My Life Before Design

Long before I worked in pixels, I worked in turbulence.

I spent over a decade as a flight attendant for China Airlines, moving through time zones, layovers, and loneliness with a trolley full of warm bread rolls and unsaid things.

It was beautiful. It was chaotic. It was numbing and magical all at once.

I watched sunrises over Moscow at 40,000 feet.

I walked through airport terminals feeling both completely invisible and hyper-visible.

And in between Tokyo red-eyes and Parisian pastries, I bought my first camera, fell in love, lost myself, and started quietly dreaming about what life might look like… if it were mine.

That Paris Pastry School

In one of those impulsive, high-altitude moments of clarity, I paid tuition to a pastry school in Paris — Ferrandi, if you know it.

I didn’t go.

Too many logistics. Not enough time. But I did start taking photos. I started writing again.

That was the beginning.

Creativity in Limbo

Flight crews live in liminal space.

You exist in-between — between cities, between people, between selves.

Looking back, that’s where I started to design. I just didn’t know it yet.

The way I packed a suitcase. The way I plated crew meals for Instagram.

The way I picked textures, music, and books to keep myself tethered.

Design was survival. It was storytelling. It was expression in small, quiet acts.

A Soft Landing

When the pandemic hit, I knew I had to choose myself — for real this time.

So I quit. I applied to design school. I cried a lot. I doubted everything.

And then I began again — not in a new city, but in a new language: design.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in a life that "almost" fit,

If you’ve ever stood in a crowded terminal wondering what it would feel like to really arrive —

This one’s for you.

See you in EP.02.

— Wen