I’m the only daughter of a hybrid parental set of a first generation Chinese-Canadian and an immigrant father. Growing up, we were given every opportunity and conceded every material whim, I can truly say we didn’t want for anything and I know I can only thank my mother and late father for that. However, being (half) immigrant parents, they were also very insistent that I strive for success. First, success was in school so I was the perfect Asian stereotype of studiousness. If you brought home 99% on an exam, my mother was the kind of person who would ask you where the 1% went. I wouldn’t call her a helicopter parent or a tiger mom in the traditional sense. She instilled in me the drive to be the best person I could. I wasn’t only locked up in my room until I became a doctor/lawyer (yes, should be read doctor-slash-lawyer, in the sense of both those things simultaneously). I was enrolled in competitive dance, was part of swim team, debate, yearbook, and in my final year of high school, in addition to a full AP course load, I also submitted an AP fine art portfolio. I wanted to be a million things but Asian parents always think there’s only one possibility. No matter how talented of an artist you are or how much you love English literature and creative writing, those are all endeavours to be pursued as hobbies. So off to university I went, taking biology and organic chemistry and all the pre-requisites for medicine. Languages were the one indulgence I gave myself, starting with Russian which I intended to become fluent in. But somewhere between my third year of university and the rest of my white-picket-fence life, I met an Italian boy who made me dream of a dolce vita. I gave up the medicine idea and decided to do a “faster” pharmacy degree which would act as my Plan B should my Italian affair come to an abrupt and unexpected end sometime down the line. Yet through all the science-saturated semesters, I never lost my love of writing and reading. I devoured books like they were going out of style (turns out they were). Some people might wonder what the point of essentially becoming a pharmacist was if I was just going to pack up and move to Italy and never dispense another drug again. Turns out, it’s true you can never be overeducated or overdressed. I ended up needing that degree to apply for an EU Blue Card, essentially a work permit for highly-skilled professionals. That card let me stay in Italy on my own. It meant I could stay with or without a man, with or without the help of anyone except my very own merit. To this day it’s still one of the things I’m the most proud of. Starting “over” is daunting and in order to cope, I turned back to what had been delegated “hobby” status: writing. I started this blog in 2014, writing for myself and to keep friends and family updated. There are posts from my very best days in Italy and the very worst days of my life. I’ve mourned the loss of home and my father here. Despair and joy have poured through my fingers and into a Word document. I’ve celebrated here. The tiny victories in the evolution of language learning and the huge victories like when I passed my Italian driver’s license exam. Through it all, words saved me and at the same time, they somehow found you. Readers. The most important part of any story. So that’s why I’ve written this post today. To take you back to beginning so you’d know how I got here, to the release of my very first book. I’d like you to know, if you’re reading this, that your passions can become something tangible and that life may take you on some serious ups and downs and to places you’d never think you’d ever go. You might stray way off the path that you had set for yourself like I did but maybe you’re actually headed towards something even better. This book is my wildest dream come true. It’s been a labour of love and I’m so proud to share it with you. I hope that you’ll read it somewhere beautiful with a glass of something strong and that you will find a bit of yourself in it and you’ll remember that time in Paris, in Rome, or wherever you’ve been or dreamed of being. Thank you, dear friends. I’d like to raise a virtual toast here- to adventure, may it find you and may you embrace it like a long-lost friend.
Wander(lust) is available on Amazon worldwide.
Click here to see it on the US site.
Wander(lust) is available on Amazon worldwide.
Click here to see it on the US site.
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