My Mom's Story

Childhood in Xiao Chong

My mom, Zhang Yanchun, grew up in Xiao Chong village — one of eight villages scattered across the mountains, each with fewer than 100 people. A simple walk could take hours. There were no roads. Life was tough.

As a child working on those mountains, there was no clean water, no bottles. She drank from stagnant groundwater, full of who‑knows‑what — bugs, probably. She says it was lucky she didn’t get sick often; colds were rare back then. Everyone was too busy surviving.

Her grandpa died of stomach cancer when she was just 7. Her grandma (Nai Nai) wouldn’t let her go to school because of her gender. Her brother was sent instead, even though he barely paid attention and had to redo grades, wasting precious money.

So Mom worked alongside her mother in the fields and became her father’s only helper, building homes in the winter with grandpa while also farming. It was communal farming — every family had a little section of each plot across the mountain.

She carried water through the mountains, sold vegetables for pennies, and lived with constant hunger. There was never any meat. She was extremely malnourished, surviving on rice porridge and vegetables cooked without oil. Oil and meat were saved for guests or New Year’s — once a year. She had only one pair of clothes for the entire year.

She slept on hay. Snakes were everywhere, and she’s still terrified of them today. Her left hand, especially her index finger, carries a map of tiny, white scars from the times the sickle would slip while she was cutting grass for the pigs as a child.

This constant hunger led to desperate measures. She once told me how she would sometimes steal sweet potatoes directly from the frozen ground during the winter. There was no time or way to cook them, so she’d eat them raw like an apple, spitting out the tough skin just to have something in her stomach. It was a small act of survival that she still remembers clearly today.

Fighting for Education

Despite everything, my mom begged constantly to go to school. Her motivation was wanting to care for her grandpa who passed away from stomach cancer when she was 7. It was deeply troubling for her, there were no medications, painkillers… great-grandpa was suffering so much. This started my mom's lifelong journey of caring for seniors.

Finally, in 1990 (mom was 14), she was allowed to attend junior high. She excelled — top of her class in her tiny village school — and earned a scholarship to nursing school. She had to be #1 to qualify. This is WITHOUT ANY ELEMENTARY school or kindergarten.

At 18, she started working as a nurse, earning 400 yuan a month ($56). Half went straight to her grandparents. The rest barely covered food. For years, she ate the cheapest, thinnest noodles. Middle school was a blur of starvation; nursing school was only slightly better. She’d buy a box of instant noodles and eat one each night.

Sometimes, my great‑aunt (my grandpa’s oldest sister) slipped her extra food when she was too hungry to study. That same great‑aunt later died alone in her old house, suffering from dementia and arthritis, abandoned by her own children.

Still, my mom pushed forward. She finished top of her class again and was assigned to the provincial capital’s largest hospital — breaking the cycle of poverty that had defined generations of our family.

Running, Working, Surviving

Mom ran every morning, starting in middle school — first on train tracks, carrying a blood‑red plastic water barrel her brother bought her (later stolen). In nursing school, she ran bigger tracks, 30 minutes at a time, sometimes managing 800 meters.

She once got so sick with a cough that lasted two months, but she never stopped studying.

Her own mother (my grandma) never went to school. Her mother died young, and her father — my great‑grandpa — was a dedicated communist official, always walking six hours to help the eight villages. Grandma raised her siblings alone.

The backdrop was brutal: the 1960s famine. People starved, eating poisonous leaves and grass. My mom’s parents saw neighbors bloat from water retention, lacking protein. They starved with smiles, believing their suffering would bring a better communist future. Even then, people still loved the Party.

Pregnant women worked in the fields until the moment of birth. Babies “came out easily, shrooom, just like that,” my mom said.

Sacrifice and Migration

Years later, in 2002, my mom gave birth to me. Then eventually, she brought me to Canada in 2009. It was just the 2 of uson this half of the world. A few months in, we faced serious racial discrimination, one assault incident where the police came but neither my mom nor I could speak English, and the police listened to the fluent perpetrators, fake tears, the whole drama queen act. That motivated me to learn English rapidly by asking to take home the school dictionary, and created a sense of hating Mandarin. I never spoke Mandarin for years.

My mom used to shop at value village (thrift store), when we first came to Canada. Only place she could afford. Jeans $2. Coat long black was $10. That kept her warm in the winter, it was just too cold in Timmins back then. But I never wore value village clothes... only better ones.

She worked tirelessly to send me to a private school, hoping I’d get into a top university. I put everything into her dream — and somehow, I made it to Stanford. I didn't expect it. None of my classmates expected it. It was a moonshot.

But it was only possible because my mom did 99% of the hard work: taking me from a tiny mountain village to Changsha, the provincial capital, and then to Canada. Without her, I’d never have had the worldview or opportunities to become an engineer, entrepreneur, and proud Canadian.

Her sacrifices were immense: three nursing jobs at first, then double and triple shifts (24 hours straight), and finally full‑time night shifts until just three years ago. She worked in assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and palliative care. She always wanted to care for seniors, from her original motivation that got her to study.

Since 2019, I’ve walked her to work, often seeing seniors outside on benches, smoking, or getting fresh air. Many of them have since passed away. My mom cares for about 60 patients a year, and a majority pass away; my mom would always sometimes tell me about some patients passing, but only vaguely, and would become sad at times. I never understood until she recently told me just how many she cares for, and watches over as they move on. It’s stressful and heartbreaking, but she always says she loves her job. Her original motivation of wanting to care for her grandpa who passed away from stomach cancer.

During Covid, she picked up every shift she could, caring for patients when others couldn’t. She was awarded a medal for the most shifts served in her palliative unit.

These are just some of the stories I've heard. Some others are too dark to sharel, and are best kept between mom and I. Nonetheless, my mom has bounced back through all of it, no matter the fears.

Kindness and Legacy

Her kindness isn't just a platitude. I recently learned she once lent a significant sum of money to a photographer—not even a close friend—who was facing a family medical emergency. She took the money from her own line of credit because no one else would help. She knows most people wouldn't do the same for her, but she does it anyway because she believes it's the right thing to do.

She once told me her life has five stages of "working, not caring if she dies". She explained that for the first two stages—middle and nursing school—she was working with the resolve to die, a Chinese concept called pīn mìng (拼命). When others warned her she was working too hard and would kill herself with triple shifts and no rest, she didn't care. She had a goal, and she was willing to sacrifice everything to achieve it.

1. Middle school.

2. Nursing school.

3. Moving to Changsha.

4. Moving to Canada.

5. Sending me to Stanford.

She also told me that whenever she sees me sick, she wishes she could take on the burden herself.

On a lighter note, earlier in 2024, she started singing. It’s not great yet, but she’s trying. She used to play “Mother Kiss” when I was little.

This dedication shows in smaller, quieter ways, too. Just the other day, she spent six hours meticulously preparing homemade lotus paste from scratch to make mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival. It’s this tireless, background effort—the love baked into food, the worry behind a late-night phone call—that truly defines her.

Unyielding Sacrifice

From drinking stagnant water in Xiao Chong village, to breaking the cycle of poverty, to working triple shifts in Canada so I could study at Stanford — my mom’s story is one of unyielding sacrifice.

Her life is proof that even in the harshest conditions, determination and kindness can change the course of generations.

I, as her only son, just wish I could imitate even 50% of her mindset, her endless perserverance.

Even though I love her, we still have some arguments from time to time. It's natural. I wish I could always be kind always, not tired, and supportive. But my mom's singing, when she's learning songs… I'm living in my mom's basement after all… focused on building Grow.