Unlikely journey towards the PhD

Twenty-five years ago, I started the most unlikely of journeys towards a PhD. My path was rather random and improbable: I was born on the streets of a third-world country to peasants; raised in poverty in Toronto; arrested twice and spent a brief time in prison as a teenager. Higher education was the last thing on my mind when I was expelled from high school. Nevertheless, I eventually managed to earn the highest academic degree -- and under a Nobel laureate supervisor. I am not supposed to be a holder of a doctorate. The PhD is, in many ways, a luxury for the well-off. The median time to acquire a PhD in economics at North American universities is about 5.5 years and with a 40 percent incompletion rate. (Median time from completion of bachelors to PhD is about 8 years, and median age at graduation is 31.) Years of forgone/ reduced income and career progression is a steep price for a person trying to escape penury – especially if academia is not the goal. Moreover, insomuch as there is a thing as the opposite of a “tiger family”, that would be mine. We were part of the Cantonese immigrant underclass…

High school sojourn

It took me six years to finish high school. I graduated at age 20. I started and finished at Riverdale Collegiate in Toronto, but in between bounced around three other schools. However, I often tell people that I went to five schools. This is because the second sojourn at Riverdale was, for all intents and purposes, a different school. Riverdale was completely torn down, with the exception of its façade, and rebuilt anew during my absence. (It stayed open and functional during that time.) I originally left Riverdale on my own volition. I would be subsequently expelled from the next school. When I tried to go back to Riverdale my ex-VP was aware of my expulsion. When I was in his office applying to get back in, he told me, “The day you get back into this school is the day I quit!” He then threw my transcripts on the floor. I was rejected by all the high schools I applied to in the following year, including at Monarch Park Collegiate – a school that enrolled 30-year-old “mature” students. (Ironically, the professor at the University of Toronto who encouraged me to pursue a PhD was a student at Monarch Park.)…

Ancestral village

I was born in Guangdong Province, China near the city of Guangzhou (previously known as Canton) in 1975. The region, which goes by the name of "Renhe" (人和) in Mandarin (Jan4wo4 in Cantonese (Jyutping transliteration)), lies only 30 minutes by car (or metro) from downtown Guangzhou. Back in the 1970s, however, the only option was a full-day’s trip by bicycle (or an infrequent local bus). Renhe has its own dialect of Cantonese. The difference in our version is mostly a “lazy” tone and pronunciation. However, we also have a rich portfolio of words (and word usages) distinct to us. When people from my village speak our dialect in the city (i.e. Guangzhou), most just assume (and somewhat correctly) that we are farmers. Or in the case of Hong Kong for me, the assumption often is that I am an overseas Chinese who speaks poorly and/or with a strong accent. At one point in my life I did speak Cantonese poorly. I left my childhood village at an early age and grew up in Toronto. For fear of not being able to learn English, my father forbade me from speaking in Chinese with my siblings. Therefore, growing up I spoke (dialect)…

Chasing a hitman

I almost shot a police officer while on probation on a sunny May afternoon in 1994. I was 19 years old at the time and no longer a minor – my probation related to an offence from when I was a young offender. The night before, I returned home late after finishing a shift waiting on tables. I saw my mother as I entered the house. She mentioned that my dad had been attacked by a Chinatown gangster called “Brother Dragon”. I checked on my dad. He was lying in bed. I walked over to look at him, but as I approached he rolled away and covered himself with the blanket and mumbled that he was fine. I went to bed exhausted, but with a sense of anger that my father had apparently been attacked. I owned an illegal handgun at the time. The next morning before going to school, I packed my gun with me with the intention to go to Chinatown later that day to find Brother Dragon. However, when my classes finished that day, I realised that I had no viable plan. Toronto’s (downtown) Chinatown is a big place. Was I supposed to barge in to every…

Losing life’s keepsakes

All my life’s meaningful physical possessions – including my high school diploma -- were contained in a shoebox when I was a young adult. Yet, I threw them all away in my early 20s in a feeling of anger and worthlessness. Growing up I had lived in the attic of my parents’ house. It was a threadbare room with just a mattress, an unusable desk and some steel shelves. I stored my clothes in a few cardboard boxes. I had little in the way of physical possessions. The few that I owned, I had accumulated in a shoebox. They included old gifts and cards from my first girlfriend, a signature from Doug Gilmour (the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs from the 1990s), my high school diploma, and other keepsakes. I moved out to live on my own in my first year of university as a result of my parents’ house having been foreclosed. My family would eventually regain possession of our home. But as I was no longer living there, I had given permission to them to rent out my room to help with expenses. Several years later I moved back in with my family and took over a…

