I IMAGINED this happening in my late twenties, exactly ten years after high school graduation. A few of us would meet in Taiwan...

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Instead, I found myself back in Taiwan with almost a hundred alumni, reliving experiences that were once my last. Lunar New Year, homecooked meals with grandparents, weekly Karaoke—the routines I’d given up when I crossed the Pacific. 

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For youth who spend their lives preparing to leave Taiwan, the hardest question is how to come back....

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I’ve long pondered the life I’d live if I never left. This is the year I found out, on a small island untouched by the Pandemic. In the alternative timeline where we stayed. In the home that I always loved but could only exist in my heart.