Happy Accidents

I first prepared this as part of my portfolio defense graduation requirement in October. I didn't get to present the full story. But like everything else, even that turned out to be a happy accident.

Three years in Taizhou. Seventeen years alive. One near-death experience on a plane somewhere over the Pacific. If I were to describe the journey of my life with one phrase, it would be that one Bob Ross quote—"happy accidents."

You know that feeling? When everything in your life seems to line up just right, but you never planned any of it? That's my story.

I come from a city most people have never heard of. Taizhou—or Linhai, depending on where you're looking from. (Even my address changes based on which province I'm in. It's complicated, like most things about home.)

My mom's childhood home. We've moved out of there now, but it's always fun to visit.

But what a city it is: streets that wind through history like rivers, our own great wall standing proud thousands of years before Beijing's was even dreamed of. Endless blue skies, cauliflower patches, and orange trees covered the mountain outside our home. My grandparents worked this land. My parents never left the province.

Until the first time they did. Two one-way train tickets to the capital. "bei-jing-huan-ying-nin-er!" (welcome to Beijing!)

I became part of a world bigger than anyone in my family had ever known.

I never liked to read. But here I was, exploring a world that my family never had a chance to.

Sometimes I wonder if this is what destiny feels like. Or maybe it's just luck. Maybe it's both.

My first day of school in Beijing was a collision of worlds. Picture this: me, only perfectly understanding a dialect special to Linhai (I could only describe it as if we separated ourselves from the rest of China over 1800 years ago and started evolving the language on our own), while the city kids spoke like TV stars. But that struggle? Another happy accident. It taught me that being different meant being able to see what others couldn't.

In Taizhou, breathing meant taking in air scented with orange blossoms and mountain soil. Beijing's air crafted different stories—the pulse of subway stations, the whispered dreams of millions.

Beijing quickly became my everything. It's where I learned words that could sound like "hello" instead of "ni-hao", where I discovered that the world stretched far beyond ancient walls and familiar faces. In Taizhou, I learned to revere tradition; in Beijing, I learned to embrace change.

My childhood in four images. Left to right: orange trees, a giant penguin, a selfie, and my dream house.

Then came Boston.

Like my parents with their train tickets years ago, I found myself a ticket to a new world. August '24. A small house in Watertown. My first time alone in a new country.

The journey here wasn't simple. Dozens of late nights, a lucky internship at a dream startup, and a few lucky tweets, I saved just enough to cover a plane ticket from Beijing to Boston. My first solo step into the world beyond my home.

My first impression of Boston? It felt like stepping into tomorrow. Like a Marvel movie, where ordinary people did extraordinary things.

Here were dreamers, builders, people who saw the world differently. I met people in blue bottles and sushi shops, talking to people who saw problems as possibilities. For the first time, I wasn't just dreaming about changing the world—I was standing where people actually did it.

Two weeks passed by in a blink. My head full of possibilities, film rolls full of moments that felt like the future.

But somewhere over the Pacific, life had other plans.

Another happy accident—a spontaneous pneumothorax. I struggled to breathe.

Thirty thousand feet above the Pacific. One specific position let me breathe. One rush off the plane, straight into the nearest hospital. One week before school starts.

Each careful breath became a meditation on chance and resilience. Head tiled just so, shoulders just drawn back, taught me something about adaptation I hadn't learned in all my moves between cities.

Skies over the Pacific, Flight UA888, August 16, 2024. I'm forever grateful for the cabin crew and airport paramedics who never left my side.

You never think about breathing until it's the only thing you can think about.

There are no mistakes, just happy accidents.

These happy accidents have taught me that every breath, every moment, every unexpected turn is a gift we never see coming. That sometimes, the scariest moments become our biggest teachers. That being vulnerable isn't weakness—it's the courage to keep going even when the path ahead seems impossible.

I think about my grandparents sometimes, working under those endless blue skies. About my parents on that train, hearts probably beating as fast as I did on that plane. We're all trying to just breathe, to move forward, to find something bigger than what we knew before.

So here I am. Still breathing. Still dreaming. Still asking "why?" to every answer I find.

Back home, I learned to look up at mountains. Here in Boston, I'm learning to climb them. Maybe in a year, I'll be walking through a different city, speaking a different language, meeting people I can't even imagine yet. Maybe in a year, I'll be turning another "impossible" into "figured it out."

Maybe I'll have another story to tell about how everything worked out exactly the way it wasn't supposed to.

That's the thing about happy accidents—they shake you awake. They show you who you could be. And sometimes, they teach you how to breathe all over again, thirty thousand feet above the ground.

Here I am, one foot in ancient streets, one in tomorrow's dreams, my story still unfolding.

Baby, just let it go and breathe
You're gonna be fine
You're doing alright

just breathe, Jeremy Zucker & Chelsea Cutler