[KylieHJensen]

Nyororin.

The story of your life was very touching and smiliar to mine with the exception that I grew up in Taiwan and spent my teenage years in United States. My parents are from 2 separate worlds, (father Norway, mother Taiwan.) I was born in Norway and moved to Taiwan at the age of 3. I spent the next 10 years there before my mother passed away from cancer.

When I was young, my father was never that responsible and after the death of my mother, he moved back to United States (where my parents first met) and left us in Taiwan. My sister and I stayed with my uncle in Taiwan a year before we decided to look for our father in America.

My father lived in New York, and the school system was not an ideal place for us to be educated. I continued to have problems coping with the loss of my mother, ran into trouble in school and got addicted to cocaine.

At the age of 16, I ran away from home and for the next 2 months on the streets and with people who I would never associate with today. Long story short, I overdosed and almost killed myself but was lucky enough to be rescued by someone who found me unconscious. At that time, I was yet fluent in English and found myself questioned by police in the hospital and that was the lowest point of my life. Perhaps the incident woke my father up and from that moment he began to take responsibility for us by quitting his job and moved us to Maryland (an area that was much safer) It was there, I went through rehab, focused on my academics, went to college and obtain my doctrine in psychology.

I was no where near as strong as you, but I can relate to the time when I ran away from home. Like you, I was in a country where I had no cultural knowledge and background, I felt lost and yet tried to survive on my own. This is also the major difference between us, you succeeded where I failed.

Life is hard for some of us, yet we make the most of it. I salut you for the ability tobeen able to succeed in a way that you did and look forward to become a good friend with you online.

I will be in Japan (okinawa, tokyo, and Fukushima) this fall and if you have some time, I'd like to meet you for a coffee. I am not sure where you reside and I'm not all that familiar with Japan.

My name is Kylie Jensen. I am 26 and of Norwegian/Taiwan descendant who travels the world whenever I can.