9th January 2025 – (Hong Kong) At a recent graduation ceremony held inside Stanley Prison, a battle-hardened inmate named Ah Chun accomplished something extraordinarily rare – he became the first person in Hong Kong’s prison system to receive a doctoral degree while serving time.
As the 51-year-old Ah Chun walked across the makeshift stage in a cap and gown, his fellow inmates erupted in raucous cheers. It was an incredibly moving scene, made all the more powerful by the incredible adversity Ah Chun overcame during his 24-year journey to get that doctorate.
When Ah Chun was thrown in prison back in his 20s, he had only made it through form 4 of secondary school. However, almost as soon as he got locked up, something clicked in his mind. “I didn’t feel like I was an evil person before prison,” he told me. “I wanted to understand what led me to this point.” So he hit the books, slowly but surely working his way up the academic ladder. First earning his HKCEE credentials in 2000, followed by a bachelor’s in psychology, a master’s in 2012, and finally, after 8 long years, a Doctorate in Education from the respected Hong Kong Metropolitan University.
His proud parents were there to witness the remarkable culmination. When Ah Chun embraced his elderly mother on stage, she beamed and said “I never thought I’d get to hug you like this.” Holding back tears, Ah Chun turned to his dad and asked meekly, “Can this make you proud of me?” It was an unbelievably touching family moment amidst the cold realities of prison life.
Make no mistake, earning a Ph.D while locked up was an absolute grind for Ah Chun. With essentially no access to the internet for research, he had to rely on physical reference books and dictionaries. As he put it bluntly, “Studying here is really damn hard.” His inmate peers ribbed him, wondering why he bothered with all the educational hassle. However, Ah Chun persisted, driven by the belief that academic achievement could help incarcerated people like himself become better versions of themselves. His doctoral thesis explored the motivations and struggles facing Hong Kong’s community of prison students.
Ultimately, Ah Chun’s saga of dogged determination and personal redemption couldn’t come at a better time for the city’s disengaged and disillusioned youth. A recent survey found a whopping 46% of young Hong Kongers aged 12-24 see themselves as outright “failures”, largely due to academic performance fears.
It’s a sad statistic that speaks to the immense mental health pressures weighing on Hong Kong’s teenagers and 20-somethings these days. “There needs to be a huge shift in how we look at failure,” said social worker Apple Chan, urging more support systems involving families, schools, and peers.
That’s where Ah Chun’s hard-won success story comes into play. His journey from a guy with barely any schooling to a bona fide Doctor of Education, all while confined within HK’s strictest prison, is living proof that failure is never a permanent state. No matter your circumstances, you can turn things around through perseverant effort.
Unlike many local parents and educators fixated on elite academic metrics, Ah Chun shows there is more than one path to personal growth and self-actualisation. His inspirational tale gives at-risk Hong Kong youth a reason to block out society’s noise and doubters, and instead double down on pursuing their own sense of purpose through education and self-betterment.
At the same time, while Ah Chun is undoubtedly a role model for struggling students, his story shouldn’t be reduced to an overly simplistic, feel-good parable about the magical powers of studying. The man achieved something incredible precisely because he overcame such extreme deprivations and hardship. For every Ah Chun, there are countless other Hong Kong youth lacking the same support structure and financial resources needed to pursue their academic dreams.
So as impressive as Ah Chun’s accomplishments are, his journey really just underscores why Hong Kong needs to foster a more supportive, inclusive environment for all of its young people to thrive academically and personally.
At the end of the day, while prison contexts are extreme, the core issues facing Hong Kong’s disenchanted youth – immense academic pressure, lack of access to resources, mental health struggles – are universal. Ah Chun may have earned his degrees behind bars, but his perseverance resonates with any young person feeling trapped by their circumstances or drowning in self-doubt.
During our interview after the ceremony, I asked the newly minted Dr. Ah Chun what motivated him to persevere through the loneliness and obstacles of studying while incarcerated. His eyes welled up as he talked about not wanting to let his aging parents down after all their sacrifices. But he also spoke about an intrinsic need to constantly challenge himself and push his own boundaries.
“The human mind is incredible and resilient, but we’ll never really test its limits unless we put ourselves in difficult situations,” he said. “For me, that situation was studying towards the highest academic credentials from one of the most restrictive environments imaginable.”
While few Hong Kong youth currently face struggles as extreme as Ah Chun’s, his words ring true for anyone feeling stifled by their environment or overwhelmed by societal expectations. His philosophy of embracing difficulty as a means of unlocking one’s full potential is a bracing tonic to the all-too-common malaise of youthful complacency.
Meanwhile, not everyone in that room will follow in Ah Chun’s footsteps and pursue further education once they get out. Some lack family support, others lack funds, while many will inevitably slip back into old vices and criminal behaviours. Earning a Ph.D. is an extreme example of self-betterment that most of us, incarcerated or not, will never realistically attain.
However, that’s precisely what makes Ah Chun’s journey so powerfully emblematic. You don’t have to accomplish something as grand as a doctoral degree to embody the aspirational spirit that Ah Chun represents. It’s about adopting his tenacious, never-say-die mindset in all your endeavours, big or small. It’s about finding drives and purpose that push you to constantly elevate yourself, even when the odds seem hopelessly stacked against you.
The Doctor is out, kids. What’s your excuse?
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