Life Changing Trip

In the summer of 2006 I was inspired to do something that inherently would never have even crossed my mind. I was born and bred to be risk averse. My parents, the resolute material providers that they are, taught me not to fend for myself, but rather to avoid confrontation altogether. Their eastern culture centric and old-fashioned way of child rearing has had a profound effect on the way I lived my life. However, their penchant for negative reinforcement and their inability to show physical affection never impeded me on having a fulfilling and moderately successful life. One great void, or what I perceived as such, was my lack of worldly experience. I was eligible to apply for a US passport for at least five years before I finally decided to get it right before the summer of 2006 at the age of 27. This phenomenon only occurred because I had agreed to travel, with my friends, outside of North America for the first time. This was the summer that I ran with the bulls during the world-renown San Fermín festival in Pamplona, Spain. This experience shaped the course of my life for the next three years and counting.

Not unlike most immigrant children forced to grow up in a foreign land, I struggled for self-identity while being pressured by my parents to assimilate and “fit in” as quickly and quietly as possible. I was to blend into my environment like a chameleon perched on a low level branch, waiting to strike at its next prey, but never knowing who that might be. Assimilate, just exactly what does that even mean to a five year old? I had already slain my festering Chinese accent within my first year arriving here. My remedial levels of reading and writing were forced to march the plank until they too were snuffed out in less than ...

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...hen I emailed my sister to let her know I am still alive. A few hours later she replies by saying, “Good. Mom and dad wants to know if this means you won’t be moving to New York now.”

Five days after Pamplona I had arrived in Manhattan, not as an entirely new person, but as someone who had been lost then found. I was not lost from being directionally challenged, but lost simply from the sheer ignorance of not knowing what to look for. I had finally found myself. The year after I traveled all throughout Italy for two weeks having witnesses amazing relics and works of antiquity. I also “held up” the leaning tower of Pisa. Last year I finally went back to Taiwan to visit for two weeks as well. Each experience piggybacks onto the previous, culminating into who I am today. I will never forget my time in Spain and in Pamplona and impact it has played on my life today.