Book: A Ticket to the Grand Show: Journeys Across Cultural Boundaries

By Neil McKinnon
Published by Your Nickel's Worth Publishing
Review by Toby A. Welch

Wow! What a fascinating book! I didn’t even need to dig into chapter one to get hooked; the introduction itself sucked me right in and I couldn’t put A Ticket to the Grand Show down.

McKinnon is insistent that this is not a travel book, more like a story collection of cultural experiences in his life. But I loved reading about the places he visited and the encounters he had in them. The book is more about the culture in the places he traveled to than a list of things to do. “Culture” is a multi-layered concept that cannot be adequately explored in a brief five hundred words. It means different things to different people. Culture is often a deeply buried belief that someone may not even consciously be aware of having.

A Ticket to the Grand Show is broken into five parts, each one detailing a geographic location: China, Japan, Mexico, Hawaii, and Canada. Some of McKinnon’s experiences took place decades ago but under his skillful hand, they feel like they happened yesterday.

While I enjoyed reading all five parts, my favourite was Hawaii. I easily envisioned the volcanic mountains and the lush landscapes. The people he met came alive on the page. What I most loved was his undertaking of the Honolulu Marathon. As a self-admitted obese person with poor oxygen consumption, poor vital capacity, and fair muscular endurance, McKinnon’s eight month commitment to prepare for the forty-two kilometre marathon was inspiring. (Spoiler alert: he crushed it!)

Another fascinating thing to read about was McKinnon living through Japan’s Great Hanshin Earthquake, the most expensive natural disaster in human history. McKinnon puts readers in the action, helping us hear the roar and feel the violence. On top of that, I was astonished to learn that Japan accounts for less than one-third of 1% of the earth’s land surface yet it experiences almost 20% of serious earthquakes and 10% of typhoons and flooding.

A Ticket to the Grand Show is dotted with pictures from McKinnon’s ventures around the globe. You get to see the tops of houses that slid into the sea thanks to the Hanshin Earthquake. There are pictures of pyramids in Palenque, Mexico, and the skull of a Lantian woman found in China. In the Canada section you’ll find photos of Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo Jump in Alberta and rock art along Milk River. You get the picture.

McKinnon may have grown up near a small town that sits beside a CN Rail track in Saskatchewan but anyone who reads A Ticket to the Grand Show: Journeys Across Cultural Boundaries will be grateful he travelled the world. Him experiencing a variety of cultures and sharing those with the world is invaluable for the rest of us.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM