Weijia Zhang*
Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2019 9:30 am
Name: Weijia Zhang
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: 12
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Quiz Bowl, competing academically, roleplaying, swimming, creative writing, video games
Appearance: Weijia is about 5'11", and on the leaner side with a weight at about 174 pounds. His face is roughly oval shaped with a rounded chin. He has dark brown eyes that are almost black, and above them thick black eyebrows. His nose is roughly medium sized, and he has a thin mustache between the nose and his average sized mouth and lips. His straight hair is short to medium in length and is arranged in a simple cut with longer standing hairs on the front, top, and back and shorter hairs on the side, with all of the hair generally aligned forward. He is not too muscular not too fat, as he is somewhat wiry with not much muscle definition nor an appreciable amount of fat. His skin is fairly pale for Asians and its color can make him almost appear Caucasian. Generally he wears striped long sleeved shirts and long pants, usually jeans or pleated pants, with no words or logos whenever possible. On the day he was abducted, he was wearing a green shirt with black stripes as well as white pleated pants and a white pair of sneaker and white socks. He also wears generally plain black glasses as a result of his myopia.
Biography: Weijia is an only child born on July 6, 1994, in Beijing, China. His father was a chemical engineer in a state owned plant, while his mother was a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. In China, his mother began to plan to study in America in for a PhD program for nutrition and found sponsor at a lab at the University of Ohio in Columbus. She wanted to do so as she wanted to improve her education and be able to have more self-direction in study. In addition, she saved up a considerable amount of money and prepared to sell their home in China in order to pay off the costs of immigration and studying in America. When he was about 3, his mother left to go to America and left him in the care of his father. About half a year later, his father also left China to go to America and for a whole year he was left in the care of his grandparents from his mother's side before he finally departed China to join his parents in America. When his father came to America, he found that his degree was not accepted by organizations there. As a result he began to study computer skills, while also working part time at UPS to help raise money for the family while Weijia's mom studied.
In America, Weijia was placed in the ESOL program, and managed to learn the language quickly, picking up most of English through the program and partly out of total immersion in the English-speaking environment. However, as a result of his total immersion in English he stopped much of his study of Mandarin Chinese and over time began to lose proficiency in written Mandarin Chinese, which his parents told him was a great shame as he had previously been capable of reading Mandarin Chinese from a very young age, taught and encouraged by his grandparents.
When he was six, he discovered for the first time that he had asthma in a moderately-severe asthma attack caused by seasonal allergies. After about half a year, he was referred to an allergy specialist by his pediatrician who began a series of regularly scheduled allergy shots, which he took over the next five years, which his mother supplemented with some traditional Chinese treatments. Over that period of time the symptoms of the allergies were put under more control and occurred less often, while the asthma subsided in intensity as he began to outgrow it. Also, his myopia, inherited from his mother, would become clear to him and his parents when he did poorly on vision tests at around age seven and he was made to wear glasses for the first time to help correct his vision. By the time he was ten, he became entirely dependent on them if he was to see clearly in the long distance.
After his mother finished her PhD in nutrition, he and his family then moved fairly often around the country, as a result of his parents having to seek out lab work in universities and then leave if the grants for the labs dried up and along with them the sponsorships. Usually, her work involved studying how nutrition affected the underlying causes of diabetes in biological functions of the body. As a result of moving often, he often had to abruptly leave his friends behind as he moved on to other parts of the country. He usually managed to find some new friends in each new place he moved to, however over time he found it harder and harder as he got older with the social circles of the students becoming more entrenched. When around the age of ten, he began to find the process very tiring and made the finding of new friends less of a concern, being happy with a small circle of friends and not really bothering with pursuing popularity. Also, some of his argumentative nature began to come out as he would often enter into arguments with those he disagreed with. He also held very firmly on to his arguments, even when he realized that he was wrong to some extent, and as a result became very stubborn. Although most people around him tolerated it to a certain extent, it tended to be something many people remembered and led some people to dislike him.
Instead of pursuing popularity, he began to put heavier emphasis on academics, which his parents encouraged along with a competitive streak, and he developed a desire to be better than the rest of his peers. As a result, he did well academically which carried on towards the rest of his schooling, although he did not organize himself well and became somewhat prone to missing assignments. Of all the subjects he studied, he found history the most interesting as he found exploring the background of the world and liked being able to understand how the present came to be. He also enjoyed mathematics as he was a logical thinker and was capable of understanding then solving mathematical problems well. Similarly, he also did fairly well in science as a result of requiring a similar mindset. However, he did not do as well in English, because he found the comprehension questions that made up much of the curriculum difficult due to being mostly interpretation and lacking concrete answers. However, he did well in the part of the subject that required writing as he found that that way he could express himself very clearly and freely.
