On Sunday night, I flew back into Singapore from Myanmar – making it in 24 hours before the expanded Stay-at-Home requirement issued by the Singapore government went into effect (the expansion added ASEAN countries to the previous list of countries from which travelers were required to stay at home upon entering Singapore). I was dreading flying back: I hadn’t purchased a data plan while in Myanmar, and so it was so very easy to become fully immersed in the sights, experiences, and people – in effect, willfully and blissfully ignorant of the incessant coronavirus updates coming in from the INSEAD community and the Singapore government.

Since I love elephants, let me address the one in the room: I probably shouldn’t have been traveling in the first place. But here in Singapore, we’d already been taking precautionary measures for months; we’d booked this trip in anticipation of celebrating the end of our first set of final exams; and when we left for the airport on Wednesday of last week, the virus seemed under control here in Asia. I never, for a second, considered pulling out of the trip, and even as my dad expressed his disapproval upon finding out about it yesterday morning, I found myself justifying my actions, using the excuse that “everyone else” was traveling as well. Call it herd mentality, optimism bias, or even stupidity – in fact, as I reflect on what my actions say about my priorities and values, I can only conclude that it’s probably just plain old selfishness.

I’d love to claim that the selfishness is an act of self-preservation during these trying times, but I don’t think it is. I didn’t want to leave Myanmar because I felt so insulated from the corona-drama around me; I loved being in this peaceful bubble, surrounded by pagodas in Bagan and by water in Inle. When we were riding our electric bikes through the dirt backroads, I felt so carefree as the wind blew past me, as if coronavirus didn’t exist. As our boats floated through the houses-on-stilts of Inle Lake, I felt worlds away from the onset of urgency that awaited us back in Singapore, the debates around classes moving online and students arriving from France. And even after we learned that our dean was the first INSEADer to test positive for COVID-19, I was determined to stay in the bubble of colonial buildings and street art and one final temple during our last day in Yangon.

I briefly wondered if the people living in Inle Lake knew about coronavirus; the people we saw selling produce, weaving lotus stems, building boats and fishing the lake seemed to go about their daily business, entertaining us tourists from the moment our boat floated up to their homes until the moment we left (seldom making any purchases). I thought to myself, again, how it felt like we were in a bubble away from the rest of the world, and I worried about how the village would survive if one of us tourists somehow brought coronavirus to them, and I realized how easy it would be to burst that bubble of peace, of safety, of ignorance.

With all the resources I have – my network, education, technology – this ignorance can only be called willful, albeit blissful; I have no excuse. And I have a proclivity for bubbles: during my year in Shanghai, I distinctly remember taking full advantage of the hedonistic China bubble I lived in, thoroughly enjoying a break from thinking about race, politics, or anything that exerted pressure on my civic duty as an American citizen. While I’ve always been involved in some form of volunteering, it wasn’t until I started working at LEAP Innovations in Chicago that I cognitively began to appreciate and value the importance of pushing myself to live outside the bubble. Because how beautiful the world becomes, when each of us ventures outside of our bubbles, and we all come together to tackle collective challenges – of a relentless coronavirus, of undeniable climate change, of the vicious cycles of poverty, of access to quality education.

I firmly believe that getting outside of my bubble is something I’ll continuously struggle with for the rest of my life. It is not only easy to find myself in bubbles – of INSEAD, of MBAs, of the corporate world, of people who share my values and perspectives, of environments that allow me to disregard social responsibilities – it is not only easy, but oftentimes preferred because it’s also fun, usually pleasant. And yet I’m confident that a life like this would be utterly unfulfilling, although of course there will be times that it is necessary to take a break, to think of yourself, to be selfish with your time and energy and love in the name of self-preservation. So despite being reluctantly back from my bubble (by the way, I also essentially ignored the Ronhingya crisis during my ‘vacation’ in Myanmar, which is just another example of how even within my bubble, I filtered my experience), I now also feel prepared to engage in the crisis happening around me, making decisions that I believe is right – this time, not only for myself, but also for those around me. Above all, I’m thankful to have friends who are willing to push me outside of my bubble and challenge me when I’m being lazy or selfish, making this journey feel a lot less alone and a little more manageable.

Somehow, in the span of just a month, I feel like I’ve lived another year’s worth of thoughts and emotions. I came to Singapore and to INSEAD on a personal high after an upwards climb during 2019, capped by a rejuvenating volunteer trip in Kenya, treasured time with family in China, and of course an irreplaceable last few months with my community in Chicago. I felt secure in my relationships, confident in my identity, and proud of my growth over the last year.

