voyagers

I am slowly and luxuriously chewing a mouthful of melted cheese mixed with pasta, tomato sauce and mushrooms. After swallowing, I reach for my glass of iced green tea to wash it down. Recorded piano music is playing and people are talking casually in Chinese. The tables have the dark, striped look of wood but the solid, flat feel of plastic. The chairs are big and sturdy and coffee-brown, with the appearance and texture of faux alligator skin.

I'm in Silly Boy, a restaurant near my home in Xinzhuang, Taiwan. I'm American, and I wouldn't be here if I wasn't a certain kind of person.

There's no reason for me to be in Taiwan. None. Five months ago, despite the absymal state of the job market in America, I had finally secured a decent job three years after graduating college. The office environment was friendly, my coworkers were fantastic, the pay was decent, and the job itself wasn't hard if you were talkative, friendly, and hard-working, which I am. Since securing that job, I'd begun to look at apartments, and with time, dedication, and perhaps a roommate, I could have found one that would serve me well. I could have worked hard, advanced within the company, and either reached a high point in that career or quit and taken my skills to a place that paid better or was better suited for me.

But because I am a certain kind of person, the prospect of doing that terrified me. The thought of achieving success this way was, for me, unthinkable.

Since accepting a job halfway around the world and diving into a culture whose language I don't speak and about which I know nothing, I can honestly say that my most miserable days here have fulfilled me far more than some of my best days working anywhere in America.

There are others like me. I've known many of them as friends, but I didn't realize that this particular personal trait existed so acutely within anyone until I came here and discussed travel with others who'd taken that leap. 

The other night, while chatting with a friend in a burger joint in Dunhua, the topic of why we decided to start travelling came up, and I realized that the response I was hearing from this friend mirrored those I'd heard from two other friends not a week ago in a tea house, and was very similar to what I'd heard from a friend in a restaurant the week before. Regardless of the fact that one friend was from Taiwan, one from the American midwest, one from the American far west and the forth from New Zealand, all of them expressed the same sentiment: they couldn't imagine living their entire lives in one place, encased within the comforting cocoon of one cultural experience, and never exploring beyond what they knew.

The common theme among these people, and which I've realized is also in me, is that this need to move beyond familiar boundaries is not simply a wistful desire or a lifelong longing of what could be. It's a fundamental part of what shapes our beliefs, of how we approach the opportunities in our lives. Some people are driven by corporate success, or the fulfillment of settling down and creating a stable, happy environment within which to live their lives (or raise their children). I think (and this is only based on my personal experiences) that people who are driven by the need to explore and travel are fulfilled by feeling slightly unstable, by always being a little (or extremely) baffled by something in their lives.

That I am like these people is the only reason I am in Taiwan; it is the only reason I will one day live in Japan, and why I may one day live somewhere else as well, should the desire for exploration strike. I could have stayed in America, lived a good life surrounded by my friends and family and done well for myself, but I know now that I would have died unhappy and unfulfilled.

Which, I guess, might, not only be a reason for me to be in Taiwan, but the best reason of all.