My name is Ran Zhang, or Camille. I was born in Huaibei, an underdeveloped city in Anhui, China. I’m the first person in my family with a chance to attend university and the first female to enter high school.

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Seeking better educational opportunities, my parents sent me to cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen from a young age. While interacting with peers from these developed cities, I often felt ashamed of my origins in Huaibei.

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My conversation with my grandmother last summer was the one moment everything changed.

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During our video call last summer, she told me about her past—a past I hadn’t cared to know as a child and had avoided as a teenager. She told me about the bruises that appeared on her face and body, that they were marks of domestic violence. She recounted how people wished harm on her daughter because she wasn’t a boy. She said she never learned how to read or write. She said she was “useless.” That word made my heart bleed.

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“Your grandfather always despised me, ke zhi dao.”

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“Our generation was poor, they could only afford to send boys to school, ke zhi dao.”

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“I’ve been in pain my whole life, ke zhi dao.”

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“Ke zhi dao” means “Now you know.” Now I know.

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She rubbed her eyes as tears fell, murmuring that I was finally old enough to understand. I listened, tears rolling down my cheeks as I stared at her on the screen. Now I know. In that moment, I felt as though her story had poured into me, filling me with a weight I couldn’t shake. Her story was now a part of me, shaping many of the choices I’ve made since.

 

That was when I knew I needed to continue and cherish my education not to escape my hometown but to share the resources and learnings I have the privilege to acquire and help the people I care about most in this world. That was also the moment that I decided to found WAU, to share the importance and weight of “looking back” during the journey of leaving home with my peers.