We went to montreal to meet in the train and despite the chilly weather we couldnt have wished for the welcome. The russia has been living in canada for over 40 years now and much you claim to draw on her own experiences and memories. You were 10 when your family fled saigon. Doing remember anything what happened in saigon what was your life when i left i was all that enough to remember and then all that not all the enough to understand everything so when you sit down to write you can you have the freedom to reinvent you know the stories between the little dots that you have of the memories but this saw visit images and as children i think you have a very tunnel vision of things right and so i would smell the kitchen the women how they would dress have they moved around and then i also have images of those tanks coming into town we only feel the. Fear of everybody and the worries and and on that day that we thought led of course my parents couldnt tell us that we were fleeing right but the tension was so dense that you can you know you know without anybody say anything and to have certainly all of the adults in the house to be warmer you know to whisper they never talk anymore. Came to his childhood in saigon ended in 1975 when South Viet Nam fell to the communist north after a 20 year war the home city was renamed the main city. The 1500000 people who fled across the South China Sea were dubbed the boat people hundreds of thousands died the despair that drove them on board and the survivors relief are hard to imagine. We never thought we would survive the boat trip so already when we arrived in malaysia. It was a bonus you know a 2nd chance to life and as we got off the boat and the boat broke up 15 minutes after we got off so when you standing on the beach and you see that boat break up. You have no more complaint if anything goes after that. Kim and her family lived in a refugee camp in malaysia until her parents secured entry to canada the start of a new life today shes one of the countrys most celebrated authors her 3 best selling novels have been translated into 25 languages. It must have been a clash of cultures when you came to canada what was your most difficult challenge we have arrived not from our home we arrive from a refrigerator camp so basically you we became subhuman you know we lived in places that were not places and under citizenship we were so. Theyd lets right and so you we arrived here and we could compare with anything else we compare with 0 rights or anything after 0 is great and the beauty was that we arrived in a small city where my impression was the whole city was there waiting for us someone pick me up and help me an ounce of his arms or her arms but everybody was being held and that was the 1st moment where we we came to me it was not 3 years later with the paperwork and all that we became communion on that 1st moment because you form one of you fall in love with these people who didnt hesitate to pick up a dirty roof which and i mean dirty you know we had infection everywhere we had lies and how have and and even today you know i wonder if i would pick up myself when i was 10 when i arrived here kim tweeze family had been affluent and well educated her parents valued tradition as refugees they lost everything. Going to canada was a decline for your parents for your father was a philosopher professor and both of your parents worked in factories in kenya where did save see theres the start of their new life in canada as unread in richmond or as a loss because my parents could already speak french and english so they couldnt follow courses in have a salary from the government for learning their language the hotel where we were we landed where we stay the director. Gave him a job to clean the stairs the the emergency stairs meaning he didnt need anybody he created this job for my dad and i still remember my dad gathering all of us in the room and he said and he started a sentence by say rios or what. The director he could have just given that money but he wanted to create a job so that that 1st job would lead to another job and also to give us back our dignity and so giving is a very difficult gesture and him near exactly how to give but with dignity you know it not only a means of living in terms of money but dignity and dignity is everything from their own grants and you you know you have that back to you of being consider as a full human person. You can do anything. So how can we complain. Kim and her 2 brothers didnt just have to learn english and french upon arriving in quebec i had to learn how to trust again. I didnt have a voice you know vietnam felt really into silence after the end of the war in 75 you could no longer speak freely or as much as possible to not speak so that you dont make your the people around you Bad Information because we were all forced to the amounts any jesters of our actions which were considered to be antirevolutionary are anti cultural as you know you know in the communist contacts and so as much as possible that you dont you no longer speak you no longer you try not to hear it try not to see and so thats how we moved it to me years after the end of the war and before that because i was such a shy kid i didnt speak at all all of her very little all i did was crying i was very good at crying canada and our specify crew back because we arrived here and go back and thats why french isnt now my 2nd Mother Tongue i would say. Gave me. A voice a voice that i didnt know that i had and that i was not looking for. With this voice came to become an author eventually her 1st book route was published in french in 2009 the novel is full of memories of her childhood in saigon of the city smells and food of being forced to flee and the refugee camp the language remains poetic even when dealing with despair. If a choreographer had been underneath the plastic sheet on a rainy day or night he would certainly have reproduced the same 25. 