Simu Liu

 Liu was born in Harbin (China) on 19 April 1989. He is the son of Zhenning Liu and Zheng Liu. The parents of Zheng and Zhenning were able to go to Beijing University, despite considerable opposition, to study engineering. His father, Zhenning, went to America to pursue his PhD while his mother worked in Beijing, and Liu was raised until the age of 5 by his parents in Harbin, China, "in a small apartment, without running water throughout the time", in circumstances Liu described as "idyllic and blissful". His parents later emigrated with him to Canada and took advantage of their education by doing dishwashing jobs, and later became successful aerospace engineers. Liu was raised in Mississauga, Ontario.In his memoir, We Were Dreamers, Liu wrote about the hardships and suffering his parents endured during China's Cultural Revolution, and their subsequent "tiger parenting" way of life, in which the parents "wanted to strip [his] life of happiness or joy" and also reminiscing "the the weight of what he describes as unrealistic expectations of being the most popular child, the academically literate and the respectful son'", being "belittled and physically punished" because of perceived failures. Liu's parents "hothoused" the child in maths as early as age five. They also made the task of studying biographies of scientists and algebra. He was a student at the University of Toronto Schools for high school and then studied business administration at the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario, graduating with honours in 2011