Growing up
Lien was born in October 22 1947 in the city of Thu Duc, in South Vietnam. Lien is the eldest child in a family of six children that included two brothers and three sisters.
A second generation Vietnamese of Chinese ancestry, Lien’s grandparents immigrated to Vietnam from China’s Kwong Tun province in the late 1900’s. Lien’s parents were born in Go Vap, South Vietnam.
Growing up, Lien helped her family by working in the family business- with the preparation and selling of food. As the eldest daughter, Lien was responsible for helping her mother to take care of her siblings and doing various chores around the house. Lien enjoyed studying and attended school until she was 15 years of age. Although she would have liked to continue with her schooling, Lien had to stop going to school in order to help her mother care for the family and work in the family bakery. Lien would spend her days doing a variety of chores including getting water, cleaning the house, washing clothes, and preparing food for the family meals. There was little time for fun or enjoyment for Lien.
At the time of Lien’s birth in 1947, Vietnam was still a French Colony- then known as Indochina. Vietnam would not become a fully independent country until the mid 1970’s when the Vietnam War (1963-1975) came to an end. Vietnam’s long history of foreign occupation and struggle for independence would eventually force Lien to leave Vietnam as an exile and to seek a new life in Canada as a refugee.
