stop using it as a tool to know the world. This is kind of weird since as I grow up and as technology develops, my knowledge about the world is supposed to also be growing thanks to the much more advanced science applied in various kinds of maps or mapping projects. It is like my world is becoming smaller and limited to the environment just around me. My connection with the bigger world is paused as paper maps gradually step out of my life and the convenience that those map-featured apps bring gradually gains its importance in my life. And now I start to wonder, is it just about the fact that what the word means to me has changed or I just lost my desire and curiosity to know more about this world?
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