running away to asia (ch/en)
“我来这个世界，不是为了上班繁衍后代，而是来看花怎么开，水怎么流，太阳怎么升起，夕阳何时落下我活在世上，无非想要明白些道理，遇见些有趣的事，算是一时热血，也算蓄谋已久”
This post, much like my life, is in both Chinese and English. An English-only version is available here.
我现在很头疼这个暑假跟秋天要去干什么。我想去亚洲，至少暑假一部分时间在亚洲，要么是中国，要么是韩国。可是我又害怕时间的浪费，我害怕在这个关键，貌似很关键的时刻，把精力没有放在应该做的事情上，精力没有集中，到最后，一无所成。
可是一个暑假在漫长的生命里因为貌似不是很长的时间，如果能在一个暑假中活出快乐的生活，如果能在一个暑假中来获得成长，那又何尝不值得？一个暑假去体验体验生活，难道不比用一个暑假的时间埋头苦干做科研获得更多吗？
我去韩国的话就会学韩语，去韩国的话就会体验韩国生活，去韩国，成长很多。去中国的话就不一样，因为在中国理论上我是一个成年人，我可以找工作，有更多的可能性也就带来了更多的不确定。可以说在韩国我是婴儿，我的成长来自于学语言、怎么社交、怎么交朋友。在中国我不会有这个困难，在中国的困难是怎么找工作、我应该干什么。可以说我在中国的困难是一个成年人的成长过程，我会需要回答成年人需要回答的问题，例如：我想干什么？我来这个世界上想干什么？虽然这跟在美国没有什么区别，但是中国的话，因为我没有建立好的一个刻板印象，去到一个新的环境里，我觉得反而会探索的可能性会多很多。再说，有一些底气，也是好的。可以说勇气的一部分来自于底气，而我的底气就是，无论如何，我明年都会回到美国，读完本科，继续我原本的生活。这些其实是最大的底气，相似一个游戏的存档。
Thinking more logistically, if I do my fall semester abroad and make no progress towards my graduation, I'll graduate in the fall of the following year. It was very possible that I was going to take a gap year anyway and in this case I would just have a gap semester and a summer. Instead of one year of no school, I have one semester and a summer of no school. It's more or less based on the assumption that I won't get into grad school in the fall of 2026 or the assumption that even if I did get in, I might not go in favor of taking a gap year to figure out what I want to do.
但可能在某种程度上这些是一样的。如果我没有申请25-26年的cycle，在接下来的gap year填完application后也可以去亚洲。或者我可以投完25-26年的cycle之后，从26年spring开始去亚洲，然后26年fall再回来。但是投完之后是不是还要interview？而且如果进了的话也要去campus visit。
我已经决定想去亚洲的话，那就有三个选择：25年fall、26年spring，或者毕业之后。任何一个semester我觉得毕业之后就不一样了，到那时候已经不算一个学生。有可能这样子更好找工作，但是如果还想投phd的话，也好像不是很适合去花时间找工作。
我本人的反应是说越早去越好，因为这样子有可能发生的影响就更多时间产生
那么就回到了一开始的问题：去中国还是韩国还是两个都去？
And I mean, on some level, what even is the point in graduating on time if I don’t know what I’m going to do afterwards? I’d just take a gap anyway. And with this, at least, I’ll have a year of school left to affect whatever change I want to make coming back. The other less logistical, more emotional argument is that I’m bored of being here. I mean I already planned out next year’s courses and I’m excited about them, but I’m bored of being here, at school, and I want to go do something.
上课跟深度思考不是很协调。
… 1.5 weeks later
So that’s why I decided to run away, to Korea in the summer (I just applied for Sogang’s regular language program). As for China, the deadlines are early-mid May, so I’ll worry about those after talking to more people. I mean, that’s a much scarier prospect. I won’t have a single, clear goal to lean on. If I meet people and they ask me what I’m doing here, what would I say?
有两点值得思考的地方：
我更害怕没有明确的目标，还是让别人知道我没有明确目标？
中国那么大，我他妈去哪？
In the back of all of this is perhaps a preoccupation called “what the hell is everyone going to do when the machines take over?” There are jobs that will obviously disappear, there are jobs that will obviously be helped, but trying to predict everything else feels like when my mom tried to time the stock market with Apple and lost our entire house. Untrue story but the point is that it doesn’t feel like I have any expertise in “how labor markets respond when a machine god is born”, and that my predictions would be just as worthless as my mom’s decision to short $APPL (she doesn’t know anything about tech or American culture).
In future history books I feel like they’d talk about this central anxiety of our time, and view something-A thru the lens of something-B, or whatever. I can see it a little bit — “In the early 21st century, a fervent fire lit up under the world. The people were presented with two options, if they wanted to survive: join the machine race, or become something completely irreplaceable.”
Or, you know, maybe not. 有可能 AGI 就是我们这个年代的fusion.