The Organ Grinder

I worked in services jobs from age 15 until 24. More than just making extra pocket money, I depended on these positions to support myself and my family. I was a busboy-cum-waiter at the Organ Grinder – a pizza eatery featuring a large theatre organ in Toronto (that closed in November 1996) -- from grade nine through first-year university (age 15 to 21). I bounced around five high schools and had multiple run-ins with the law as a teenager. The Organ Grinder was my anchor of stability. I grew up relatively deprived. The Organ Grinder was my window into middle-class culture. I learned to jive to the Chicken Dance and the YMCA songs to the music of the organ there. I also served thousands of birthday cakes to guests – the restaurant was a popular destination for kids’ birthday parties – even as I had never feted my own birthday. I worked many hours at the Organ Grinder, to the point that I still know the computer codes for the menu items, and I still get dreams / nightmares about working there. It was a loud and busy environment where strong bonds and lasting memories with colleagues were forged. And…

Ben Bernanke’s fish tank

I was a graduate student at Princeton University when Ben Bernanke was the chair of the economics department. I happened to have been in his office the day he was packing and preparing for his move to Washington DC after he had accepted an appointment to become a governor at the Federal Reserve in 2002. Bernanke had a large (200 litre) fish tank in his office. As I spoke to him that day, he mentioned not knowing what to do with his aquarium. I told him that if he did not care to keep it, that I would be happy to take it over. He agreed to my suggestion, and I went about using a dolly to transport it back to my residence on campus. I used the aquarium to raise food fish. I bought live fish from the local Asian supermarket and kept them in the tank until it was time for them to be eaten. I prepared the fish when friends were visiting and usually after we had a few beers. It was always a hilarious experience as I did not have a net to scoop out the fish. What ensued was a long struggle getting the slippery…

Homeless in 1st year at university

I was homeless for a brief period in my 1st year at the University of Toronto. In late September 1995 the bank foreclosed on my parents' house. Although repossession notices were constantly swirling around at that time, we had hitherto always managed to avoid being evicted. However, when I returned home from classes that fateful autumn day (I was a “commuter”), I encountered difficulty while trying to open the door with my key. And then I noticed the shiny new lock and a message taped on the door. For the next two weeks I survived on whatever was in my knapsack and the clothes I was wearing that day. It was a struggle to keep up with my studies; more significantly, the euphoria that I had over my new life at university vanished. I had approached school officials and told them of my situation. They recommended that I seek additional OSAP funds (government-supported student loans). As I was working at a restaurant at the time – and truthfully declared my income in the application – I was denied supplemental support. Although my family eventually regained possession of the house, I decided not to move back in with them. Instead, I…

My German family

I have a “German family”. I have known the Ewerszumrodes since 2004 when they hosted me when I interned in Cologne. I spent time with them again in 2005 when I did a follow-up internship in Frankfurt. I had no connections to or knowledge of Germany before 2004. Based on clichés, I was expecting a distant or transactional relationship with my hosts. But nothing could be further from the truth. The Ewerszumrodes are warm and generous. I don’t remember paying for anything whenever we went out. Mr Ewerszumrode would never let me go to bed without first having a few Apfelwein (apple wine) and beers with him. And their two sons (about the same age as me) took me out with them all the time. My meeting them in 2004 was fortunate. I was depressed at the time and was on the verge of leaving Princeton without finishing my degree. Their kindness helped rejuvenate my spirit to finish the PhD. I always swing by the Ewerszumrodes when I am passing through Germany, including having spent Christmas with them in 2008 and 2014. And of course, no visit is complete until plenty of Apfelwein is imbibed.

Princeton graduation

Fourteen years ago (03 June 2008), I was awarded a PhD (economics) by Princeton. Seventeen years before that, I was awaiting bail at court, held in custody at a youth detention centre with blood caked on my hair. There, began my journey in and out of the justice system throughout my teens. The circumstances of my youth suppressed the (raw) gift I had in scholastics. Beyond my experience with the courts, I bounced around five high schools and worked practically full time since the age of 15 in service jobs up until I went to Princeton. But I applied my talent when it mattered: I gained admission to the University of Toronto (undergraduate) in 1995 and then earned a scholarship to attend Princeton in 1999. But academics was not my priority when I arrived at Princeton. I yearned for experiences that bypassed my youth due to my hardships, and I struggled mentally, socially and emotionally as an outsider (in all aspects of life). Nevertheless, I persevered and my PhD committee gave me the green light to graduate in 2008 (after nearly dropping out in 2004, leaving campus in 2005, and given a false OK in 2006). I did not pursue…