A year isn’t very long but as I read through what I wrote for my last year’s birthday, I almost could not believe that a year has passed and here I am sitting in front of my desktop alone in my room have grown a year older but none wiser. This is what many of us do as we grow older, we flashback to the past years and recollect bittersweet memories. What things I would have done differently? I wish I had done that. Or I shouldn’t have done this. The rewind began at when I was in my sweet 16 when I first met my dearest mentor and the impact she has brought to my life. She even continued to influence me after I met the first man in my life who shared my youth for 3 and half years. In spite of the most two important people who had changed my life dramatically in varied ways before I turn 21, I do not think my innate characters have shifted even slightly. You might say it’s because I have not experienced life enough or at all, which I just could not agree enough as a idiom goes in Mandarin 「打鐵趁熱」”da3 tie3 chen4 re4 – Strike while the iron is hot”; being 21, the iron still burns to be forged. What do I know about life?

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Having had a number of Muslim friends around, I have finally made my journey to the Mosque in Taipei which I had been longing to visit. The journey was motivated not only by my great curiosity to Islam but also my growing desire to learn more about it. Unfortunately, I had only been exposed to the manipulated images of Muslim people on the media until I was lucky to have met people who were raised as Muslims in real life and thus enabled me to read different profiles and perspectives. Although most of them do not spontaneously talk about their beliefs but then again, my little knowledge of Islamic beliefs and curiosity have always driven forward our conversation to this sensitive topic most people would prefer to avoid.

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Throughout my 10 days in Thailand, one of the most unforgettable things is that I had been mistaken as a Thai. Thai people spoke Thai to me and I replied in Thai in the first two or three sentences then in English. Do I really look Thai? Well, I think I look more Thai than Thai people themselves. The reason why I would say that is because I have become so much tanner and I would rather take their remark as a compliment than an insult because Thai people are so beautiful, as far as I am concerned. 

Thailand is the second foreign country I have visited and this was the first time my nationality was being questioned or doubted. Growing up in Taiwan and having surrounded by people from different nationalities and ethnicities, I had listened to their frustration and struggle which they have to go through, not by choice. I never had to deal with their dilemma and having come back to Taiwan, I still don't have to. I live under the privilege entitled to citizens only as well as the convenience of communicating in my own mother tongue; moreover, I did not have to adapt myself to a foreign food, culture and environment. However, having spent 10 days in Thailand which is the longest period I have spent by far in a foreign country, I have experienced, if slightly, the challenge all my foreign friends are going through every single day.

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