Today I went home from my dorm for the first time in a while, and realized how different I became from my parents/grandparents.

My grandmother didn’t even finish primary 1 and could barely read Chinese, speaking Mandarin and Hokkien which I picked up as a child.

My parents graduated only secondary school, and were Chinese educated. When I handed one of my papers over to my mum, I realized she could only pronounce half of the words, and understood none. She asked me if I had really written it, for it seemed so ‘cheem’.

I told them I wanted to pursue a Master/PhD in Cambridge or Cornell—I wanted to explore more in my field. My mum said she would do anything to fund me, even if it meant getting into back-breaking debt. I wanted to ask her how the hell was she going to do that when 1) our dinky hdb flat hasn’t even been paid off since before I was born, 2) we struggled paying my dorm fees every semester (and my tuition fees were already covered by a scholarship).

But I nodded and smiled, and asked myself, was graduate school and the pursuit of research only for people whose families boasted easily of businesses and civil service?