#037: Always Moving Forward... Because There's Nowhere To 'Go Back' To | Alex Sherr

Migratory Patterns

Alex Sherr didn't choose the #ExpatLife. His parents brought him from his native New York to Hong Kong while he was in high school, but he's taken to life as a foreigner with gusto. After graduation, he spent a gap year in Beijing learning Chinese, and never left. A year of college prep was followed by enrollment in Peking University's prestigious International Relations program, where he founded the Western Student Union. But beneath the globe-trotting and academic success (he scored a B in Marxist Theory and English), is something that is unusual to most of us, but is becoming much more common: A different sense of where "Home" might be than what many would recognize. If you leave your country of origin at 14, camp out in another country with your parents until the end of high school, then move on to another country for college while your parents move to another place that you have no connection to, how can you ever feel at home? It''s something that might sound frightening to many- it feels like something vital would be lacking. And while that might be true from a certain perspective, there are benefits, such as an unlimited horizon of possibilities. If you're not attached to a particular place, then there's nothing to prevent you from going anywhere.

• NOTE: You can see the weird, corny Chinese propaganda video that Alex got spliced into here: https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/24/china/china-foreign-students-xi-dada/index.html

Get in touch with comments, suggestions or interview recommendations:

• Twitter: @zax2000
• eMail: [e-mail]

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