The county town where I was born still has only one main road even today. Like in many other cities, it\u2019s called Jiefang Road (Liberation Road). I grew up right along this road. It runs north to south, stretching endlessly without a beginning or an end. According to my mom, this road was originally part of National Highway 106 before it became the town’s main artery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The year before last, my parents came down to Shenzhen to take care of me for a while. During that time, I would drive my beloved Alfa Romeo Giulia to show them around my second hometown. As we entered the city via the Guangshen Highway, I told them that this very highway was part of National Highway 106, and if you just kept walking south along that road right outside our door, you’d end up exactly here! My mom was absolutely amazed. It turned out that the endless road in front of our house actually reached this far, going straight south almost all the way to Hong Kong!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before he got married, my dad worked for a while as a driver at a state-owned trading factory, transporting our locally woven straw hats down to Guangzhou and Shenzhen to sell. In an era before expressways, he would drive slowly along the national highway, eventually taking this same Guangshen Highway into Shenzhen. My dad told me that back then, you even needed a border pass to enter Shenzhen. If two drivers shared only one pass, one would have to hide in the back of the truck to “smuggle” himself into the city. Because of this, years later when I went to Zhuhai for college, my dad actually thought about going to the local sub-district office to get a letter of introduction just to apply for a border pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Occasionally, I can’t help but sigh: I have walked paths my parents never could have imagined walking. My mom often thinks I’m incredibly “capable”\u2014she marvels that I can navigate maze-like subway networks and overpass GPS, that I can live all by myself in a city where I know absolutely no one, and that I can even write emails in English to a university. “Oh<\/em> My, who taught you to do all that!”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And now, I am about to embark on yet another path my parents probably never dreamed of. I received a fully funded PhD offer from the HSMT program at UW-Madison. I’m heading to the other side of the earth to live the life of a doctoral student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Friends who know me well probably know what I’ve been up to over the past year or two. I’ve never really believed in the old saying that “things succeed through secrecy.” With many things, I tend to speak them into existence early on, living that life ahead of time. I did this when applying for my master’s, and I certainly didn’t hide anything when applying for my PhD. And so, this path\u2014initially blurry, uneven, and somewhat illusory\u2014eventually took shape, and step by meandering step, I set foot on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wasn’t until I actually stepped onto it that I realized just how arduous it is. But thankfully, the journey has been filled with warm-hearted friends and teachers eager to help. Even though it’s been almost eight years since I graduated from PKU, reaching back to my university still brought nothing but care from professors, classmates, and friends. I had originally thought the hardest part would be asking for recommendation letters, but when I finally asked, everyone enthusiastically agreed. Their praise made me blush. The truth is, once you decide to open your mouth and ask for that letter, the hardest part is already behind you. All that’s left is to keep walking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, I’m packing my bags once again. From packing for Beijing after graduating in 2014, to packing for Shenzhen after graduating in 2018… just when I finally got my home in Shenzhen looking like a proper home, I “graduated” from this chapter of my career and have to start packing all over again. My mindset now is a bit different from before. In the past, it was perhaps anticipation for a fresh start; now, it is a sense of trepidation toward an entirely different kind of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because I really don’t know if this path is the right one. I make mistakes all the time\u2014just like until recently, I relaized how the Guangshen Highway is actually part of National Highway 107, not 106. But that doesn’t lessen my mom’s quiet awe at how I managed to walk all the way from a small town in North China to the other side of the planet, nor does it stop me from choosing to walk a different path. At the end of the day, I simply have the opportunities my parents never had in their time, and I am grateful to them for giving me those opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n 33 years old. Still young, I suppose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On Wisconsin!<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The county town where I was born still has only one main road even today. Like in many other cities, it\u2019s called Jiefang Road (Liberation Road). I grew up right along this road. It runs north to south, stretching endlessly without a beginning or an end. 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