Skip to content
S4 E6 - I died before I was born episode artwork

Jun 1, 2020 10 min

S4 E6 - I died before I was born

from Memoria Hosted by Memoria

I have died. I have died many times—before I was even born. After my birth, they still wanted me gone, but they failed. They pressured my parents to sign me away for adoption, but my mother held onto me for dear life. The story of my birth defined my personality early on, and it continues to inform who I am. When I tried to write about walking across Kyrgyzstan, I realized that a more pressing story needed to be told. I needed to first understand myself before I could write about my actions. My birth story, therefore, became my coming home story. Youjia Song is an English language teacher, adventurer and new writer. Her article about her 2-year expedition called “Crossing Kyrgyzstan: A Woman's Journey on Foot Through Land, Culture and History” was published by She Went Wild in 2018. Youjia is currently working on her memoir. You can find more of her work at http://acrosswildlands.com Acknowledgements: Memoria was written, produced, edited and presented by Natalie V. I died before I was born was written and read by Youjia Song. The story was sound edited by Jen Farrow. Music in this episode was by Blue Dot Sessions, Sage the Hunter, When in the West and The Envelope. Illustrations by Peta Manning. Her book, See Me Doodle, is out now.

Episode details come from the podcast's RSS feed.

Embed this episode

Ready to play

S4 E6 - I died before I was born

0:00 10:27

No transcript yet.

Requests help us decide what to transcribe next.

Frequently asked questions

How long is this episode of Memoria?

This episode is 10 minutes long.

When was this Memoria episode published?

This episode was published on June 1, 2020.

Can I download this Memoria episode?

Yes. Use the download control on the episode player to save the publisher-provided media file.