International Student STORIES: Global Flows of Education, Labour & Dreams
STORY 1 (Far Away from Home by Kei) – Moving from home countries to host countries, settling down from coast to coast; here, we offer Stories from International Students in Canada. These are students’ voices and may echo your own experience. Even though they may not be known personally (names are protected for privacy), we invite you to hear: why they chose Canada to study, how they have worked to build new lives here, the ways in which they contribute and make a difference both at home and here, and significantly, how their lives cross paths with Jesus Christ.
There is a crisis in our country—an international student crisis that has mostly been generated by policy shifts from our government. But other players are equally responsible—universities competing to draw students and their extortionate tuition money, landlords looking for needy renters, and employers looking for cheap but educated labour.
What might some Christian scholars with some expertise on the matter say about this crisis?
Our exploration of this topic began with a primer written by Gang Li and was followed by a Symposium on the topic documented here. We invited writers to send us stories of individual international students in Canada, and now these stories are coming into our office. They are stories of students who dream of a better life, who end up far from home and family, and who work hard to accomplish that dream. These stories are the personal details that in aggregate make the public issues the Canadian media has highlighted over the last year or so.
Read shared testimonies of brave and intelligent young people who are part of a global flow of labour, education, money, and dreams. Join, as we critically question these flows and point to ways to mitigate their largest liabilities; leaning towards justice and peace-making so that international students, universities, landlords, and employers can all flourish—here in Canada and worldwide.
Student Story #1 – Kei (Hong Kong)
Far Away from Home: Inexplicable Sadness When Bad News Happens at Home
TWO WORLDS IN REFLECTION
With Toronto’s skyline at the top and Hong Kong’s at the bottom, these cities reflect where I was and where I am now. Sometimes when I look up in Toronto, it reminds me of the home I am far, far away from now.
Photo Courtesy: Kei, the writer
After packing clothes for an unexpected wintry weather in Canada, sending gifts to friends and family, and keeping what matters most to me in two suitcases, I took that single-trip flight from Hong Kong to Toronto on an ordinary day in October. Like many international students, there are more dear things we left behind at home than the ones we took away with us. When I started a postgraduate program at the University of Toronto, I finally had a chance to experience the life of the many international students living in a city that is sometimes too big that makes you feel small.
New life mixed with excitements and frustrations
Being an international student who lives far away from home, there are some barriers only you go through alone: waiting in long queues to get your Social Insurance Number (SIN) and set up your bank and student accounts, navigating a big campus where people seem knowing each other already, getting used to a new culture in academia, and trying to find friends and mentors to build communities here. Studying is hard, but when you are away from home to study, feelings are more complicated. Of course, there were exciting moments of seeing a vast blue sky, stepping on snow for the first time, and learning names of new streets and landmarks. There were also lonely moments when everyone else left for home during holidays, upsetting times when you knew the happenings at home but were too far away to do anything about them. Among all these difficulties, I would like to focus on just one issue that many international students may experience, which is when tragedy strikes back home. What would you do when bad news from home has been brought to you?
When bad news hits hard
With significant time differences, family and friends from my home city are busy with work and life when I am about to go to bed in Toronto. They are always so many hours ahead of me that I cannot manage to catch up with everything that happens back at home. Once in a while, a gush of sadness and helplessness comes to me whenever I read bad news happening back home. The most recent one happened on Wednesday, November 26, 2025, when I woke up to read a notification from a news app: “Deadly fire in Hong Kong’s residential complex”. Feeling terrified, my finger immediately pressed the notification and saw a news photo of a man in his 70s crying for help. Behind him, there were seven 31-storey-buildings burning from bottom to top. I did not recognize the residential complex called Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po, Hong Kong, but I knew something devastating was happening at home right then.
I looked at my phone and scrolled anywhere to find all the news I could read. The fire came so sudden and spread way too fast that many residents, from newborns to seniors, had no time to evacuate. On news and social media, there were people sending messages of help as their loved ones were trapped in one of the seven buildings, and they had lost contact after the start of the fire. The fire was so shocking that I did not know what I could do while living many kilometers away from it. All I could do that morning was to check in with friends and family in Hong Kong to ensure their physical and mental wellbeing were okay after they witnessed this tragedy right in front of them. A friend told me it was heartbreaking to see the sadness among Hongkongers after the fire in the city. She wondered how long it would take for victims to be healed from this tragic loss.
Shared grief and sadness after a big fire
For people who live overseas, this sudden catastrophe might have delayed reaction time, such that we did not know how to express our sadness. When many Hongkongers still grieved the loss of lives and kept those missing in mind, for those of us who live on the other side of the world, we had no choice but to go on with our daily lives of studying and working. As our current host city was full of festive mood anticipating Christmas or the holiday break, I found myself at a loss of words, not knowing what to say when disaster was happening right at home. Being asked “How’s everything?”, I hesitated a bit but decided to talk a little bit about the deadly fire and the people who lost their lives, were missing, or were traumatized losing their loved ones and homes.
At first, I was not sure how others would take such news, but I received many caring messages and hugs. Although I had thought there was no way to express this kind of sadness and worries about my home city while being away, many people I met in Toronto sent me comforting messages to reassure me that they would be keeping the victims and their families of the fatal fire in their thoughts or prayers. Even friends and family in Hong Kong let me know it is always okay to take a break from the endless scrolling on my phone, reading news about and from home. When tragedies and disasters happen back home, when I feel I cannot do much apart from sharing the news with others and making donations, the many messages and understanding from friends and family are small and touching acts of kindness that make things feel a little better.
Showing up for other international students and workers who are going through deep sadness
A few weeks after the fire, the death toll reached 161 people (on January 15, 2026, the most updated number of lives who were lost in the fire is 168 people). Many residents of the 1,984 units in Wang Fuk Court, Tai Po, Hong Kong have been moving from shelter to shelter, feeling directionless, uncertain where they would be asked to stay next. In Toronto, there are days with mixed snow, slush and dirt piling up on the sidewalks and roads. I walk on the streets and pass by many people who speak different languages, perhaps they are also away from home now. Looking at these people, I think about the struggles their families and friends from home might be facing. Do these people in Toronto also have inexplicable sadness related to home like I do? Do we feel awkward or speechless when we talk about the bad news from our homes with other people in the new city, be it Toronto or Vancouver or somewhere else, not expecting other people would have understood? I don’t have a definite answer to that, but if I read news from other parts of the world and I happen to know people who are from there, I can be the one who reaches out and checks in with them. We may not undergo similar feelings or understand their sadness fully, but we can support each other when we are far, far away from home. Knowing God knows us thoroughly, we can pray for one another, pray for their homes, pray for the people who are suffering. God hears our cries, lament and frustration; He is there with us when we cannot use words to express our sadness, witnessing people from home suffering. In fact, His presence can be experienced in the comfort and support that is offered during such tragic moments that touch our lives so deeply.
Ready to learn & talk more about it?
Join GSC’s Webinar – ‘International Student STORIES’
Tuesday, March 24, 2026 @ 7 – 8 pm EDT
We’re looking to discuss biographical patterns, the industry of international student education, and focus attention on ways to make these global exchanges better. JOIN THE CONVERSATION.