Land, Memory, and the Lessons Hidden in Culture

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 invitation. It was immersion. It was stepping into a rhythm of life where history wasn’t told, it was lived.

I learned to grass-sled down steep hills, the same way Indigenous children once reached farmland during harvest seasons. I watched bamboo shaved and split by elders who turned it into bows, tools, and art, each pull of the blade carrying generations of memory. I listened to stories of land, loss, preservation, and joy, not as folklore, but as living proof of resilience.

In a place where very little matched the world I came from, I didn’t feel smaller. I felt expanded.

That experience shifted how I saw identity.

Being a global kid isn’t about collecting passport stamps.

It’s about collecting perspectives.

I learned that:

• culture is memory, not decoration

• community isn’t built through sameness, but through respect

• belonging is not something handed to you, it is something you choose to show up for

When people ask me where I’m from, they expect a city or a country.

But my answer has always been bigger than coordinates.

I am from the places that taught me something.

England taught me stillness.

Indiana taught me courage.

Taiwan taught me depth.

Singapore taught me connection.

New Jersey is teaching me my voice.

Taiwan stays with me the most because it was the first time I understood that a place could shape you without speaking your language. That wisdom didn’t come from a classroom. It came from land that remembers, people who protect, and traditions that refuse to whisper.

And the lesson I carry forward is simple:

we don’t become lost when we cross cultures, we become layered.