A great escape changes one student’s life
“But after the trip, I think I can co for one month to apply for the easily,” she says. face anything unexpected and permit to travel around the US. After more than four months of Wearing a loose, white tank top, accept any kind of people, who are “I wrote to the best friend I made traveling, she went to Florida and skintight trousers and a pair of flipconsidered strange by many others,” at the Burning Man Festival, telling worked on a green farm in Tampa in flops, 26-year-old Li Tian presents she says. her that I lost my phone in case she exchange for room and board. the aura of a hippie, with long black Last August, she packed a big bag would try to contact me,” she recalls. All the animals on the farm had hair casually flowing past her shoulwith clothes and enough food and “She immediately told my situanames, she says. Humans were just ders. water for eight days in a US desert. tion to all the members of the volpart of the whole ecosystem and
But when she starts talking, the Li arrived at the Burning Man Festiunteer camp, and they all offered to lived in a room with animals: rabgood logic and serious attitude that val in Black Rock Desert in Nevada help me, hosting me and giving me bits, chicken, sheep, pigs and even came from two-and-a-half years of to experience “a utopian society clothes. They even raised $500 for snakes. training as a student of life science built based on love and barter and my trip. I was so moved.” “When we fed them, we called starts showing. formed by hippies”. It was the first Li also decided not to make so their names and talked to them just
Last July, she gave up her five-year stop of her trip. many plans and to instead follow like family members,” she says. doctorate study at Tsinghua UniverTemperatures can climb to more her heart. But she had a principle: to She left the US and went to Cuba, sity after careful consideration and than 40 C at noon and drop below not merely see the most famous where she stayed for over one negotiation with her parents and zero at night. Enormous sandtourist attractions but also to experimonth. After six months abroad, supervisor. storms hit the campsites every day. ence local people’s lives. So she she returned to China via Russia,
“There was too much dull, repetiBut Li had a good time — every day, spent at least three weeks in each where she spent three days explortive physical work in the lab. I didn’ing.tsheexperiencedthingsthathadcity,sleepingonlocals’couchesor like it. Besides, I’ve been fully never happened around her before. booking rooms on Airbnb, the popuHer experiences were invaluable, trained as a scholar at Tsinghua,” “Every kind of strange thing lar online marketplace and hospitalshe says. she says. occurred,” she says. “There were ity service. “Now, I can deal with any kind of
“I love life science and academic naked people walking around, but it From San Francisco, she went on accident with a clear head. I’ve work, but I want to experience someseemed very normal there.” to Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, learned not to judge other people’s thing different. I know I want to do None of the unusual behaviors Seattle, Chicago, Boston and, finallives. The travel has strengthened things related to education, so I quit.” harmed anyone, she points out. ly, New York. At airports, she was my determination to do what I real
She then started a six-month trip She joined a camp and volunalways questioned by security ly want to do,” she says. abroad, which could be described as teered to help others repair bicycles. about her identity because she had She now lives in Beijing on her anything but smooth. There, she made a lot of friends who just a permit but no passport or own savings from scholarships and
As a well-trained student, Li used helped her in the United States. visa. part-time jobs. Li is preparing to to make detailed plans for life and “The craziest thing that I did “At first, I was very nervous. But apply for overseas programs in cogwork. there was ‘ getting married’,” she gradually, I could argue with them nitive psychology. says with a laugh.
Her “husband” was a middleaged man from San Francisco. The “marriage” was effective only during the festival.
Eight days later, three other Chinese people who came to the festival drove Li to San Francisco. Before they parted, they went downtown, parked and went sightseeing. When they came back, the rear window of the rented car was broken and every bit of luggage was gone, including Li’s passport, credit cards, cellphone and clothes.
“Originally, I’d planned to travel around the world, first to the US, and then to Britain, where I had applied for an education program. But all of a sudden, I had to change all my plan,” she says.
She needed to stay in San Francis-