That lasted for about a week into my business school journey. The first thing that shook me was the emergence of cliques: their general existence at INSEAD, whether or not I was part of one, whether or not I would or could or should be a part of one. For the first few days, I reassured myself by remembering the people I love back home: my own tribe of mentors, my “personal board of directors” – friends who had have seen me at my best and my worst, who oftentimes know me better than I know myself. And yet even this anchor I knew I had wasn’t heavy enough to keep me steady as waves of insecurity washed over me in these first few weeks. Every time I heard about a hangout I wasn’t invited to or a Telegram group I wasn’t a part of, I wondered whether people liked me – even though I knew, cognitively, that it was impossible to become friends with everyone. Now, a month in, I’ve become more comfortable with my individual relationships here; I still get bouts of feeling left out but I’m also feeling much more myself again. I designed my social life around my specific needs – finding like-minded individuals who are excited about self-development, world impact, and everything in between; holding personal conversations over 1:1 chats to supplement the huge group hangouts; getting off campus to play hockey, see non-INSEAD friends, and remember that life very much exists outside this business school bubble.

The second thing that shook me was the arrival of Coronavirus – not of the virus itself, but of the social and political conversations that came with it. The last time I lived in Asia, I had a renewed sense of confidence in my identity as simultaneously Chinese, American, and even a little bit Japanese. So when news of the virus spread and general fear began to straddle Sinophobia, I felt angry and defensive. We received surveys asking us to self-report if we’d been in “close proximity” with anyone who had traveled to China recently. The question was worded in a way where the entire student body began questioning whether to self-quarantine, recalling their recent interactions: after all, hadn’t we been interacting with the Chinese students who had just moved here for school, like the rest of us? As the virus spread across the world, I read more articles and heard more conversations – many of them blaming “the Chinese” as an entity, implicating a population that includes citizens who by no fault of their own had caught the illness. China isn’t perfect, but it’s important to recognize that not all of its citizens are eating “exotic,” “weird,” or “disgusting” meats; that its tourists are not all infected with Coronavirus and out to bring it to other countries; that its government, while flawed, is not as malicious as Western media often makes it out to be. I’m really lucky to be in a diverse student body that’s made up of nearly 70 nationalities with many, many different perspectives, and I hope that this year pushes me and my classmates to continue having difficult conversations while challenging the stereotypes we hold – especially during times like these. On the one hand, being both Chinese and American is a privilege I could leverage into having more open conversations, and yet I’m struggling to channel my emotions into productive actions that might help broaden perspectives and deepen empathy.

Finally, I’ve had to face the hard truth that starting a new chapter doesn’t mean closing the old. Life here is stupidly stimulating; there is no shortage of socializing, schooling, and schmoozing – all excellent distractions. But I worked really hard last year to lean into everything I felt: the grief, the pain, the loss, the uncertainty, the hope, the joy – and the guilt of leaving it all behind. So it’s honestly been a real piece of work to somehow reconcile the two: allowing myself to fully live in the moment here while stopping to catch my breath when I need it. The hardest moments here in Singapore have been those moments when I just miss Meghana, or I think about the breakup, wishing that the heart would just heal faster and wondering if it ever fully will. These are the moments when I feel most alone, not because I don’t have anyone to talk to – on the contrary, friends here have been an absolute dream in offering listening ears – but because those memories are so deeply personal. I don’t really want to admit this, but a maybe-subconscious part of me wanted to just leave it all behind in Chicago and gain closure of sorts on that part of my life. Unsurprisingly, that’s really not how life works, and, knowing me, that’s not really how I work either. If anything, closure feels artificial and arbitrary, and these memories of people I loved are a part of my story, whether I’m in Chicago or in Singapore. And when I think of it that way…I think of this quote by A.A. Milne, the author of Winnie the Pooh: “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

It’s only the start of 2020, and I know there will be many, many more learnings to come. In the meantime, I’m trying to be brave, vulnerable, and authentic, fully aware that I’m in an environment where I’ll be challenged constantly on all three fronts. I can’t wait to look back at this in December of this year and reflect on all that will happen between now and then. Here’s to the rest of my time at INSEAD, the rest of my time in Singapore (who knows how long that will be), and the rest of 2020!

“So, how was Kenya?”

Even before I returned, I started to dread answering this question. How do you adequately encapsulate an experience that left you on an inexplicable high, in a way that is meaningful and non-cliche? In the past nearly week since I’ve been back in Chicago, my mind has run endlessly through the different memories from my twelve days in Kenya, bouncing from gratitude to longing to wonder to joy – blobs of feelings that refused to be synthesized.

