After my father went to heaven, our family’s finances collapsed overnight.

My mother went back to the mainland to work, holding up the whole household alone. At nine I stayed in Hong Kong by myself — everything I had to face on my own, solve on my own. I missed my father. I cried alone, and didn’t dare say so, in case it worried her.

What I waited for every day was that phone call after she finished work. She was exhausted, but every word she said, every expression on her face, told me the same thing —

I used to tell myself: I have parents who love me most and stand behind me most. I have to become someone they are proud of.

After a long struggle I got into City University, into the punishing quantitative finance programme. Scholarships were my main means of living — strangers who had never met me, quietly holding me up from behind. I could not let them down. Countless times when I thought I could not go on, what came into my mind was my parents standing behind me.

In 2025 I won the Hong Kong inter-tertiary investment competition.

In 2026 I represented Hong Kong’s tertiary institutions at the University of Toronto, in the international inter-tertiary investment competition.

Meeting students from all over the world at Toronto, I suddenly understood something: plenty of people in that room were smarter than me, with more behind them. The only difference was that I dared to take the first step.

And I dared — not because I was gifted, but because of what my father said to me when I was nine: I believe in you.

During the competition I found I was one of very few undergraduates there. I believe my parents would be proud.

My father’s last words have carried me the whole way. He never left. He is always in my heart, quietly behind me.

My parents’ support is what got me through endless difficulty. I want to carry that message outward, to help more families.

How do you win? Parents who never stop being behind you.