The words that Lizhi “Nemo” Yang (12) remembers hearing from his dad when Nemo moved to America alone four years ago have stuck with him: “The harder you work, the luckier you will get.”

Nemo’s life differs from most others; he moved to a new country by himself after his middle school years, leaving behind everything he previously knew in order to take this new opportunity. But the transition has presented him with new challenges that he faced head on, and with the ambition and lessons his dad taught him, he quickly adapted to his new environment.

He had previously attended the World Foreign Language Middle School, an international school in Shanghai, China, that participates in a middle school student exchange program with Harker, which first introduced Nemo and his parents to Harker. Nemo’s original plan had been to attend high school in China, but moving to the Bay Area to attend Harker became a clear decision once he and his parents were able to see the school’s facilities and opportunities.

Moving to a new country without his parents was a challenge, but Nemo embraced it fiercely.

“I think I would say thanks to my parents that introduced this opportunity to me,” Nemo said. “They talked to me beforehand saying, this school is really good, but it’s just 6,000 miles away, but it’s not a big deal.”

When he first came to the U.S. in his freshman year, Nemo was excited for the opportunity to finally live on his own, away from his parents.

“Part of the reason I wanted to come to the U.S. by myself initially was me just wanting to get away from the family. I wanted to be a man and do everything on my own,” Nemo said. “Later I learned that it was so hard. But I learned so much in the process of doing so. I learned a lot from moving from host family to host family and eventually living on my own.”

In addition to all of his schoolwork and extracurriculars, Nemo’s day-to-day life also involves cooking his own food, shopping for his own clothes and even doing taxes by himself.

There were many differences of student life between China and the U.S. He only visits his parents during vacations, when he would spend a few days back in his home country.

Differences in the school systems themselves were also apparent. For instance, in China, students stay in one classroom, and their teachers move from room to room, which was different from school here.

As a result, it was initially hard to adjust, but he quickly managed to calibrate and made multiple friends at school due to his unique background and his willingness to try new activities.

Nastya Sushkova (12), one of Nemo’s closest friends, recalls meeting him in freshman year during a Study of Theater class, where she found his ideas intriguing during a play project that they worked on together.

“It was really interesting because he had a really different approach; his play was different than other peoples.” Nastya said. “He included different characters of different backgrounds and I remember that that was something that stood out to me.”

His ambition and daring personality fueled his decisions both in school and in other areas of his life as well.

“Once, I took him sailing, and he didn’t know anything about sailing.” Nastya said. “But he was very willing to try, and he was like, ‘It’s okay, I’ll probably capsize the boat.’ He was willing to improvise and learn how to sail on the spot.”

Nemo was interested in pursuing robotics throughout high school, but football was something that was something completely out of his comfort zone, in part because the sport was not even offered at his previous schools.

“I remember there were a bunch of people at the end of freshmen year and a bunch of people saw me and said, ‘Hey Nemo! You should join football,”’ Nemo said. “They started hovering around me and pushed me into the football team. All I remember was that I thought it was cool that I got a free shirt and decided to tryout for the team.”

Nemo laughs as he recalls a memory from one his first football games during freshman year.

“The ball came my way, and I kind of froze,” he said. “Everyone was like, ‘Yo Nemo, what’re you doing?’ It was that one moment of complete chaos that really really felt like this was the first day of school for me.”

Nemo met his roommate and close friend, Johnny Wang (12), when he moved into the same house as Johnny and eventually, they realized that it would be cheaper and more convenient to rent out a room together by the school. Together, he and Nemo created a series of smart devices in their housing complex, where they could control the lights, temperature, and other parts of their apartment.

“I think he’s very funny and approachable and he has also become a lot more responsible in these past one and a half years.” Johnny said.  “I think that he has learned how to control his desires, like balancing academics and social events.”

In the near future, Nemo plans on staying in the U.S. to complete his education. Although he has lived in China for the majority of his life, he has gradually started to become more of a “Californian,” a change he welcomes with open arms.