GRIP: KK Fund

Cover photo: Solo Traveling in Asia, in Kyoto Japan

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you.” — Anthony Bourdain

I remember staring out the airplane window somewhere over the Pacific, trying to picture what the next three months of my life would look like. I had read everything I could about Taiwan. I had watched YouTube videos, looked through Google Maps, and even memorized the route from Taoyuan Airport to my apartment in Taipei. In my mind, I had planned everything.

Of course, the funny thing about traveling is that nothing ever goes exactly according to plan.

After nearly twenty hours of traveling, I finally stepped off the plane into Taoyuan International Airport. I was exhausted, carrying two heavy suitcases, and running on very little sleep. It suddenly hit me that I was 7,500 miles from home, in a place where I couldn’t read most of the signs around me and somehow had to figure out how to get myself across a city I had never seen before.

Looking back, it wasn’t some dramatic moment. Nobody was waiting for me with a sign. It was just me, two suitcases, an airport MRT map, and a quiet feeling of, “Well… I guess this is really happening.”

I bought an EasyCard, followed the MRT signs, and after transferring trains and dragging my luggage over uneven sidewalks, I finally unlocked the door to the apartment that would become my home for the summer. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was the first time I realized something important: confidence isn’t something you pack in your suitcase. It’s something you slowly earn.

Before this summer, Asia was somewhere I had read about. I knew the history. I knew the economics. But I didn’t know what it felt like.

I didn’t know what it was like to wake up every morning and hear Mandarin outside my apartment window. I didn’t know that 7-Eleven could somehow be a grocery store, coffee shop, ATM, post office, pharmacy, and restaurant all at once. I certainly didn’t know that I’d end up visiting one almost every day.

Living somewhere teaches you things that no guidebook ever can.

During my first week in Taipei, I absentmindedly stood on the left side of an escalator while checking directions on my phone. Within seconds, I realized I had unknowingly blocked an entire line of commuters trying to walk up behind me. Nobody complained, but everyone in Taiwan knows you stand on the right so people in a hurry can pass on the left. It seems like such a small thing, yet by the end of the summer I caught myself instinctively stepping to the right before I even realized I was doing it.

A few weeks later in Hong Kong, I sat down at a traditional tea shop after spending the morning at the Asia Private Equity Forum. Before my food arrived, the server placed a small bowl of hot tea on the table. Thinking it was complimentary, I picked it up and almost took a sip before realizing everyone else was dipping their chopsticks and forks into it instead. The tea wasn’t there to drink—it was there to clean your utensils.

I laughed, quietly copied everyone around me, and realized I probably wasn’t the first foreigner to make that mistake. Looking back, those moments are the ones I smile about the most not because they were embarrassing, but because they reminded me how much I didn’t know.

Singapore surprised me in a completely different way. Before arriving, I imagined eating at famous restaurants overlooking Marina Bay. Instead, every founder, investor, and local I met gave me exactly the same recommendation: “Go to the hawker centers.” Some of the best meals I had all summer came from stalls with plastic chairs and recipes that had been perfected over generations. Sitting shoulder to shoulder with strangers reminded me that some of the best experiences aren’t hidden behind expensive reservations.

That lesson extended far beyond food. I spent my summer researching startups, meeting founders, attending startup events in Bangalore, traveling to Singapore, and attending the Asia Private Equity Forum in Hong Kong. There were moments where I had to stop and remind myself that I was still a college student. But as incredible as those experiences were, what fascinated me just as much wasn’t what people were building, but rather it was how they built relationships.

In the United States, we’re often taught that confidence means speaking up and making your ideas known. Throughout East Asia, I experienced something different. Meetings were quieter, people listened carefully before speaking, and I learned to wait until senior colleagues sat before taking my own seat. Rather than trying to prove you were the smartest person in the room, there was an unspoken understanding that listening first was often the smarter thing to do.

At first, I worried constantly about making mistakes. Was I greeting someone correctly? Was I accidentally being disrespectful? Was I talking too much?

Eventually, I stopped trying to compare everything to what I was used to back home. Instead, I started asking myself a different question: Why is it done this way? That simple change in mindset transformed my entire experience.

One weekend, I decided to take the High Speed Rail to Taichung. Just a few weeks earlier, navigating Taipei Main Station had felt overwhelming. This time was different. I walked into the station knowing exactly where I was going, bought my ticket without hesitation, and boarded the train almost without thinking.

As the High Speed Rail sped through Taiwan, it struck me how easy everything felt now. A month earlier, simply getting from the airport to my apartment had felt like an adventure. Now I was spending weekends exploring an entirely different city by myself.

Somewhere between that first Airport MRT ride and the train to Taichung, something had quietly changed. Taiwan no longer felt like somewhere I was visiting. It had started to feel like somewhere I belonged.

I had favorite coffee shops. I knew which MRT exit to take without looking at my phone. I had favorite night market stalls. Without realizing it, I had stopped acting like a tourist. I had simply started living.

Looking back now, the memories that come to mind first aren’t the ones I expected. I remember dragging two suitcases through Taipei on my first day. I remember standing on the wrong side of an escalator. I remember almost drinking the utensil-washing tea in Hong Kong. I remember eating some of the best meals of my life at Singapore hawker centers. I remember conversations with strangers, weekend train rides across Taiwan, getting lost, finding my way, and slowly realizing that a place which had once felt completely foreign now felt familiar.

Living across Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and India expanded my understanding of the world in ways I never expected. Every country had its own customs, values, and rhythms. The more I traveled, the less interested I became in comparing cultures and the more interested I became in understanding them.

When I left for Asia, I thought I was crossing an ocean.

In reality, I was crossing the invisible boundaries of my own perspective.

Anthony Bourdain believed that travel should leave you different than when you arrived. As I packed my bags to come home, I realized I wasn’t bringing back the things that fit in my suitcase. I was bringing home a greater appreciation for the people I had met, the cultures that had welcomed me, and the realization that the world is far bigger—and somehow far more connected—than I had ever imagined.

The journey changed me. And I hope it always does.