Efan Hsieh

University of Massachusetts Amherst, B.A. in Environmental Science and Biology

Born in Taipei and raised in New England, Efan’s first love was Nature. While studying field ecology during a semester in New Zealand, Efan was inspired by the power of experiential education to connect with a deeper sense of self, place, community, and purpose. She spent nearly a decade as an instructor in various wilderness schools in New England and Colorado, facilitating experiences to help people become more connected to Nature through their own engagement. Efan co-founded a nature-based program for teenage girls, which had its ten-year anniversary in 2018. As an educator, her teaching methods are enriched by many hours in the field, but also drawn from observation of the natural world and its cycles.

For reasons inexplicable to her parents, Efan was drawn to quit her job and buy a one-way ticket to Guatemala in 2012. She traveled in Guatemala and Mexico several times from 2012 to 2014, and her experiences as a solo female traveler were memorable and resulted in the co-founding of Xol Original, a non-profit organization whose mission is to bring beauty and value to the world through supporting and revitalizing indigenous artisans and artisanship.

Efan returned to Taipei in 2015 to reconnect with her roots and to learn Wing Chung Kung Fu from Sifu Lo Man Kam. Efan currently works as a Montessori phonics teacher in Taipei and is a lead editor of an academic editing company. Her latest project is as one of the founding members of Wing Chun Connect Kung Fu school. She has worked with Dragons on their Taiwan and China courses since 2017.