To be honest, I’ve been debating whether or not I should share memories of my trip to Taiwan. It’s not that I’m averse to the concept of sharing: blogging since the early aughts and working in content and social for over a decade has rewired my point of view into a commodifiable, lens-first perspective. Instead, I find myself protective of the place my parents left to make their parents proud—a familiar sentiment that started in the first grade. I refused to have classmates over unless they were Asian (or came from immigrant families). Too early on I knew how mean kids could be; I couldn’t, wouldn’t, allow them to make me or my family feel small. I also know that these feelings aren’t fair: who am I to be so defensive of a country that isn’t on paper, mine? Truth be told, I’m not sure what Taiwan is to me yet, except that it’s this place where I feel more at peace (and also, more alive in) than I have anywhere else in the world. A place more myth than solid ground—to me and the rest of the world, apparently, one as otherworldly as it is perfectly ordinary. Like home.…