Hey, I’m Jocelyn!

A Taiwanese-American Living In Paris

Where It All Started…

I’m a first-generation Taiwanese-American born in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley. Despite going on many trips back-and-forth between California and Taiwan during my childhood, I truly fell in love with traveling when I was 15 years old during a 9-day high school biology trip to Costa Rica. Since then, I’ve traveled to 15 countries, lived on both coasts of the USA, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Brazil, and developed a burning passion for the Portuguese language.

In 2013, right after moving back to California from Brazil, I met a French man named William through a whimsical online exchange. After 3 years of exploring countless corners of my home state, we moved to his hometown of Paris in 2016 and started a new adventure together. I moved to France without any prior experience of the lifestyle, culture, and not even enough franglais* to buy a baguette from the boulangerie (*a mix of French and English, same concept as Spanglish haha). So there was plenty of cultural shock and barriers, especially in the beginning.

Over the past years, I’ve worked so hard to adjust and feel at home here–from making friends, finding work, to learning French mannerisms. After 4 years here, it’s finally begun to feel like somewhere I belong. So come along, I’ve love to take you on a journey through my adventures as I continue to discover life in Europe and abroad! Also, I guarantee there’ll be lots of shots of mouthwatering food, for my fellow foodies out there. 😉

Our Paris Stories featured my story of moving to Paris, read it here!

Becoming An Entrepreneur Abroad

After moving to Paris, I opened my own French company with an entrepreneur visa, which was no easy feat! I now work as a digital marketing consultant for both American and international clients. For French clients, I often work on expanding their reach into the English-speaking market, or developing effective strategies/content to drive conversions from specific audiences.

Before moving Paris, I was working my dream job in San Francisco as Head of Marketing at Feastly (acquired by ChefsFeed in 2018). I worked with chefs to create unique and intimate social dining experiences around the city. A typical day consisted of writing about delicious food, tasting a new chef’s handcrafted recipes, then developing a strategy to tell that chef’s story and share their incredible cuisine. It’s a rewarding moment when a curious food lover connects with a passionate chef over an ephemeral culinary experience.

Prior to Feastly, I was Director of Communications at News for Chinese media in the San Francisco Bay Area. I continue to write freelance pieces for NFC from around the world, you can read my work here.

In 2013, I graduated from Boston University’s College of Communication with a B.S. in communications and a double concentration in Chinese and Portuguese. Since then, I’ve called San Francisco, Boston, Auckland, Taipei, Rio de Janeiro, and now Paris, my home.

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Fun Tidbits:

• I’m a fan of retail therapy and I can never have enough plants.
• My 3 fiery life passions are travel, culture, and language.
• I’m a journal writer, started when I was 10.
• I adopted an orange cat in France. He is unbelievably cute.
• I love dancing, especially Spanish flamenco and Brazilian samba! (Both my parents were ballet dancers, they met in dance class in university…aw so sweet right??)