In mid-January, a shocking murder case involving two successful Chinese professionals living in the US made headlines in both countries. Chen Liren, a 27-year-old software engineer at Google, was charged with murder after allegedly beating his 27-year-old wife Yu Xuanyi to death at their home in Santa Clara, California. Police detained Chen on January 16. According to a police detective cited by the San Francisco Standard, Chen is accused of repeatedly striking Yu in the head with such force that his right hand became “extremely swollen and purple.” While rumors continue to circulate, Chen’s motive remains unconfirmed.
Both Chen and Yu graduated from the esteemed School of Information Science and Technology at Tsinghua University in 2018 and pursued graduate degrees at the University of California in San Diego. Chen began working as a software engineer at Google in 2020, while Yu joined the company also as a software engineer in 2021. After getting married in 2022, the couple purchased a US$2- million-dollar home in Santa Clara in April 2023.
The tragic case sent shockwaves through the Chinese American community and Chinese social media. Online discussions focused on the prevalence of elitism in Chinese society, which viewed them as a perfect match in every aspect: Chen and Yu were both top scorers on China’s national college entrance examination, were highly educated and had high-paying jobs. Many netizens argued that society should place greater emphasis on a person’s inner qualities such as kindness, honesty and integrity, rather than solely focus on impressive resumes.
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