This year, I celebrated Christmas in a plane—a plane that would take me from my small town in Northern California to the island of Taiwan. The 12 hour journey from the West Coast to Taipei was rather uneventful; I suppose I was expecting the flight attendants to break out into Christmas songs or deliver gifts to all the passengers but none of that happened.
The lack of festivity on the flight was the first reminder that many things that we care so much about are completely meaningless to others in this world. I’m not trying to sound cynical about humanity during this holiday season—just realistic. Sometimes we can be so encompassed in our own world that we forget about the existence of other worlds and other possibilities. If you’ve seen the movie Stardust (not that I recommend it) you’ll probably get an idea of what I mean. It’s like living in the land of Wall without realizing that there’s an entire kingdom that exists just beyond a border.
While waiting around San Francisco International Airport, I saw this billboard by The Economist which told passer-byers to “Think outside the dodecahedron.” I’m going to try and keep that in mind this winter break.
Anyway, I’m off to go explore the city of Kaohsiung now. Until next time, have a great rest of December!
Grace Chen is a Sun blogger. She can be reached at [email protected].