Honors 345A: Interdisciplinary Writing Seminar: Pilgrimages and Idle Travels
An Exploration into Memoir and Travel Writing
I used to really dislike writing. Unsurprisingly, my writing used to be atrocious (hopefully less so now). However, over the course of this class, I developed an appreciation for writing...at least for memoir and travel writing. There's something liberating in being able to immerse myself in my mind's universe where memories and imagination collide and combine such that fiction can be difficult to distinguish from fact. Much of my inspiration has come through quiet introspection, during which I immerse myself in my memories. However, equally much of my inspiration has come from my colleagues, whose feedback and writing styles allowed me to gain a better picture of better writing. Based on my papers, perhaps one can see the subtle evolution of my writing style. That's for the reader to decide. The rest is silence.
It was only half a year after Honors in Rome. I could still remember everything very vividly, and my mind often wandered to Italy. So, it was only natural that my writings would deviate towards experiences in Rome.
During this time, I was beginning to question society and its norms, so I projected these questions through the Prince, an innocent child character from the short story The Little Prince that I had read in my younger days. With my mind still deviating towards Italy, it was only natural that setting took place in Rome. Writing this piece made me realize that sometimes people and society don't necessarily make rational (or emotional) sense.
Looking back, I somewhat feel bad for the professor of this course, Francis McCue, considering that all I wrote about was Rome at this point. This piece reflected an inspired interest that I had gained in Rome, ancient Roman history and the evolution of Latin to the Romance languages.
Given my Taiwanese heritage, it was only natural that my travel memoirs would also include Taiwan. Around this time, I realized that I could not recall most of my childhood memories, which disturbed me a bit. However, my (gradually fading) childhood memories of Taiwan were still present, so I thought it would be best to record them (before I completely forget them).
The last piece. For most of my life, I constantly wrestled with an aspect of my identity, my cultural identity. Was I child of the West? Of the East? Maybe neither? Growing up in eastern Washington, I was often treated as an eastern foreigner but traveling to Taiwan also made feel like a western foreigner; ergo, I did not belong to either. However, my time in college made me realize that I didn't need to completely belong to either culture, but I could partially be a part of both, appreciate the best of both worlds. This piece reflected this conclusion and gave a sense of closure.