护盾

To preserve the last remnants of my social standing—and to honor those who once showed me kindness, like the childhood friend who made it to medical school, or the neighbor who was the only one outside my parents ever to lend a hand—I had no choice but to pick up my "shield."

It was the most precious and rarest capital I had in Vancouver: my sensitivity to numbers and finance.

I still remember that moment at sixteen, sitting in my Grade 12 classroom, encountering financial management for the first time. It wasn’t an easy course, but it felt like a delicate thread tying me back to my hometown and my old life. I imagined one day I’d take over the small shop and property my family had once owned in Fujian—not to show off, but to offer my loved ones a place to truly call home.

So I studied accounting and marketing. I counted tills and balanced books in the school café, smiled at rude customers in the restaurant, and endured the cold silence of parents who claimed every sacrifice was “for your future.” At night, I’d lie awake, listening to my younger brother cry, while I trudged through a public school system that felt foreign and unmoored.

Back then, I formed a strange little “defense alliance” with a few classmates—not close friends, but comrades-in-struggle. Together, we took part in our high school’s accounting co-op program, using Excel spreadsheets, budgets, and balance sheets as our makeshift shields. We weren’t prodigies—we were just trying to survive. Not for glory or riches, but to stop living under someone else’s roof.

Internships, volunteer work, tax season—what others saw as résumé padding, we saw as lifelines. These opportunities were our rafts, floating us across the vast gap between language barriers and class divides.

For a long time, I believed that if I could just land a job as an accounting assistant, I could ease my family’s burden. But reality was relentless. The weight of our immigrant status, economic pressure, and language limitations nearly crushed me. Still, I kept reminding myself of the promise I once made to my desk mate: One day, no matter where I ended up, I would stand on that podium meant for us.

UBC and SFU—those were our versions of Tsinghua and Peking University. I refused to give up. I stayed at the college, clinging to the threshold of the university dream as if to honour the first half of my life in China.

But after I lost a chance to convert a private accounting internship into a job, I had no choice but to pivot—washing dishes, mopping floors, working cash registers. I couldn’t bring myself to fully give up on the sliver of hope I still carried. Each time I lifted a trash bag or scrubbed a toilet, tears welled up. But I kept telling myself: This isn’t because I’m weak.

Both of my parents had already swallowed their pride, doing jobs they’d never imagined. Who was I to say “no” to hard work?

For my family, and for the shrinking sense of security we still clung to in Canada, I pivoted—from accounting to programming. That $70,000-per-year job may have meant little to our relatives back in China, but here in Canada, it was our only shot at holding onto a home.

I had never studied coding. It meant starting from zero. I worked in restaurants by day and coded by night, crashing repeatedly, burning out often—it was my final gamble on a dream.

Sometimes I wondered: Can life ever really go according to plan?

In those bleak days, I found emotional refuge in someone who reminded me of my cousin in the U.S.—a girl from a similar background. She wasn’t just family. She was a whisper of the world I came from. She spoke of Fujian’s street food, its alleys, the salty sea breeze. For a moment, I was back in a world where we had roots, where we had dignity.

Outside of my parents and brother, she became the person I cared for most. She made me believe that even if life was in shambles, our existence still held value.

Life is no utopia. We are like tiny boats tossed in a storm, drifting toward an uncertain horizon, guided only by a fragile thread of belief.

Later, I picked up a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. While continuing to study programming, I began working as an insurance agent at a financial services firm.

Even after the car accident, when fear swallowed me whole and I couldn’t bear to be alone—trapped in four walls, telling my parents “I’m fine” while waking from nightmares—I pushed forward. That accident didn’t just break my body. It tore something in my spirit.

Those days, I took painkillers, antidepressants, and antibiotics—yet told myself: Maybe if I heal, I can still chase the dream.

Despite our financial struggles and the massive costs from the accident, I gritted my teeth and bought my first life insurance policy. It wasn’t just about mortality. It was my silent promise to protect my cousin in the U.S.—someone who had never been properly shielded herself.

That moment, I finally understood:
Some shields aren’t for hiding.
They’re what keeps us from falling apart.