A Path of My Own Choosing
2026-10-23
The road has wound through many turns. In the beginning, I followed it almost without thinking. No one told me why I was walking, or where the road might lead. Naïve as I was, I scarcely thought to ask. It was not until my sixth year of primary school that I learned I would have to study hard for the joint entrance examination if I hoped to enter Changhua Girls’ High School. Only then did I begin to understand that my life was not mine alone: others had their hopes for me, and their judgments of who I ought to be.
After a succession of fiercely competitive entrance examinations—for junior high school, senior high school, and university—I finally gained admission to National Taiwan Normal University, which relatives and friends had recommended. Tuition and fees were fully covered, and a monthly government stipend took care of my basic living expenses. Upon graduation, the Ministry of Education assigned me to teach at a junior high school. My future seemed settled, with little cause for worry.
I began my first year of teaching with enthusiasm and a heart full of affection for my students. Week after week, I taught the same lessons to five different classes, prepared tests, marked papers, and wrote comments in my students’ weekly journals with a Chinese writing brush. Day followed day in much the same rhythm. By the end of that first year, my voice had grown hoarse, and my early certainty had begun to falter. I began to question what it meant to keep urging my students to study for the next examination.
Was this the life I wanted?
At last, I stood before one of life’s essential questions: what life would I choose, now that I understood I was free to choose it? In that moment of awakening, I stepped onto a path of my own.
After my first year of teaching, I mailed applications to several universities in the United States. I wanted, quite simply, to see America for myself—and to improve my English along the way. Before long, three letters of acceptance arrived. At the close of my second year, I submitted my resignation without hesitation and left for America.
Ahead lay challenges I could not yet imagine. In the years that followed, I left my studies, returned to Taiwan, entered the world of international trade, married, had children, and founded a business that steadily flourished. Each stage was shaped by a choice I had made for myself. Whatever followed, I accepted it without bitterness or regret.
Yet through all those years in business, a dream remained deep within me, quiet but never quite asleep. From time to time, it stirred: to become an artist.
During my student days at National Taiwan Normal University, the Fine Arts Department was nearby and frequently held exhibitions. Works of art never failed to awaken my curiosity. What techniques had the artists used? What materials? What were they seeking to express?
From the biographies of artists across different lands and centuries, I gathered that many had lived in poverty and hardship. What unseen force sustained them, drawing them back to their work despite it all?
With these questions in mind, I borrowed books from the public library and took courses at a nearby art college. On weekends, I attended life-drawing classes. On Sundays, I would sit on the floor of a bookstore, turning pages as the hours quietly slipped by. Even as I read, I was painting in my mind.
Finally, when I returned to Taiwan in 2007, I set aside all my other work and devoted myself entirely to painting.
Now, in 2024, I am humbled to be named a Distinguished Alumna of Changhua Girls’ High School. Perhaps the honor lies not in any exceptional achievement, but simply in having dared to choose a life of my own.
A path of my own choosing is one I can walk for years to come. Whether beneath an endless blue sky or amid the swirl of falling snow, I walk as though a gentle spring breeze were all around me.
Lin Kuei-hua
September 25, 2024
Taipei
