“He brings the brain and she brings the beauty.”
That’s how her manager casually commented as they headed to a client pitch.
She bit her tongue, thinking, I didn’t go to the Ivy League to be told that.
As obedient as we’ve always been, she didn’t let her honest thoughts slip out. She swallowed them and tucked them neatly behind a smile.
It’s in those moments we’re mistaken for the intern, the fresh grad, the assistant, mistaken for supporting roles we’ve long outgrown.
“I don’t like to disappoint people.”
I said it to one of my previous bosses, sitting in a role that didn’t fit me. I could feel it in every nerve, knowing that I wasn’t where I was meant to be. The words left my mouth, soft but weighted.
What they didn’t know is that no one demands more from us than we already do ourselves.
As children, we learned to sit upright at the table, to let the elders start first, and to understand that every small courtesy was more about them than about us. We learned to tend to the small details so others would leave the room with a smile. Where people should sit. How much to put into the red envelope. What kind of gift suits who, and when to send the right greeting.
It was about showing up as expected, behaving as required, blending in, and not letting anyone down. We learned to read people’s faces like books. The twitch of an eyebrow, the difference between a polite smile and a real one. We learned to sense danger in disapproval until we forgot how to stand up for ourselves.
One Chinese New Year, I finally spoke the words I’d been holding back for years, tears streaming down my face as I apologized to my uncle and auntie.
“I’m sorry for all the trouble we’ve caused the family over the years.”
I said, as I dried my tears with my sleeves.
I’ll never forget how, growing up in a seemingly well-established family, I often felt like an outsider, aware of how dysfunctional my own family was in comparison. That splinter of shame sank deep into my bones and grew with me over the years, hardening as I did, until even my bones felt impossible to break.
We often underestimate how much people can see through us. Since I was young, I’d bring them small gifts from my travels, as if to repay the little debts I never spoke of. I guess they always knew.
It was also in the unsaid, a silent plea for forgiveness, and another for mercy: Please, we’ve already lost a father figure. There are no men left in this household. Please be kind to us.
“It’s not your fault. No children should be responsible for their parents’ doings.”
I paused, bracing myself for a harsher response that never came.
We grew up caring so much about what people thought of us. It always felt safer to expect the worst than to believe the best. We were reminded that kindness could be dangerous, that if we were too open, too trusting, we could easily become the prey in someone else’s story, the lamb led to the slaughter, the Little Red Riding Hood who mistook the wolf for a friend.
It isn’t always easy to keep faith in a world that keeps telling us to protect ourselves, a world where kindness can be mistaken for weakness. So we learned to be careful, kittens learning to dress up as wolves in a pack that bites.
Maybe the greatest fortune in life as a woman is to stay a girl a little longer, to stay as soft as a kitten a little longer before the world teaches you to bare your claws.
I never expected the room of safe deposit boxes beneath the bank to feel as cold and sterile as a hospital ward, that kind of chill that seeps into your bones. The air was thick with silence, yet the light was unnaturally bright, exposing everything, as if nothing could hide.
My grandmother led me toward her box. Her body moved in an unsteady rhythm, swaying gently with each step, every motion a negotiation with gravity.
It was my second time here. The box was packed full, stuck tight in its slot, and it took some pulling to get it out. Inside were small cotton pouches, each holding a piece of her past. She couldn’t stand for long. Using all her strength, she pointed for me to place the box on the floor. Her legs could no longer carry her the way they used to.
We took out the pouches one by one, tangled gold chains, old rings, pieces of gold that had lost their shine but not their stories. At the bottom lay stacks of cash bound with rubber bands, handled so casually you’d never guess it was her “coffin money.” Then, a rolled-up envelope. Inside was a thick sheet of paper. I’d never known a will could be more than a single page. It felt as heavy as the life it accounted for.
From the day we’re born, we’re marked by paper. A birth certificate when we arrive, an ID when we come of age, a trail of graduation certificates along the way, and a death certificate when it all ends. In modern life, our existence is traced through documents. But in her world, it was different: rice wine announced a newborn, sesame balls celebrated a son, and when life came full circle, her children would be wrapped in linen, not just in paperwork.
Life asks you to grow up in irreversible moments: when you hire your first lawyer, when you learn to read a will, when you realize you have to stand taller than your parents to protect the family.
“You need to protect your own land.”
My lawyer said to me before I left the meeting room. It felt surreal to be sitting on the client’s side in a sleek Central office, after years of sitting on the client-servicing side in corporate boardrooms.
We come into the world surrounded by hope, joy, and love. Watching her prepare for the end of life made me wonder why no briefing could ever prepare us for the final tasks.
I thought I’d be ready. I’d seen it once when I was 15. But I wasn’t.
Grief doesn’t end when the paperwork is signed. It lingers in the body, in the tension of a clenched jaw, in the swing of a racket.
On a tennis court, I hit every tennis ball with a burst of anger, gripping the racket as if it were the only weapon I had left. I let out:
“I’ve been criticized in my whole f**king life. I don’t need more criticism.”
I’ve tasted failure in my startup journey. I’ve never felt so defeated by life. In the middle of it, even well-intentioned advice could feel like a trigger, not at others, but at myself. That feeling that no matter what I do, I’m still failing everyone. My father’s failures as a son, a husband, maybe even a father. Somehow, I’ve spent my whole life trying to do his job for him.
The lamb lost her herder. The kitten lost her shelter. She spent her whole life learning to survive without one. She was raised up in the wild and she’s unwilling to ever back down.
They see a cute Asian girl. What they don’t see is what it takes to stay gentle in a world that keeps testing your strength.
Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary, in his interview on The Diary Of A CEO shared that his most successful investments are in companies led by women, “particularly Asian women.” He went on to explain why:
“They set goals that they can achieve so that in the early stage of their businesses, they put growth rate targets like 15, 16% versus men at 30%. Very often men hit their targets 65% of the time, at least in my portfolio and women, 90 plus percent of the time.
And that keeps the team very sticky. They want to be part of it. So they don’t have a lot of attrition when they’re small. They don’t lose the head of financing and marketing. That works.”
The softness in the kittens, the gentleness in the lambs, one day would become their greatest strength. It will be the reason they survive and the reason they lead.