Once he was eleven, his parents finally moved to Seattle when he was starting middle school. His parents had both found stable work, with his mother in a lab where she ended up as an essential employee and his father in a telecommunications company, using his earlier study of computers. Also, the family finally managed to get their green cards, with Weijia's green card coming first because of the application getting processed faster with his uncommon name. His mother promised Weijia that from that point on, they would not move out of the general area until after he graduated from college. Although he was unhappy at yet another move, it subsided quickly as he knew that he would not have to move again. For the last time he built up a social circle around him from scratch, finding mostly friends who also had academic focuses and had similarly competitive personalities. Also, he was recommended for the GATE program by his teachers due to his intelligence and good study capability and from that point on would take many courses on that level.
At around age twelve, he finally began exploring the Internet in earnest, circulating around various forum communities, many related to gaming. He played various games as a diversion from his everyday life, both online and offline, and tended towards turn-based games because he enjoyed the deeper thought required in such games. Eventually, he discovered roleplaying on some of the gaming boards and began to participate as a result of curiosity. Initially, he was not particularly good, but with more practice his roleplaying skills began to improve and he managed to put his imagination to good use combined with his writing skills. In fact, he began to stop posting about gaming for the most part and mostly roleplayed, and over time he began to move to forums that existed primarily for that purpose. Also, roleplaying would lead him towards creative writing, as they had a heavy overlap and skills in the first transferred into the other. When he was fourteen, he decided to participate in the National Novel Writing Month after having found references to it online, and to his surprise his determination held through and he managed to create a roughly fifty thousand word manuscript. Though the writing was rough in most places, he enjoyed the process if not the product thoroughly and would participate in all the coming years.
Meanwhile, he still worked hard on academics and applied his intelligence in high school, and for the most part getting As with occasional Bs. Much of his good performance was a result of the increased pressure he received from the environment and again his desire to compete. However, he also took more care to organize himself than he did before high school, which meant that he dealt with work far more efficiently. He took a variety of the Gifted and Talented and Advanced Placement courses in most subjects, although he tends to do better in mathematics and history as a result of his interest in those subjects.
He is not particularly fond of extracurricular activities, especially sports, as he is not athletic. The lack of athleticism is a result of bad coordination and a general lack of stamina, partly from asthma. However, his competitive personality might have been good for it if he didn't have these traits. He is not completely unfit, however, as in general he does try to keep active. For example, one athletic activity that he does part in to keep active is swimming. His mother encouraged him to do it starting in the later part of elementary school as a way of improving his cardiovascular health. He does so fairly regularly, doing so at least two times per week or so for exercise and stress relief. However, he still does not swim competitively because he did not want to commit the time for it and because it allows him time for peace and calm. The one extracurricular he took an active interest in, however, was Quiz Bowl. Weijia joined in his freshman year as a result of pressure from his parents to participate in some kind of extracurricular, and to his delight he found that it was a perfect match for him. He enjoys the academic and competitive nature of Quiz Bowl and over time became a history specialist for the team.
Generally, Weijia has a good relationship with his parents, although it is somewhat tenuous at times. The major reason for this was his general disregard for speaking Mandarin Chinese. Although he fully recognized his heritage and was fairly fluent in spoken Mandarin Chinese, he is not particularly fond of speaking Mandarin Chinese because of how rarely he finds it as the only means of communication possible and he did not want to spend much time to regain his knowledge of written Mandarin Chinese. Generally, they speak Mandarin Chinese to him and he replies in English, which in most cases works. However, if he absolutely needs to speak in Mandarin Chinese to get his point across, he does so. However, beyond that, he still follows the traditional Chinese model of filial piety and never truly goes against his parents beyond superficial matters, especially in matters of education. He is a bit closer to his mother than his father, due to his father doing more to impose on him, but ultimately he has a good relationship with both.
He is never really one to think of what he would do in the future, as he tends to think in a day by day basis, so he never thinks much of what he would study in college or pursue as a career. His mother pressured him to go into medicine, like her, although he decided that a life like his mother's was not for him. Ultimately, he decided that he would probably study computer science for the assurance of job security.
Advantages: Weijia has a fairly nimble intellect and generally can figure out situations quickly by using his logic skills to determine why they have occurred. In addition, he has book smarts from his academic focus and is highly competitive and strives to make the best of himself even in a bad situation. Finally, he is very stubborn and has a strong will, keeping to his plans and ideas.
Disadvantages: Weijia is not especially capable socially and is not very popular, making it unlikely for him to win others over for alliances. His stubborn and argumentative nature is also fairly well known and it leads him to be disliked by many of his classmates, and means that he does not work particularly well in a team. Also, his stubbornness is disadvantageous when pragmatism is necessary. He doesn't have much stamina and tires easily as a result. Finally, his myopia can reliant on his glasses if he is to look at anything at long range, and he is not very coordinated.
