Recounting the Fulbright Year Abroad: Hubert Feichtlbauer

Hubert Feichtlbauer

A grandson of mine has just returned from a trip to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, while my granddaughter recently enjoyed tramping through parts of Australia and New Zealand: Cosmopolitanism in the era of globalization. Sixty years earlier, the Statue of Liberty or even a showboat in St. Louis, “Mizzoura,” were more spectacular than Angkor Wat. America was “the” world hitherto undisclosed to anyone I knew.

Studying at a U.S. university ignited minds and hearts. I spent weeks with families from Michigan and got to know television, religious diversity and American lifestyles and came back with a huge curiosity for the world and a readiness for change. A senator from Arkansas had implanted in me admiration for this country no succeeding president could undo and the present one has even deepened.

Hubert Feichtlbauer
Austrian journalist and one of the first Austrian participants of the Fulbright program