The Silk Road TKD Friendship Tour in 2022 picks up again in Chiang Mai Thailand, makes a stop in Bangkok, then launches off to one of several nearby nations. Land travel in this part of the world is relatively cheap which is good, because we don’t want to skip any part of this fabulous adventure flying over it.
The list of possibilities is pretty long, and partly which specific direction we go to depends on the kinds of hook-ups we can make ahead of time.
The list for this third segment of the SRTKDFT includes the following:
Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Tajikistan.
It looks like every country in the world has Taekwondo, which is GREAT, and finding the masters is pretty easy, either top-down, e.g. through national federations and associations, or bottom up, e.g. connections leading to the organizers made through local schools.
The above map is the famous T and O map from a 12th-century copy of Etymologiae. To quote Wikipedia: “The T is the Mediterranean, dividing the three continents, Asia, Europe and Africa, and the O is the surrounding Ocean. Jerusalem was generally represented in the center of the map. Asia was typically the size of the other two continents combined. Because the sun rose in the east, Paradise (the Garden of Eden) was generally depicted as being in Asia, and Asia was situated at the top portion of the map.”
For centuries, the word “Orient” referred to locating oneself relative to Asia, which was at the top of most maps. The countries we’ll be visiting in 2022 and 2023 are located in Asia and the Pacific region.
The sub-pages on this will progress slowly as we cover not only Taekwondo, but also indigenous martial arts and Silk Road archeological sites, other cultural highlights, and museums, of course!
All aboard!
Silk Road Taekwondo Friendship Tour 