Leaving My Cocoon; Qinuo Van Dyk, PhD

With a decade of immense and fulfilling happiness, followed by a heart-wrenching tragedy, Qinuo left home and traveled the world. While the trips were intended as “living in the moment” escapes and as a diversion from dealing with helplessness and puzzlement, she found herself getting lessons and attaining knowledge from people she met randomly on the streets, in Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Norway, Estonia, and many other countries. She has gained new understanding of others, of herself and of her changing self. She has recognized that despite differences in religion, ethnicity, and material wealth, we are all essentially the same, under the skin and under the sun.

Qinuo Van Dyk was born and raised in Shanghai, China, and came to study in the US in spring, 1990. She has received professional training as a scientist and business person, with a PhD in biomedical sciences and an Executive MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. During her time traveling abroad and coming back to St. Louis, she found herself an anxious student of herself, others and humanity, in general. She has J. Tischner’s quote on one side of her business card, “I know that I am, because I know another is.”