The Rocket

Issue date: 3/18/05 Section: Life

Media Credit: SUBMITTED PHOTO SRU professor George Brown.

Slippery Rock isn't necessarily a premier town. Typically, you don't see hundreds of thousands of people rushing to find a place in Slippery Rock where they can reside permanently.

It is not uncommon to hear gripes about how students and faculty alike wouldn't mind someday escaping the lovely confines of this beautiful town. Sometimes, you hear such phrases as, "I want to go out West," or "Man, when I graduate, I'm moving down South to get away from this cold."

Some people make the trip out, and some don't. Some people spend days and nights dreaming of the luxurious life they could be living in the sunny weather some place far from here, while some people stop dreaming and actually do it. Some people go as far as California or Florida. Some people even travel to Europe, pick up an accent and call it a life.

Or, if you are SRU associate professor of political science George Brown, you pick up and move somewhere out of the ordinary. Somewhere that people don't typically think of when they think of destinations they would kill to live in. Somewhere those naughty little spring breakers don't even consider when they book their plane tickets in November. If you are Brown, you move to China.

"I lived in China and Taiwan for four years of my life," he said. "I have come to find China to be fascinating for lots of different reasons. I really enjoyed my time there. It was different."

Living in China comes as no surprise for Brown, an individual that cites traveling as his passion. Along with living in China, Brown has done his fair share of exploring, visiting such destinations as parts of Germany, England, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and a handful of U.S. states, including Hawaii and Alaska.

"Traveling is my passion," he said. "It is more than a hobby for me. It's like a very powerful psychotropic drug without all of the bad side affects. Traveling opens your eyes to a different world and forces you to focus on the present."

Brown said one of the reasons he likes his work so much is because it provides opportunities and time for him to travel.

"Last year I took a small group of students to London during spring break, followed by another group that I accompanied with professor Tichy to Germany on a three week trip in May," he said. "I also had an opportunity to spend around a month in China with a group of professors from all over the Unites States last year. I've gone to meetings in Alaska, Kansas City and Boston. My job has granted me a lot of different outlets to travel and I enjoy that a great deal."

Continued...

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