Global Citizen

Most people remember school through classrooms, lockers, and lunch bells. I remember a place where none of that existed. Hualien, Taiwan was my classroom for a season, mountains instead of walls, ocean wind instead of hallways, and learning that didn’t arrive in textbooks but in people. Living alongside Indigenous Taiwanese communities near Jiqi Beach reshaped my understanding of what it means to belong. Nothing about that time was performative or “cultural tourism.” It was i