00 people shortened toward on their feet each holding a tin can to collect the water that dripped off the roof sometimes in torrents sometimes drop by a drop if the musician had been there he would have heard the orchestration of all that moved or striking the sides of the chains if the filmmaker had been there he would have captured the beauty of the silent and spontaneous complicity between richard people but there was only us standing on a floor that was slowly sinking into the cloud. Finally the family was permitted to immigrate to canada a new life between 2 cultures came to a 2nd book man was published in 2013 it tells the story of a woman from viet nam who meets her great love in canada similar to that although herself who has 2 children with her canadian husband next novel v. Is also somewhat autobiographical published in 2016 its protagonist is a vietnamese woman living in exile in canada who gets relocated to hanoi for work. I had the chance to go back to work as a lawyer i was sent to vietnam want to protect and that thats when i had the chance to meet vietnam vet you know to return to normal now. As an adult and what more than that not only as an adult but as a comedian but 100 noise was not South Vietnam it was enemy islam and yes it was a different country. To me hanoi words totally unknown and i think you know i would have adopted at that myself better in germany then in hanoi simply because i thought i knew hanoi was germany i accept but i dont know anything or gonna learn the language im going to learn the culture was how i went in as of yet that means it was totally be stabilized because it was not the same vietnam that i had in mind but i have discovered you know. So many stories that all of us there were no winners and we were all victims of a war for from one side or the other and thats why today i would never call the north of vietnam as the enemy land we were just victims you know of the same war standing on both sides of the fences but its the same its the same suffering it was the same sadness it was the same last nobody won in the war. I dont think so. Millions died in that war which also drove the other one and a half 1000000 people to flee their home country 60000 vietnamese went to canada in the 1970 s. Alone where they received a warm welcome. And when in 2015 the world was asked to grant asylum to syrians canada once again opened its doors the Prime MinisterJustin Trudeau even came to greet the 1st Syrian Refugees but there isnt a phobia in canada to give 20 hopes her own story could help counter anti immigrant sentiment but when you came to canada you yourself to warn work on what the. Well today is canada its not recess you know when we left vietnam the International Community community was waiting for us and the everybody was opening their arms in you know taking us in todays not the same. Its not the same situation and thats why i just want to remind all of us that we have all really been so generous and so good we have this and that we are capable of this goodness we can be great which is forget sometimes. Canadas hospitality its breathtaking scenery can make us forget the darkest chapters of this countrys history its banning of the cultural practices and languages of its Indigenous Peoples the socalled 1st nations even in the 1990 s. It was still being relocated repressed and disenfranchised they continue to suffer the economic and psychological consequences to this day only now is the state taking responsibility for those terrible acts. We always forget that they were here before all of us but in books and images very often we have one image or one portrait of the typical can but today canada and especially canada has set a new country. But they have been for many many layers of of migration of people coming in. So yeah i think we are more. Color multicultural multi you know that we have that kind of country we live together in order to live well together we need to know each other before we can love each other right so if we dont know the story of our 1st nations then we would never be able to connect and live together and saw their stories have to be told we. We asked canadians need to normal its our responsibility to snow like a family we need to know our brothers and sisters and instore ism lives and bell love were wreck up deserved saw its all for it so i think thought for a nation is is so important to have conversation and as you know as soon as we had the communication is broken then thats where for misunderstand in stuck and war if you know him hatred right so we need to have this conversation head conciliatory attitude means to kim to ease influence extends far beyond the literary world and she doesnt shy away from to booze one of her sons has autism the author says he has changed to perception at and her rushing and i are always thing that amde 10 years late because i arrive here at when i was 10 so im always running to catch up the 10 years that i am i have lost well our that im late on everybody us rationally and norm of am ok you know i am at the same pace than everybody but i dont know instinctually i am always running in my son whos a to stick can not go would that pace he goes at his own with them and he forces made to slow down like aid us you know like at his speed and so for him when he walks into our room at takes him time to examine the room and because of that i also have to stop an exam in the room dont understand why you prefers one room t. The to the other is of that right is of the shape of the lie out is at the number of people is of the the texture of theres the the so far or you know i have to analyze all of the census and because of him at become since oriel as a become aware of all the Little Details that i would have never seen if i was just me i would just go into the room blue and there there are a member of and would not have even seen that there was a soft. Came to a turn challenges into opportunities optimism has helped to succeed and it seems both literary critics and the public are impressed in 2018 she was shortlisted for the alternative nobel literature prize. There are only a handful of canadian writers in the world wide and swung role with edward young. Michael and. Maybe you where where do you see yourself in canadian literature i dont know. I dont see myself as a writer because a writer has to be. Mr they think more you know and i dont think so what i only enjoy what you know what i am doing. It to me its such a privilege to sit down and find the right word that if i can spend the whole day just to try to find one word and that would be an accomplishment for me and so im not i dont know a writer has to be like this you know i dont know and why ever h. Came to me isnt troubled by what others think