Misc

Here are some fun facts about me:

I was born and raised in the beautiful city of Shenzhen in southern China, right next to Hong Kong. Whenever I need to travel internationally, I usually fly out of HKG, and I’ve experienced (many times) one of the longest flight routes in the world: HKG–JFK. Spoiler alert: not fun.

My Chinese name is 金聖苗 (金圣苗). When I was born, my grandma found a Chinese psychic (算命) who gave my parents a list of characters that would supposedly bring me a better future. These characters needed to have a specific number of strokes, which is why I use the traditional form here. My preferred English name, “Samuel,” sounds very similar to “Shengmiao,” and my mom picked it from the Bible. For many international students, an English name helps prevent others from mispronouncing their real name, but in my case, my parents had called me “Samuel” since I was young and rarely used my actual name. As a result, I’m more used to being called “Samuel” than “Shengmiao.” The name Leumas is inspired by Horace Miner’s work Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.

Although I graduated as valedictorian from my high school (the oldest boarding school in the U.S.!), I was unable to attend the ceremony in person due to COVID-19. I also never officially graduated from middle school, because I moved to the U.S. for ninth grade, and in the Chinese education system, ninth grade is still part of middle school. Fingers crossed for my college graduation!