Who Am I?

Yifei Zhang

Healthy living adventurers can join this journey

Who am I?

Can anyone really answer this question?
What really defines a person? I guess I can start with something more conventional.

What Is My Name?

My name is 张逸飞, or Yifei Zhang.

张，Zhang, is my family name. This family name traces back to a tribal leader who is in charge of the using bow and arrows to defeat enemy. This name has exsited for at least 3000 years.

逸飞, Yifei, is my given name. To be free is its meaning. It represents how my parent wish me to live my life. I strive to achieve that. True freedom comes after true knowledge. Only with knowing, one can be free. I am acquring knowledge constantly to learn about the world we reside. Only by fully understand it can I break out of it.

How old am I?

I am 25 years old.

I don’t like how english express ages; it shows age as a status of self, using the word “am/is/are”. It disassociate the experience and knowledge acquired growing up with the number.

In some cases, it is true that age does not mean maturity, but only senority. In my case, I’d prefer the spanish way of claiming age.

“Yo tengo 25 anos”

It mean “I have 25 years” literally. Some may argue that having 25 years can mean just that. I think owning the years also means owning the experiences and education that comes with.

Where Am I from?

wuhan

Yellow Crane Tower, a building with 2000 years of history that locals never visit

Wuhan, a city of 11.08 million population, is where I grew up in. It has a profound mark in my personality and the way I think. It is hot, humid and loud. A typical bustling mordern city of China.

I spent my formative years in different neighborhoods of Wuhan, witnessing the rapid development of this city. It is where I learned to ride a bike, to speak english, to have my first love and where I love the most.

I miss the city. I miss the kindness of shop owners, the rudeness of taxi drivers, the quietness of corner cafes, the crowdiness of the trains and the tastiness of the breakfast.

It has shaped me to be busy, taught me to be direct, helped me to be positive and kept me to stay proud. Stay proud of the city, stay proud of my self, stay proud of its people and stay proud of the spirit.

This is my answer to the question and my love letter to my hometown.

Which places have I traveled to?

I have had the luxury traveling to many places and continents on God’s green (hopefully remains green) earth.

I had been to almost everywhere in China, thanks to my travel enthusiast father. China has many cultures and races. The dominant race of Han is the first batch of people reaping the economic benefits of development. Thanks to the socialist experiment, minorities get to enjoy the benefits gradually. Regional differece exsist in China as well, in culture, economy, religion and philosophy. Different region really have different approach to life. I will talk about it in future posts.

Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia in South East Asia are among my favorite parts of the world. They are warm and welcoming. The biodiversity is astounding. People living there are usually polite and happy. Despite the asiatic culture, due to years of tourism, the party scene is amazing as well.

Anglo America is like what people see in the movies, but worse in the cities. I like the great plains, desserts, canyons, grasslands and moutains of the Anglo America landscape. I admire the ability of Canadians and Americans utilizing the landscape for entertainment. I absolutely despise anglo america’s approach to the city and living habitat for human. The party scene is decent in major cities with capitalism twist. Meaning it is more about showing off personal wealth than actually enjoying the music, that is however changing.

Latin America is amazing in its arts and musics. I appreciate the dance culture of Latin America. It is vivid, expressive, engaging and entertaining. The culture stresss on the relationship with each other. It is a people’s culture. People live life to enjoy, to have fun, to live. However I don’t admire their attitude towards work and development. Enjoying life can be intoxicating, and induces stagnation. Behind happiness, it lays meaninglessness. To find meaning, Latin Americans usually resort to family and immediate groups. Growing family wealth can be someone’s life mission. Nothing wrong with that, however, this induces chaos in grander level when conflict of interest takes place between families or intra-families. Bigger picture thinking is lacking.

Oceania is like a vacation home of the anglo global north, and Asians. The no-worries culture is amazing for me to see. It is a fine balance of development and leisure. It only needs to play catch up with the top dog and nothing else. I appreciate integration of the latin attitude towards life and anglo attitude of development. I haven’t experienced enough to talk about its downs.

Europe is one of the continents I have never set foot on. It is closing in on the list with a few places I’d to explore prior. Europe has too many histories and cultures to explore. I really need to allocate a huge chunk of resources to have a fully immersive experience.

Why did I start a website?

Around the Web

Contact

Want to get in touch? Find an error in an article?

© 2022. All rights reserved.