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: 12
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Quiz Bowl, competing academically, roleplaying, swimming, creative writing, video games
Appearance: Weijia is about 5'11", and on the leaner side with a weight at about 174 pounds. His face is roughly oval shaped with a rounded chin. He has dark brown eyes that are almost black, and above them thick black eyebrows. His nose is roughly medium sized, and he has a thin mustache between the nose and his average sized mouth and lips. His straight hair is short to medium in length and is arranged in a simple cut with longer standing hairs on the front, top, and back and shorter hairs on the side, with all of the hair generally aligned forward. He is not too muscular not too fat, as he is somewhat wiry with not much muscle definition nor an appreciable amount of fat. His skin is fairly pale for Asians and its color can make him almost appear Caucasian. Generally he wears striped long sleeved shirts and long pants, usually jeans or pleated pants, with no words or logos whenever possible. On the day he was abducted, he was wearing a green shirt with black stripes as well as white pleated pants and a white pair of sneaker and white socks. He also wears generally plain black glasses as a result of his myopia.
Biography: Weijia is an only child born on July 6, 1994, in Beijing, China. His father was a chemical engineer in a state owned plant, while his mother was a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. In China, his mother began to plan to study in America in for a PhD program for nutrition and found sponsor at a lab at the University of Ohio in Columbus. She wanted to do so as she wanted to improve her education and be able to have more self-direction in study. In addition, she saved up a considerable amount of money and prepared to sell their home in China in order to pay off the costs of immigration and studying in America. When he was about 3, his mother left to go to America and left him in the care of his father. About half a year later, his father also left China to go to America and for a whole year he was left in the care of his grandparents from his mother's side before he finally departed China to join his parents in America. When his father came to America, he found that his degree was not accepted by organizations there. As a result he began to study computer skills, while also working part time at UPS to help raise money for the family while Weijia's mom studied.
In America, Weijia was placed in the ESOL program, and managed to learn the language quickly, picking up most of English through the program and partly out of total immersion in the English-speaking environment. However, as a result of his total immersion in English he stopped much of his study of Mandarin Chinese and over time began to lose proficiency in written Mandarin Chinese, which his parents told him was a great shame as he had previously been capable of reading Mandarin Chinese from a very young age, taught and encouraged by his grandparents.
When he was six, he discovered for the first time that he had asthma in a moderately-severe asthma attack caused by seasonal allergies. After about half a year, he was referred to an allergy specialist by his pediatrician who began a series of regularly scheduled allergy shots, which he took over the next five years, which his mother supplemented with some traditional Chinese treatments. Over that period of time the symptoms of the allergies were put under more control and occurred less often, while the asthma subsided in intensity as he began to outgrow it. Also, his myopia, inherited from his mother, would become clear to him and his parents when he did poorly on vision tests at around age seven and he was made to wear glasses for the first time to help correct his vision. By the time he was ten, he became entirely dependent on them if he was to see clearly in the long distance.
After his mother finished her PhD in nutrition, he and his family then moved fairly often around the country, as a result of his parents having to seek out lab work in universities and then leave if the grants for the labs dried up and along with them the sponsorships. Usually, her work involved studying how nutrition affected the underlying causes of diabetes in biological functions of the body. As a result of moving often, he often had to abruptly leave his friends behind as he moved on to other parts of the country. He usually managed to find some new friends in each new place he moved to, however over time he found it harder and harder as he got older with the social circles of the students becoming more entrenched. When around the age of ten, he began to find the process very tiring and made the finding of new friends less of a concern, being happy with a small circle of friends and not really bothering with pursuing popularity. Also, some of his argumentative nature began to come out as he would often enter into arguments with those he disagreed with. He also held very firmly on to his arguments, even when he realized that he was wrong to some extent, and as a result became very stubborn. Although most people around him tolerated it to a certain extent, it tended to be something many people remembered and led some people to dislike him.
Instead of pursuing popularity, he began to put heavier emphasis on academics, which his parents encouraged along with a competitive streak, and he developed a desire to be better than the rest of his peers. As a result, he did well academically which carried on towards the rest of his schooling, although he did not organize himself well and became somewhat prone to missing assignments. Of all the subjects he studied, he found history the most interesting as he found exploring the background of the world and liked being able to understand how the present came to be. He also enjoyed mathematics as he was a logical thinker and was capable of understanding then solving mathematical problems well. Similarly, he also did fairly well in science as a result of requiring a similar mindset. However, he did not do as well in English, because he found the comprehension questions that made up much of the curriculum difficult due to being mostly interpretation and lacking concrete answers. However, he did well in the part of the subject that required writing as he found that that way he could express himself very clearly and freely.
