Departure and Arrival

I like traveling. I like the feeling of departure. My body and my mind just escape from the place where my identity is shaped by certain social norms. I become a different person in a different place. Travel is a good way to face different me. I am studying abroad now. I am living in a whole different country where culture is completely different from my own culture.

It's a fourteen hours flight from Seoul to New York. This flight changes my life completely different. When I land at JFK airport, I dispose my identity as a Korean and get a new identity as a foreign student in the U.S. This transition occurs in no time. As soon as the plane lands, I start to speak a different language, meet different people, and eat different foods.

I love this transition. I feel like this transition gives me a chance to live with different identities. I can be a different person depending on where I live. To me, departure and arrival are means of having different identities.