"To Most People, I Am Just a Wallflower." The Roosevelt Sophomore Who Plays Three Instruments, Speaks Three Languages, and Commutes From Aiea Every Day Is Going to Jeju.
One of 42 public high school students selected for the 2026 Hawaiʻi Sister-State Study Tours.
Student Snapshot
Name: Lillian Yim
Preferred Name: Lillian
School: Roosevelt High School
Grade: 10th
Home Community: Aiea, Central Oʻahu
Delegation: Jeju Island
Travel Dates: March 14–25/26, 2026
Focus Interests / Extracurriculars: Roosevelt tennis team (Monday/Wednesday/Friday, 3 hours); Hawaiʻi Youth Symphony II violin (every Sunday); Symphonic Band clarinet; Key Club volunteer; Paws and Claws Club; Robotics (helps build the robot, self-described as no background); Leo Club (upcoming involvement); self-studying Korean (beginner); Japanese I (school); Mun Lun Chinese School (9 years — Mandarin, cultural traditions); traveled to mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, California, Washington state; trilingual — English, Mandarin, Cantonese (raised with all three simultaneously)
Career Aspirations: Not explicitly named — but her essay's focus on sustainable economy, transportation, housing, and child welfare signals social policy, public health, or urban planning interest
Why They Were Selected
Lillian lives in Aiea and commutes to Roosevelt every day — she already understands Hawaiʻi's transportation system from the inside, and her essay names it plainly. She plays violin in the Hawaiʻi Youth Symphony alongside kids from Punahou and Iolani, and she has been paying close enough attention to notice the gap between their experience and hers. She speaks three languages. She spent nine years learning Chinese culture at Mun Lun. She reread the acceptance email to make sure it was real. She is one of the most quietly self-aware students in this cohort, and her essay is the most honest about the interior life of a high-achieving student who feels the weight of what she doesn't have — and chooses to keep going anyway.
What They're Excited About
Rereading the email to make sure it was real; the relief; traveling independently from her parents and her school friends; meeting students from different schools; Korean dramas romanticizing Jeju with white sand beaches and juicy tangerines — and wanting to see what ordinary schoolkids' lives there actually look like; the scenery; breathing fresh air; moving forward
She Reread the Email Three Times to Make Sure It Was Real. Then She Felt Relieved. Lillian Yim Is Going to Jeju — and She Wants to See What Ordinary Schoolkids' Lives Actually Look Like There.
When the acceptance email came, Lillian Yim didn't jump up and down. She reread it to make sure everything was real. And then she felt relieved. That distinction matters. Lillian is a tenth grader at Roosevelt who commutes every day from Aiea — not her district school, but the one she chose — who plays violin in the Hawaiʻi Youth Symphony alongside kids from Punahou and Iolani, and who has been quietly paying attention to the gap between their world and hers. She carries a little bit of doubt at every step. She applied anyway. This spring, she's going to Jeju Island.
Lillian was born in Hawaiʻi to parents who immigrated from China and raised her in three languages simultaneously — English, Mandarin, and Cantonese — so she genuinely cannot tell you which one came first. She spent nine years at Mun Lun Chinese School learning her family's cultural traditions alongside the language. Back at Roosevelt, she plays tennis three days a week, violin every Sunday, and clarinet in the Symphonic Band. She volunteers with Key Club, builds robots she says she has no background in, and is self-studying Korean on the side. She has already been to mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan. Jeju is next.
Lillian was selected because her essay is the most honest account of what it actually feels like to be a high-achieving student from an immigrant family in Hawaiʻi — the gratitude, the guilt, the commute, the growing awareness of the gaps she didn't choose. She named all of it, clearly and without drama, and then wrote about what she wants to do about it. She's not going to Jeju for the postcard version. She said so herself: Korean dramas romanticize Jeju as a paradise, but what she actually wants to see is what ordinary schoolkids' lives look like there.
"Every step of the way, I carried a little bit of doubt, but this showed that things are more possible than you think." — Lillian Yim, Roosevelt High School, Class of 2028
When Lillian comes home to Aiea from Jeju, she'll return with something she went looking for — not the romanticized version of another place, but the real one. For a student who has been commuting between two worlds every day, that kind of honest knowledge is exactly what she'll know how to use.
