You know, before I left there were times when I was asked,
“Aren’t you afraid of going over there all alone?” I always just sort of smiled and awkwardly
shrugged and replied with a simple, “I don’t really know.”
or, they would ask the same thing in a different way.
“Wow, I could never do that, leaving
all our friends, family…..”
“How are you going to survive outside of here? I couldn't take it.”
I never really had an answer to these questions
or comments, you see. Before I left, I was so busy preparing I never really
thought about what would happen the second I stepped off the plane and onto
Taiwanese soil (concrete, asphalt, etc.). I mean, I had been raring to get out
of America and go on this adventure, but it never really had struck me what
exactly I was leaving behind before people starting saying all of this. It
never was at the front of my mind, I was too concerned looking at what was to
come than what I was going to leave behind. I was a car with no rearview
mirrors.
But as time wore on and I finally set
roots into Taiwan, I started to realize, I wasn’t alone. I was never alone. My
feelings slowly transformed from one of a person scrambling to piece together a
new and often times confusing life to one that felt comfortable in his new
life. What friends and family I had left behind I gained again overseas, closer
ones as well. While you’re traveling you will find that there are no shortages
of people like you, strangers in their strange land, who eventually become friends
in their new homeland. The incredible rapport built between you, other exchange
students, your host families, and classmates will bring you into a feeling you
have never felt before. Especially with exchange students. You are all new into
this strange new country, and that immediately gives you something in common.
It teaches you that people can and will come together in any situation, and can
create a family, no, something stronger than a family. In something like this,
you are never alone. All you have to do is know where to look ^.^