of her she enjoys trying out new things shes been a lawyer and a restaurant and become a best selling novelist shes even written a cookbook which she also presented in berlin with a cooking class. Was given this is great he just throws things flowers. Well there was more than roasted flour they were vietnamese stylebook meat balls. And the air was thick with the smell of spices roasted nuts and kim to is delicious homemade salsas. She didnt just make it look easy it really was easy and the results were delicious came to a history. Several awards for her cookbook which also contain stories from her family life in class 2 she showed how cooking and eating can bring people together there was chatter and laughter and occasionally explanations from kim to a good name a speed also plays a large role in her novels where its used to seduce to comfort and to celebrate she says vietnamese people eating is about much more than sustenance its an attitude to life as she learned in her Early Childhood in saigon. My cousins parents would base their choice of what to buy on the color of a fruit or the purview of a spice or simply according to the whim of the moment the food they brought home was always surrounded by a festive aura a sense of decadence and thrill they didnt fresh out of the empty rice jar in the kitchen or the palms who were supposed to learn by heart they just wanted us to stuff ourselves on mangoes to bite into fruition make the juice hurt us spinning around and around like tops to the music of the doors and still be fantastic Michel Sardou the beatles or cat stevens. You write that you like your family your lie on foot to express your feelings what do you cook for friend who is really suffering and what do you call when youre happy oh i think the same. Its the fresh rolls because in vietnamese food is really. A particular for it. And romas where we eat a lot of fresh herbs just really yeah you dont cook before and they just put on the table and for the fresh rolls you put the leaves in the role and usually you have maybe 6 or 7 kinds of different kinds in there so every bite is different the 1st the 1st by the 1st perfume perfume that view you have is at the level of the lips right. And then when you chew you have a different cocktail and when you swallow you have a whole new case opening up and everybody is different because you can never have this the same intensity in each leaf and the same amount of leaves and all so each lie is the more experience right so at the end its like its almost like a garden in your mouth so if you sat that will make you happy and if youre happy then you explore things you float. Always in. Just canadian food and have a similar effect not yes yes i know that you will laugh but its called but this you know what and theres a layer of memes being corn and mashed potatoes it seems very simple but its more comforting its something i hear a lot of over and over and its quite heavy because it was invented for the people who work on the railroad when you eat that you know use you stay strong for a long time so i dont need that much strength from food. But when i eat petition aura its always like a huge piece i can never stop. Came to me it is very much at home in canada but vietnam is also an integral part of her. If you ask me if i was a chameleon all of the music i would say and both i dont have to choose the same socalled you know 30 percent of either me 70 no im 100 percent on both especially because i would say ive even too much cheese and bacon now im big enough to sit on 2 chairs and not in the crack of the 2 chairs you know and so i would say that i understand the immigrant. Poster of our position. Because i have been one but i have also become a through litany when you know i i dont know i consider myself a very often i forget that you can tell that i am not a white person of the. Readings of your books you speak publicly about your past about dio experiences as a refugee does your success help you to raise awareness about the reality of free we have a referee trees i hope i hope i have had the chance to be invited to many events where i speak and im always you know happy when theres one person in the room who would come up to me and say youve changed my view on the roof it she you know on how we see were fijis and thats the whole purpose you know of yeah of me speaking because very you know when do you give a microphone to a refreshing never very rarely or when we talk about immigrants are refugees we talk as a about them as a group theres no story theres no name theres no age theres nothing right theres no history to each of them its like a big group and as a human person you know as our brain we cannot relate to a whole group we have to relate to one person at a time so i guess i am that person that you know who has the microphone and so i try to speak for all of us. I hope that i was there with you know the job fairly well. So yeah i tried to take responsibility basically of this privilege to have a chip you know where i can speak about that experience the life in saigon flight from viet nam her marriage to a canadian came to his personal experiences serve as a basis for care. 3 of her novels can you imagine to write a novel that has no connection to your personal life. Right now i cant i have so much to say still about the people that ive met and really my only objective when i write is to share what i find beautiful and this humans be you know around me and so i dont even have enough time to write about the things i know so. Maybe once the barrier i finish that than our will imagine you know science Science Fiction on some different planets but right now just the people around me are already so fascinating and amazing i dont need to go anywhere really and so maybe thats why its so close to me youve change your profession so often is there any challenge you still want to achieve i hope i hope there are more out there and there are many things i havent done im so yes absolutely ive just last friday ive just accepted. A mandate that was way beyond my you know abilities and it was outside of my comfort zone but i accepted it for that very reason that i would learn something so absolutely yes what should know i would love to be an astronaut. But i think im too old back. Oh yeah oh on model i think im too short ill never get to be able. Thank