It’s hard to believe that I was still in Asia just less than a week ago. While I was waiting for my plane, I hammered out a few initial thoughts from my trip. Of course, due to the whirlwind of activity from coming back and combatting jetlag, I didn’t really have much opportunity to post anything.

Oh well. Luckily, this is my own repository for whatever I want to do so I can be as late as I want.

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This is it – the end of the long anticipated visit to Taipei and Tokyo, two very different and special cities that reside in my heart. Taipei for the connection to personal family history and my second language and Tokyo for the connection to my personal interests and voluntarily learned language.

When I reflect back on my first initial expectations and hopes for this trip, they were really quite simple. Eat a lot in Taiwan, take pictures, go to the night market. For Tokyo, I wanted to visit an onsen, see the fish market and take in the city lights. It was quite easy to match my fairly narrow-minded and short sighted expectations; and what I really found in each of these cities was so much more.

These past weeks also really made me think about how much my family loves me. My mom, aunts and uncles and cousins all made this wonderful trip happen. Because they love me and know how much it means to me, they went out of their way to provide me an experience that I know will carry with me throughout my life. Beyond just taking some pretty photos and buying souvenirs, I feel that I have a lot to think about regarding my future and Asia.

Gogo took us around for three weeks, tirelessly encouraging us to dig deeper and not just skim the surface. Figure out where we’re going, understand why these places are important – and most of all, he made sure that we had a good time.

My first experience with Asia was actually very unique. Instead of merely visiting, I spent a whole four months in Bejing and traveling around China as a part of a study abroad program. All I had to do was to focus on learning the language, and I stressed about nothing else. I was able to travel around to different places around the country, and it really made me appreciate everything that I have in the States. I also had the priceless opportunity to meet my mother’s older sister and other sides of my family in Xian.

Although that time was amazing and I feel that I learned a lot (unfortunately, not as much Chinese as I really would have liked) I know that a part of me never really wanted to live in China. The whole environment was, for lack of a better word: uncivilized. People spat in the streets without regard, the roads were clogged with vehicles that did not obey the rules at all (each time I crossed the street was quite a stressful endeavor) and people were just impolite. There is no concept of queuing at ALL.

Despite all of these complaints, a part of me still seemed to hopefully nudge me about the idea of working abroad. I contemplated this in Houston when I couldn’t find a direction to head, and I realized that working abroad appealed to me because there is nothing else that you can do to take yourself more out of your comfort zone than living in a different country. You see so much more, meet so many more people and learn more about yourself.

All of these considerations seemed to hit me on this trip. As Gogo said: “Let it all sink in.” Do I want to live in Asia? Could I really do it? In a strange way, when I stepped off the plane in Taipei and Tokyo, I didn’t feel too out of place. In Taipei especially, I could understand everybody. In Tokyo, I was content with listening to people talk and trying to remember as much as I could (sadly, I don’t remember much). All that aside, I found myself wistfully thinking about how amazing it would be to be completely fluent in Chinese (reading and writing) and Japanese.

Why would it be amazing? For me, it would be because I don’t want to be a person of one country, I want to be a person of multiple countries. Communication is my livelihood, and it is also how I make friends and build my relationships with people. I want to be able to continue building bridges, and I want to be a well-rounded person. As my grandmother wrote in her note to Gogo before she passed away: Become a person that is useful to the East and the West.

Yes, I was born in America and it has given me so many opportunities…but I am still a person who has roots in the East. Asia shaped my family, who in turn shaped me. For that, I am grateful, and I want to do more than merely make a living, save for retirement and then forget everything else in the past.

So what are my next steps? It feels daunting, for sure, but I think that the first thing I want to do is to start seriously learning Chinese again.

I don’t want the motivation in me from this trip snuff out from the daily comforts of routine. I want to push myself, and look for opportunities to do more in the future. Does this mean one day moving to Asia? Maybe - I hope so.

But one step at a time.