Meet Soon-to-be Graduate Kyle Layden

“I hope this isn’t cliche, but it really feels like the eye of the storm. You know, how they say the eye of the storm is peaceful, but everything around it is chaotic. That's how I think about Taiwan. The island itself is this fascinating little experiment. You have all kinds of tumultuous actors and republicans all around it, shaping it economically, politically, culturally. That’s what hooked me."

Kyle Leyden grew up around a lot of Vietnamese and Chinese communities, and although he does not quite know why he thought this as a kid, but he remembers thinking they were just so cool. They’d go get bubble tea, their parents would make Peking duck for dinner, all that stuff. Kyle would go home to mashed potatoes and pasta. It felt so strange.

One of his childhood friends, Patrick, is a first generation immigrant who speaks English, but his dad only speaks Vietnamese. It’s this crazy dynamic where they can’t speak to one another. Kyle explains, "When I was 18 or so I got to reading a bit about Asia. The best book from memory was Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan. That was when it really hit me that on our doorstep are two of the world’s biggest and oldest civilisations, India and China. We are at the centre of all these different cultural forces and histories! 

Exploring and experiencing cultures is what excites him. The first time he Ieft Queensland was when he took himself to Nepal. Kyle stayed there for two months, but a big memory was flying into Kathmandu at midnight when he had never even been on a plane before. That’s the moment he really grew up.

Later, when he went to Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, it helped him find a calmer version of himself and really enabled him to find a contemplative side of himself. Up until that point, he had been a pretty ardent atheist, according to him. "My mindset really changed. There wasn’t any particular moment that sums it up, but I felt a connection to other people and myself that I hadn’t felt before. I saw myself as part of a bigger whole.”

Kyle will graduate from the Asian Studies program at the end of this year, and he is now ready to explore the next chapter of his journey. He wants to keep studying Chinese, so he had a dull sense that Taiwan might become something unique.

Through the Hùayu Enrichment Scholarship, Kyle is able to learn and practise Chinese in Taiwan. He reflects, "I’ve chosen the National Taiwan University, that’s their big one. I didn’t realise at the time, but I do actually have to pay my student fees, so there’s a bit of regret that comes with picking the most expensive university. In hindsight, I should’ve chose something more chill. But hey, it’ll still be fun."! 

This featured interview is thanks to an ongoing collaboration with student, photographer and storyteller Oskah Dunnin from the Master of Asian and Pacific Studies at the ANU School of Culture, History & Language.

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