My story

I was adopted from Chongqing, China when I was 11 months old. My gotcha day is December 5, 2005. My name in the orphanage was 黔经松 (Qián Jīngsōng), and I was left in front of a government center.

That is part of my beginning—a beginning I am still learning how to hold with care. I do not know my exact birthday or my birth family, but I hope that one day I may be able to find them.

I have lived in Indiana and the Midwest my whole life. I have never felt like an outcast in my family, and I am grateful for the love I have received. Still, belonging can be complicated.

As I have gotten older, I have started to understand how much adoption has shaped me. Not in a way that defines everything about me, but in ways I did not always have words for. Around Asian people, I sometimes felt too white. Around white people, I sometimes felt too Asian to fully fit in. For a long time, I thought that feeling was something I just had to carry alone.

Now, I know I am not the only person who has felt in between.

Every adoptee’s story is different. Some experiences are joyful, some are painful, and many are both at once. Adoption should not define someone’s entire identity, but there can be real comfort in hearing how other people have navigated their lives. Sometimes you recognize a part of yourself in someone else’s story. Sometimes it is simply reassuring to remember that your roots, questions, and uncertainty do not make you any less worthy.

That is part of why I am building In Between: a community where adoptees can share, listen, learn, and grow without being expected to have the same story or feel the same way. I hope it becomes a place where people can feel understood, or simply a little less alone.

Finding My Place Through What I Build

Lately, I have been having what feels like a small quarter-life crisis. I have been asking myself why I have worked so hard, what success actually means to me, and what kind of life would make me happy.

I have had setbacks. Recently, I failed at something that mattered to me, and it was difficult. But I am trying to see failure less as proof that I am not capable and more as a chance to redirect, learn, and try again. I am still figuring that out, but I know I do not want one hard moment to define the rest of my story.

I am someone who loves to learn, build, and understand how things work. I study Data Analytics, but my college experience has also included software engineering, AI, cybersecurity, machine learning, LLMs, and plenty of side quests involving computers.

I originally wanted to become a pilot, though that is a whole other story. When Purdue rejected me, I appealed, continued doing aerospace research, and eventually found a new interest in technology and design. It was not the path I expected, but it taught me that I love solving problems, creating things, and finding new directions when the original plan changes.

I hope to work in AI someday, perhaps in product development or research. I tend to explore a little bit of everything: cybersecurity and machine-learning research, full-stack development, UI/UX, Java Minecraft mods, and websites like this one. My personal website is coded too—vibe-coded, but I genuinely love the creative side of software as much as the technical side.

I do not have every answer about what I want to do long term, and I think that is okay. What I do know is that I want to use technology and design to make things that feel thoughtful, human, and useful—things that help people find information, express themselves, connect with others, or feel a little less alone.

The Everyday Things

Outside of work and school, I love doing a little bit of everything. I have played piano since I was five, love all kinds of music, and listened to more than 76,000 minutes on Spotify last year. I used to figure skate in high school and have spent an honestly impressive amount of time watching anime. Hunter x Hunter is probably my favorite.

I also love road trips. Before life got busy, I used to take solo trips around the Midwest. I can speak a little Chinese, hope to return to China one day, and now have a very cute kitten named Moon.

More than anything, I love learning about what people are working toward, what makes them happy, where they have been, and what keeps them going. That curiosity, along with my own search for belonging, is why I am building In Between.

This is not a place that assumes everyone should feel the same way about adoption, identity, family, or culture. It is a place for people to be heard in the complexity of their own stories.

I am still learning, still figuring out my identity, and still building. I just hope that through technology and community, I can make it a little easier for someone else to find their place too.

I would always love to connect.