ABOUT ME

Having lived and studied in 4 different countries, I'm now a first-year undergrad in the UK, reading the infamous (for cultivating inadequate politicians at Westminster...) PPE program (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics). Growing up in China, I graduated a year early and took two gap years after high school wandering around my country, as I found the final year in Chinese high school too boring and suffocating. During my gap years, apart from all adventures on the road, I also led a transcendent reclusive life, like Thoreau's Walden, for a whole winter alone on a mountain, with the hope of reconciling the dichotomy between engaging with the whole world and retreating from the crowds.

Then I went to study in Bremen, Germany for a year, and after that another year in Massachusetts and New Mexico in the United States. Now I seek to immerse myself into the European culture, with the hope to understand and integrate the essence from both the West and the East, to meet more interesting people and hear more stories of their lives.

PHILOSOPHY

“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Registered Couchsurfing in early 2011 when I was a short-term high school exchange student in Slovenia. Yet I didn't have the chance to accomplish a real surfing until now I'm back to Europe for college education.

Life is elsewhere—on the road one gets to meet not only kindred souls but souls of all kinds. Having seen so many natural wonders around the world already, now I travel more because of the culture of a place, its people, and stories of them, apart from of course the never-dying longing for unsettlement and uncertainty.

Interests

Surfing: soaked in the ocean everyday for a month when stayed in a friend’s place in Hawaii — got my skin peeled off four times due to sunburning…

Horse riding: Used to stay in a military-horse ranch for a week, learning to ride and take care of horses. The highlight was driving hundreds of horses on a misty early morning across the grassland.

Kayaking: paddled along Yangtze River in China, and in some fjords in Norway;

Bicycling: finished several long-distance cycling trips in China and Europe;

Archery: practiced for a few months with a coach when lived in New Mexico;

Football: all-time favourite;

Hiking: too many hikes……

Meditation: during my reclusive life experiment, I settled in a remote thatched cottage on the mountaintop rented from the locals. Out of my cottage window lay a valley. Every morning I leaned on the ledge, washed with spring water, and witnessed the sun emerging from a sea of clouds. On some serene moonlight evenings, I just sat on a cliff, with the Galaxy around, rapt in a reverie. One dawn, I woke up and surprisingly found the whole universe was blanketed in silver snowflakes overnight. I opened my mouth to yell to the valley, but strangely, only a faint guttural “ahh” rose from my throat — I had not spoken for such a long time.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Gap year travelling around China, visiting friends in top "elite" colleges but also touching the most poverty-stricken districts, with the hope to understand a real China behind official propaganda.

eg. Bicycled 2,000+ miles along the ancient Chinese Silk Road, camping in the desert and tracing relics of the old battlefields.

Hitchhiking trip across Norway;

Road trip around all continental states west of Rocky Mountains in USA;

etc.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Malaysia, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, Germany, United Kingdom, United States