I have been asked the same question over and over again—“why did you leave your sweet motherland and chose to study in a place so far away from home?” Yes, I have to confess the nearly 20-hour flight is boring and exhausting, and for a girl who has never been apart from her parents for 18 years, this long journey really made her helpless and desperate at the first time. But I’ve never thought of giving up, even during the hardest time.
My family is a really traditional Chinese family. In U.S., it may be hard to imagine that a child has to obey all the commands and meet all the expectations of his/her parents, but it’s a widely accepted fact in China. However, this idea is mostly held by the old generations. The new generation holds the opinion that we children are equal with our parents. But it’s almost impossible to remove or weaken the moss-grown idea in my parents’ minds because they were both born in typical Chinese families and were deeply influenced by their parents. So I had been a docile and obedient daughter for years; I would do whatever they wanted me to do, as long as acceptable. As I grew up, the feeling that I wasn’t living my own life became stronger and stronger. I found my life full of others’ expectations; I was living for someone else. I started to think about “what do I want to do” and “who do I want to be”. But I never got the answers, even till now.
So when I was in 12th grade, I planned to study abroad. I need to leave my parents and learn to live on my own. I need a brand-new environment to isolate myself so as to extract all the others’ expectations, arouse my soul and discover what I have a passion for.
Unfortunately, I still don’t have a determined way to live or a specific goal for future. But at least I chose the life that I’m in charge of. Life has thousands of possibilities, but only if I am the dominator. That is the reason for me to cross the ocean and start my own life here.
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