By Samantha Ruhl
Staff Writer
Freshman Maya Pow has been around the world and back after returning to her original roots this August.
This August, the Pow family moved from Shanghai, China to Hermosa Beach, California. Maya Pow, the eldest child is currently a student at Mira Costa High School.
“I moved away [from California] and I moved back this summer of 2015, before I became a Mustang at Costa,” Pow said. “ I am already used to California. My family and I visited each Christmas and summer vacation so the transition was not tough.”
Pow was born in California and lived here until the age of two when her family packed up all of their belongings and moved across the globe to Shanghai, China. The Pow family moved to Shanghai when Maya was two for her father’s job and recently moved back to California for their children’s education.
“I moved back to California because I plan on going to a college in the United States. Also, my parents wanted me to experience high school in America,” said Pow.
Pow also plans to finish her academic career here in the United States, starting with high school at Mira Costa. Pow said that she is unsure of what college she wants to attend but hopes to attend a university.
“Mira Costa is a public school. It is smaller, but it is more outdoors and open and close to the beach,” Pow said. “ At my old school everybody was from around the world, since it was an international school and if you were from America you were considered popular. I can not tell you which one I like better, they are both so different.”
Unlike Mira Costa, Pow’s old school in Shanghai has block scheduling with only four classes a day. There was no need to bring textbooks for all of the textbooks were online and for most of her classes the homework was also found online.
“I like living closer to the beach I also like the air.” Pow said. “[Shanghai] never had blue skies and it was very polluted.”
According to Pow, the transition for her and her family to the beach city was not difficult. As long as Pow can remember, her family would visit California every year for summer and Christmas breaks.
“I plan on experimenting a new way of living as well as meeting new people,” Pow said.
While in Shanghai, Pow influenced many of her friends and family by speaking at many assemblies. Pow plans to become an inspirational speaker in the future and do a project with Shanghai so that she could connect with her Shanghai community again.
“I thought starting a new chapter would be hard but Mira Costa has made it so easy for me because of all the nice people,” Pow said.
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