We never thought we would survive the book. We went to montreal to meet in the train and despite the chilly weather we couldnt have wished for a while mobile come. Out of the russia has been living in canada for over 40 years now how much you claim to draw on her own experiences and memories. You were 10 when your family fled saigon. Then will remember anything what happened inside and what was your life that when i left i was old 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 remember the smell of the kitchen the women how they would dress have they moved around and you also have images of those tanks coming into town we only feel the. Fear of everybody and the worries and and on the day that we thought less of course my parents couldnt tell us that we were fleeing right but the tension was so damn that you can you know you know without anybody say anything and to have certainly all of the at the in the house to the room or 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 to home says he was renamed the main city. In 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 a 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 other than. 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 refitted camp so basically you we became subhuman you know we lived in places that were not places and under citizenship we were stateless right and so you we arrived here and we couldnt compare with anything else we compare with 0 rights or anything after 0 was 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 picked me up and held me in their own of his arms or her arms everybody was being held and that was the 1st moment where we we came to me it was not 2 years later with the paperwork and all of that we became canadian and that 1st moment because you form one of you fall in love with these people who didnt hesitate to pick up a dirty refugee and i mean dirty you know we had infection everywhere we had wise in our hair and and even today you know i wonder if i would pick up myself when i was 10 when i arrived here kim trees 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 provide. And both of your parents worked in factories in kenya where did save see theres the start of their new life in kenya as it would in richmond as a loss because my parents could already speak french and english that 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 to the emergency stairs meaning he didnt meet 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 all. 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 us a very difficult gesture and him here 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 you have that back with 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 motz beat so that you dont make your the people around you Bad Information because we were all forced to the nouns any. Jesters actions which were considered to be antirevolutionary are anticult ill as you know you know in a communist context 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 lived it 3 years after the end of the war and before that because i was such a shy kid i didnt speak at all or very very little all i did was crying i was very good at crying canada and our space if i could bear because we arrived here and go back and thats why friends 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 looking for. With this voice came to a 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 to all on their feet each holding a tin can to collect the water the dripped off the roof sometimes in torrents sometimes drop by drop if the musician had been there he would have heard the orchestration of all that water 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 Paypal but there was only us standing on a floor that was slowly sinking and the cry. Finally the family was to. Needed to immigrate to canada a new life between 2 cultures him to his 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 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. And have a chance to go back to work as a lawyer i was sent to vietnam on a project and that thats when i had the chance to meet vietnam again you know to learn to know about vietnam as an adult and what more than that not only as an adult but as a comedian but 100 noise was not cells we had known it was enemy islam and yes what 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 had i went in as of yet the means of what is taught me 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 which are at a 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 thing. Unless it was the same last nobody won in a war. I dont think so. Millions died in that war which also drove over 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 is xenophobia in canada to him 20 hopes her own story could help counter anti immigrant sentiment that when you came to canada you your received a warm welcome what about todays canada its not recess you know when we left vietnam the International Community community was waiting for us. That everybody was opening their arms in you know taking us in today is not the same. Its not the same situation and thats why i just want to remind all of us that we have already been so generous and so good we have this in the us 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 in that is very often we have one. One portrait of the typical commune but today canada and especially canada set a new country and they have been so many many layers of of migration of people coming in. So yeah i think were malty color multicultural or multi you know the we are that type 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 will never be able to connect and live together and saw this storys have to be told we we ask canadians need to know its our responsibility to know like a family we need to know our brothers and sisters and stories and lives and their love break up so and so forth so i think thought for a nation is is so important to have conversation and as you know as soon as we have the communication is broken and thats where the misunderstanding stuck and war if you know and hatred right so we need to have this conversation. A conciliatory attitude means that kim to influence extends far beyond the literary world and she doesnt shy away from to use one of her sons has autism the author says he has changed her perception and her writing. And i always think that im 10 years late because i arrived here at when i was 10 so im always running to catch up the 10 years that i have lost that im late on everybody else rationally i know that i am ok you know at the same pace than everybody but i dont know instinctively im always running and my son whos artistic cannot go with that pace he goes. At his own wisdom and he forces me to slow down like a desk you know like at his speed and so for him when he walks into a room it takes him time to examine the room and because of that i also have to stop and examine the room dont understand why he prefers one room to the to the other is of the right is it the shape of the lamps is it the number of people is of the the texture of those the so far or you know i have to analyze all of the senses and because of him at the come since oriel i become aware of all the Little Details that i would have never seen if i was just me i would just go into the river and there they are and then me and would not have even seen that there was as of. Kim to return challenges into opportunities for optimism has helped her 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 of this one world market at word. Michael and that 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 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 thats it 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 watch him too he isnt troubled by what others think of her she enjoys trying out new things shes been a lawyer and a restaurant and become a bestselling novelist shes even written a cookbook which she also presented in berlin with a cooking class. Was given this is great cuisine just roasting flour. Well there was more than roasted flour that would be to me style pork meatballs. And the air was thick with the smell of spices roasted nuts and kim to is delicious homemade sources. And she didnt just make it look easy it really was easy and the results were delicious came to a has received several awards for her cookbook which also contains stories from her family life in class 2 she showed how cooking and eating can bring people together there was chatter and laughter and occasional explanations from chin to a good name a spilled also plays a large role in her novels where its use. To seduce to comfort and to celebrate she says to 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 or a sense of decadence and thrill they didnt fresh over the empty rice china kitchen or the poms who were supposed to learn by heart they just wanted us to stuff ourselves on mangoes to bite into fruition make the juice spurt boss spinning around and around like tops to the music of the doors still before the tar Michel Sardou the beatles or cat stevens. You write that you like a family or 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. Particular for it. And romas where we eat a lot of fresh herbs just really yeah you dont cook before they just put on the table and for the fresh rolls you put the leaves in the roll and just when 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 book 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 now so each guy is a new experience writer at the end. I think its almost like a garden in your mouth so if you sat that will make you happy and if youre happy then you explore if you follow through. Always in. 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 the 3rd layer of limbs means being corn and mashed potatoes it seems very simple but its so comforting its something i hear a lot of it 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 you stay strong for a long time so i dont need that much strength from food so but when i eat pettish you know its always like a huge piece i can never stop. Came to me very much at home in canada but vietnam is also an integral part of her. If you ask me if i was a canadian all of vietnamese and would say im both i dont have to choose the same socalled you know 30 percent of either me 7 you know 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 at 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 ive also become fully to me 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 path. I asked her what do you experience as a refugee does your success happy to raise awareness about the reality of we have a referee trees i hope i hope i have had the chance to be invited to many events where i speak and 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 on the refrigerator you know on how we see with 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 it of them its like a big group and as a human person if 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 the way 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 for life in saigon for flight from viet nam her marriage to a canadian came to his personal experiences serve as a basis for characters and if 3 of her novels can you imagine to write a novel that has no connection to your personal life. Right now i can 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 human is be gentle around me and so i dont even have enough time to write about the things i know so. Maybe once that 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 changed your profession so often 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 this was much i would love to be an astronaut. But i think im too old. Oh on model i think im too short ill never get to be a wall. Thank you very much it wasnt my version where the better bu