On and Off Campus Blog: Edinburgh and the art of letting go
By: Hailey Jiang ’25
This past August, I traveled to Edinburgh for ten days with my fellow castmates and teachers to
perform in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. We toured the city, tried fish and chips, and, of course,
performed four shows. Each day brought something new, whether it was trying traditional
Scottish food or learning Scottish dances. There was so much to remember, and, in the best way
possible, so much to forget.
In our show, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, I played Anna. Anna is a young girl who,
after being rejected by Brom Van Brunt, expresses her greater hopes and dreams to the audience.
In a way, she is similar to Amy March from Little Women. While Amy has been “second to Jo
[her] whole life,” Anna is second to Katrina van Tassel in that Brom chooses Katrina over Anna.
While Amy is aware that marriage is an “economic proposition,” Anna knows that she can only
achieve her dreams by finding a man to marry. As I stepped into Anna’s shoes, I knew I was
telling the story of millions of women around the world, who are seen as nothing without a man.
Altogether, I watched twelve shows, ranging from comedies to manic dancing. The most
amusing show I watched was definitely an adaptation of Cinderella from the Haywardamo
Commedia Players. It was not your typical classic Cinderella story — the lead is introduced as
herself, a teenage actor casted to play Cinderella. The play featured numerous contemporary
references, ranging from Satoru Gojo to mewing. Ridiculous? Yes. Hilarious? Absolutely.
One moment on the trip that I will never forget is when we watched an adaptation of
Twelve Angry Men in Chinese. At the end of the play, the third juror breaks down and tells the
audience about his estranged son. When I turned around, I saw a woman crying while recording the show. At that moment, I realized just how powerful theater is. I didn’t know anything about
this woman; I didn’t even know if she was a director or a parent of one of the actors. But I knew
that the show had moved her in the same way it had moved me.
On the last day of the trip, I visited the 160th Edinburgh International Exhibition of
Photography 2024. As I pursued through the many great photos, I couldn’t stop thinking about
the many memories I had captured with my own photography. Ironically enough, I didn’t take
too many. In my last blog, I talked about how I use photography to hoard my favorite memories.
Yet, on this trip, I only took a couple photos of the landmarks we visited. I turned my phone off
during every show, and I hardly even wrote in my diary (which is very out of character for me).
It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the trip or didn’t cherish the many memories I made. Instead, I
realized that there is beauty in letting go, in allowing a memory to exist only in the present. Even
if some experiences fade from my mind, I now understand that they don’t lose their meaning.
So, funnily enough, if you asked me if I would go on the trip again, my answer would be
no. Not because I thought the weather was horrible, or because I didn’t enjoy my time there.
Rather, it’s because the magic of that trip lies in its uniqueness. The memories I made, the shows
I watched, the emotions I felt—they all belong to that one moment in time, unrepeatable and
irreplaceable. Going back would mean trying to recreate something that was special because it
was fleeting. Some experiences are meant to be lived once, treasured in their imperfection, and
then let go. For me, that’s the beauty of Edinburgh: the understanding that sometimes, the best
memories are the ones that are let go.
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