{The demographic details in this post have been disguised.}
If I were to tell College-Aged Client (CAC) that his “case” has inspired me to write a blog post, he might very well throw up. Not because he would be disgusted to be an inspiration, but because that is what someone who is smart and funny and depressed all at the same time might say.
His is not an atypical Chinese upbringing: hardworking and upwardly-mobile parents, schooled in institutions renowned for producing prominent leaders, forced to learn piano or violin (and if he were a girl, probably ballet as well), flanked by a cadre of successful cousins and competitive friends, and expected to head towards either Cambridge or Oxford to study: (1) medicine, (2) law, or (3) accounting. OK, engineering also can.