Once he was eleven, his parents finally moved to Seattle when he was starting middle school. His parents had both found stable work, with his mother in a lab where she ended up as an essential employee and his father in a telecommunications company, using his earlier study of computers. Also, the family finally managed to get their green cards, with Weijia's green card coming first because of the application getting processed faster with his uncommon name. His mother promised Weijia that from that point on, they would not move out of the general area until after he graduated from college. Although he was unhappy at yet another move, it subsided quickly as he knew that he would not have to move again. For the last time he built up a social circle around him from scratch, finding mostly friends who also had academic focuses and had similarly competitive personalities. Also, he was recommended for the GATE program by his teachers due to his intelligence and good study capability and from that point on would take many courses on that level.
At around age twelve, he finally began exploring the Internet in earnest, circulating around various forum communities, many related to gaming. He played various games as a diversion from his everyday life, both online and offline, and tended towards turn-based games because he enjoyed the deeper thought required in such games. Eventually, he discovered roleplaying on some of the gaming boards and began to participate as a result of curiosity. Initially, he was not particularly good, but with more practice his roleplaying skills began to improve and he managed to put his imagination to good use combined with his writing skills. In fact, he began to stop posting about gaming for the most part and mostly roleplayed, and over time he began to move to forums that existed primarily for that purpose. Also, roleplaying would lead him towards creative writing, as they had a heavy overlap and skills in the first transferred into the other. When he was fourteen, he decided to participate in the National Novel Writing Month after having found references to it online, and to his surprise his determination held through and he managed to create a roughly fifty thousand word manuscript. Though the writing was rough in most places, he enjoyed the process if not the product thoroughly and would participate in all the coming years.
Meanwhile, he still worked hard on academics and applied his intelligence in high school, and for the most part getting As with occasional Bs. Much of his good performance was a result of the increased pressure he received from the environment and again his desire to compete. However, he also took more care to organize himself than he did before high school, which meant that he dealt with work far more efficiently. He took a variety of the Gifted and Talented and Advanced Placement courses in most subjects, although he tends to do better in mathematics and history as a result of his interest in those subjects.
He is not particularly fond of extracurricular activities, especially sports, as he is not athletic. The lack of athleticism is a result of bad coordination and a general lack of stamina, partly from asthma. However, his competitive personality might have been good for it if he didn't have these traits. He is not completely unfit, however, as in general he does try to keep active. For example, one athletic activity that he does part in to keep active is swimming. His mother encouraged him to do it starting in the later part of elementary school as a way of improving his cardiovascular health. He does so fairly regularly, doing so at least two times per week or so for exercise and stress relief. However, he still does not swim competitively because he did not want to commit the time for it and because it allows him time for peace and calm. The one extracurricular he took an active interest in, however, was Quiz Bowl. Weijia joined in his freshman year as a result of pressure from his parents to participate in some kind of extracurricular, and to his delight he found that it was a perfect match for him. He enjoys the academic and competitive nature of Quiz Bowl and over time became a history specialist for the team.
Generally, Weijia has a good relationship with his parents, although it is somewhat tenuous at times. The major reason for this was his general disregard for speaking Mandarin Chinese. Although he fully recognized his heritage and was fairly fluent in spoken Mandarin Chinese, he is not particularly fond of speaking Mandarin Chinese because of how rarely he finds it as the only means of communication possible and he did not want to spend much time to regain his knowledge of written Mandarin Chinese. Generally, they speak Mandarin Chinese to him and he replies in English, which in most cases works. However, if he absolutely needs to speak in Mandarin Chinese to get his point across, he does so. However, beyond that, he still follows the traditional Chinese model of filial piety and never truly goes against his parents beyond superficial matters, especially in matters of education. He is a bit closer to his mother than his father, due to his father doing more to impose on him, but ultimately he has a good relationship with both.
He is never really one to think of what he would do in the future, as he tends to think in a day by day basis, so he never thinks much of what he would study in college or pursue as a career. His mother pressured him to go into medicine, like her, although he decided that a life like his mother's was not for him. Ultimately, he decided that he would probably study computer science for the assurance of job security.
Advantages: Weijia has a fairly nimble intellect and generally can figure out situations quickly by using his logic skills to determine why they have occurred. In addition, he has book smarts from his academic focus and is highly competitive and strives to make the best of himself even in a bad situation. Finally, he is very stubborn and has a strong will, keeping to his plans and ideas.
Disadvantages: Weijia is not especially capable socially and is not very popular, making it unlikely for him to win others over for alliances. His stubborn and argumentative nature is also fairly well known and it leads him to be disliked by many of his classmates, and means that he does not work particularly well in a team. Also, his stubbornness is disadvantageous when pragmatism is necessary. He doesn't have much stamina and tires easily as a result. Finally, his myopia can reliant on his glasses if he is to look at anything at long range, and he is not very coordinated.