Item 12 - Interview of Aster Lai

110 MB (1 file) : mp3 ; 0 hr., 48 min., 27 sec.

Audio recording of interview with Aster Lai conducted by Vivienne Poy in Toronto, ON. Interview conducted in Cantonese.

From Transcripts [Extended notes] compiled by Vivienne Poy:

Aster Lai, (dependent of brother) immigrated in 1977, interviewed in Toronto.

• Born in Hong Kong in 1949, the 6th of 7 children. Her parents escaped with some of the younger children from China before the communist took over. Her father was working with a lawyer at that time. Right after they left for Hong Kong, the lawyer was executed.
• The family had a very hard time in Hong Kong. They had a small factory doing [embroidery] to make a living. They were from Swatow, which is very famous for [embroidery]. Her father was a scholar and a teacher in China. Her mother was trained as a doctor in Tokuang hospital, in Canton (Guangzhou) and she had saved a lot of people during the war. In Hong Kong, because of the difficulty in licensing, she couldn’t work as a doctor, but she helped a lot of the poor people there, for very little pay, and often not getting paid at all. When she was called, often it would be at night, or sometimes in a rain storm. On top of that, she had 7 children, and her health was not good, as well, she had asthma.
• Aster went to a Baptist primary school. She was constantly sick as a child and was often hospitalized in public wards in the government hospitals. The doctors have told her parents many times that she would die, but she is still here. She believes that God wants her to stay alive for a reason. Her parents told her that the night she was conceived, an angle appeared in her mother’s dream. So she believes she is here to serve people.
• Because of her health, she didn’t start school until she was 7, and even then, she often didn’t want to go to school, and often returned home after she’s been sent. She remembers from grade 2 on, she was at Piu Doh Girls’ school. She stayed there until graduation from [high] school in 1968, and entered Chung Chi College (now part of the Chinese University of Hong Kong) to study music. She had always loved music.
• After their stint with the [embroidery] company, her father worked for a fruit canning company. During his years in Hong Kong, even though he used to argue with people who wanted to spread Christianity, he was converted to the extent that he wanted to be a minister of the church. He worked at Chek Lup Kok spreading the [gospel]. The whole family was baptized in the Baptist Church in 1964. The mother continued to work in health care as an assistance because she didn’t have a license.
• Aster had been making her own money teaching piano since she was 14. Many of her siblings have already left for countries overseas because her parents wanted them to leave Hong Kong because they feared Communism.
• She was in Chung Chi College for 1 year, and came to Canada in 1969, sponsored by her brother who was already here. Her brother was in the false hair business. “It was very easy to come to Canada at that time.”
• She studied at the Royal Conservatory for a very short time, but returned in 1970 because of a young man, Lai Tak Ng, who came out of China by himself, who was 8 years her senior, and her parents were against her going with him. That was the original reason why they wanted her to leave Hong Kong. When she was 17, her parents insisted that she become engaged to a young man she didn’t like. She also needed to get away.
• She returned to Hong Kong without her parents’ permission. She then worked very hard to make money by teaching. She and Lai Tak Ng were married, saved up enough money to go to Vienna. By the time they went, they had a daughter, and they stayed in Vienne until 1977. In the mean time, her parents immigrated to Canada in 1971.
• In 1977, she still had landed immigrant status in Canada. But now, there were 3 of them, they applied again as immigrants to Canada from Vienna. It was very easy. When they were interviewed by the immigration officer, they talked mainly of music. The reason Aster wanted to come to Canada was because her parents were here. Lai Tak Ng’s family members remained in China, and in order to get them out, he needed to be a Canadian. They actually liked Vienna a lot, and were doing extremely well there. There were very few Chinese, and the Viennese were interested in Chinese culture. Of the 40 overseas Chinese students, she got the job as manager with a large department store in their import business from China. She realized then that she had a talent fo business. She had a lot of press in the papers, and the trips with the whole family were paid by the company.
• They immigrated in 1977. Aster’s second brother, a psychologist in Red Deer, applied for them to come to Canada. They were interviewed in Vienna, and were told by the immigration officer to apply as music teachers instead of as musicians, that was because, at that time, Canada needed more music teachers. From the time they applied, to the time they were granted immigrant status, was only 2 months.
• They came to Toronto to be with her parents. At the beginning, she went to Manpower to try to get work. She believed it would be difficult to get a teaching job as a piano teacher because she is a young Chinese woman. She wasn’t able to get any work at all. She then went to her church, and offered to teach the minister’s 3 children piano with or without pay. Soon, she had many students, and before she knew it, she was sending them to competitions and to take exams. She also got work playing the piano for ballet classes. These classes were very long, and she said she got backaches from them. Within a year, she had so many students that she didn’t have any more time to play for these classes.
• Aster’s husband is a conductor, and her daughter is studying music in New York. She now owns Aster’s Music House, with three locations in Toronto.