Call me stubborn, but I knew what I wanted and grabbed it

Duan Yimeng and her landlady make dumplings for her Italian family in Bari. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

My goals:

My gap year wish was simple: I just wanted to stop to see this world. I chose to do that because I knew it was the only time I got to do this. I mean being a student, obviously the best “occupation” in the world. You get to sit around and read books all day and have really great conversations about ideas. You could just leave behind everything familiar and comforting, and then go traveling. People in the world are not really doing that I guess. You could go up to everyone here and say: “I am a musician” and no one will punch you in the face. My student time was running out. I wanted to seize my last carefree time to do what I want and to be what I expect to be, even something not usual, something crazy. But when else I can get to do this since youth flies?

First finish the internship in Italy and at the same time travel all over this fabulous country, then travel around Europe by myself. Having been playing the piano since I was six, I am a huge classical music fan. So I fancy Europe maybe more than anyone. And that is why I so wanted to apply for internship programs in Europe. What’s more, with the convenience of Schengen visa, I could travel across European countries easily. More than one country at a time, which is very cool. I think traveling alone provides the greatest possibility to experience different psychology, different way of life that I might not be able to taste in my own life time. For me, this gap year was much longer than the four years I got to spend at my university because I was truly willing to regard everything that happened to me on the journey as a lesson and everyone I met along the way as a teacher. They are better than textbooks and papers.

Reactions from family and friends

I had this huge plan when I was a freshman at university and kept working on it since. Besides studying hard and shaping characters at school, I did a lot of homework about my trip before I started in order to spend as little money as I possibly could. Of course, my parents sponsored me in a way that I could never thank them enough. With the limited money they gave me and I saved from part-time jobs and internships over the past three years at college, I flew to my dreamland.

I am so fortunate to have supportive and understanding parents because I know this gap year stuff is not common in China now and most parents are very likely to say no. The education in my family is more like a western style. My parents encourage me to have individual thoughts and opinions. They make me learn to be independent in life as well as in studies. They teach me things outside textbooks. They support everything I choose.

As to friends around me, they said that I did something they would never dream to do while some said I did something they dreamt but never had the courage to do. But I said, I dreamt, I wanted, and I did. Dream is not a rare word for the process of growing up and for the whole world, but only few people consider it as a REAL part of his own life and take it seriously.