I know I laughed a lot, laughed really hard and really frequently. Whether it was hanging out in the volunteer house (which felt like a reality TV show) or bouncing around for hours in the safari van (which requires a surprising amount of arm strength), there was always something to laugh about. It ranged from mistaken names (Ibrahim, Hostage) to miscounted lions (ugh); from love-hate bromances (“Kiss!”) to love-love rafikis (Wakanda Forever!); from mercilessly making fun of each other to seamlessly syncing in unexpected circumstances – laughing even when we had to get out of our van in the middle of the Maasai Mara to push it out of the mud. If laughter is medicine for the soul, my soul could probably stock the entire medicine section of the Carrefour that we shopped around together on our first day – the memory of this bizarre adult field trip still makes me want to laugh until “crocodile tears roll down my cheeks, forming the number eleven” (one of many entertaining phrases we read while grading essays at school).

I learned to become comfortable just rolling with things – we established quite early on that there were many details about the program that weren’t clear, from the address of the volunteer house (much to my mother’s chagrin) to our specific placements. But as they say, “Hakuna Matata” – an attitude that I grew quite fond of in my time there, a way of living that forces you to let go of planning and trust that all would be okay. When Ayub, our school director, took out a good chunk of his morning to unexpectedly take Dave to the hospital on our second day volunteering, I marveled at someone so busy being so flexible and generous with his time. Going with the flow kept things exciting: I didn’t know when an NVS staff member would show up to the house to say hi; I didn’t know what time I was technically supposed to be at school every day; I didn’t know what we were expected to teach in music class or even how many students would show up. But each unknown turned into an opportunity to build trust with those around me, having faith that we’d figure things out eventually, and together.

I also had to be honest with myself about my volunteer experience when I realized that I’d really only be teaching music for a total of 3 days (Monday was orientation and Thursday was Bible Study). This was my second foray into voluntourism, and I felt pressured to come out on the other end with a life-altering experience rooted in deep bonds with the community – in this case, with the kids and the teachers at school. As it turned out, I was only at KAG Olympic for a total of 3.5 days (I tagged along to the hospital for half a day). And while I adored the 3-year-old “babies,” their lunch leaders (Steven and Grantu), the 5th grade music class (Daisy, Gloria, and others), and the lovely Olympic staff (thank you for the chapati, chai, and conversations!), realistically, I felt that my short stay limited the depth to which I would bond with the people at school. I hated the fact that leaving on Friday was not as excruciating as other farewells I’ve bid, that there’s even room for doubt whether a piece of my heart was left in Kenya. I’m sad that I didn’t forge the same emotional bonds in Kibera as I have formed through other similar experiences, and this feeling is only compounded by the fleeting nature of the impact of a short-term volunteer.

I recognized discomfort several times – not so much from being in a new country, but from a heightened sense of awareness of my own reactions to what I saw. Walking through the Kibera slum left me with many mixed feelings – it was uncomfortable ‘touring’ the area because, as Ekaitz put it, “It doesn’t feel great to make a spectacle out of someone’s poverty.” And yet – what was the alternative? To ignore the slum’s existence? I felt baffled by the sheer randomness of birth, the luck of the draw that determined what kind of life you’d be born into. It was burning on my mind that we would leave the slum just as easily as we’d entered it, leaving a few bags of maize and some mzungu high-fives that masked the guilt I felt about the gap in our lifestyles. Actually, I wasn’t even technically a ‘mzungu’ – kids shouted, “Chinese! Chinese! Ni-hao!” as they pointed as me. Instinctively, I felt offended, and yet when I reasoned my way through the intent and understanding of a child in a Kenyan slum, it felt silly that I felt even remotely hurt.

I was repeatedly inspired by the stories I heard. People were so willing to share their life stories: stories about rising out of poverty, pursuing education again later in life, caring for sick loved ones at a young age. They shared about the school’s role as a safe haven for children facing traumatic experiences in the slum; school was a place where they had space to play and food to eat. I learned from my fellow volunteers’ experiences working with kids with special needs and teaching children from Spain to Mexico, echoing challenges in education that sounded oddly familiar, hinting at universal barriers that prevent our kids from receiving the best possible educational experiences. We shared with each other about career goals and transitions; about life and love; about loss and grief; about our journeys to pursue our best selves despite the obstacles that might have come our ways. If laughter is medicine for the soul, vulnerability is the sustenance that actually feeds mine, and I’m just as thankful for the walking commute chats, nighttime pillow talks, and under-the-stars conversations as I am for the belly laughs on this trip.

There’s so much more I could write about – the joy I found in making music every day with the students as well as with Dave and Oscar; the cheers from the babies when we showed up with plastic bins of ugali and kale; the majesty of the elephants and giraffes and lions and leopards and all the other animals we saw on safari; the serenity of gazing out at the savannah and feeling the wind blowing through my hair; the awe at watching the sun rise – twice! – and realizing that, despite all that has happened, yet another day had come, and the sun had risen again. Writing in depth about all this would take too much time and do it too little justice.

So, how was Kenya? It was living through all of the above, staying present and mindful in these memories as they were being created. It was exhausting but rejuvenating. It was one of the best trips I’ve had in the past few years. It was wonderful.