Hi everyone! My name is Alison Qiu. I'm an 18-year-old high school student who loves Hispanic cultures, Psychology, and Neuroscience.
My story
I didn’t start out learning about the myth, but rather about the culture.
To refine my Spanish speaking skills, I met many native speakers through a website called Conversation exchange. One of them is half Misak (an indigenous group from Colombia). He is proud of his indigenous heritage and strives to preserve Native American culture, including the oral traditions like myths and folklores. Our conversations exposed me to a different set of mythical stories that I’ve never heard of before. I was fascinated by the myths themselves as well as how firm a believer of them my friend is. For example, he told me that his people came from the water, being the creation of two lake gods. Through his stories I realized that, although myths have increasingly become recreational tools with the development of science and technology, in actuality they shape one’s identity and transmit their unconscious beliefs. So, I talked to as many other Latinos as I could, researched about the myths they grew up hearing, and even read Jung’s book on dream and mythology interpretation to help myself better understand the underlying messages and beliefs behind these myths. The more I investigated, the more intrigued I became by my findings such as the chronicity of certain themes, and that the same symbols in myths from different cultures can represent dramatically different values. I can’t help but to want to share the stories I collected and my insights with the world. So I came to my friend Lily, who’s also fascinated by folklore, and shared my idea about Myth Puzzle.
My mission
I want to help more people to learn about the females in Latin American and Chinese mythologies. Through Myth Puzzle, I want to tell the stories as a way of preserving them, and help English speakers see the culture, the traditions, and the people’s mentalities through the motifs in the myths.
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