My Hakka parents emigrated from Moi-yen, China to Calcutta, India, where I was born, the youngest of nine siblings.

When I was one week old, a family friend adopted me. I grew up in Chattawalla Gully, with my adopted brother and sister.

Chattawalla Gully, so named because it was a street of umbrella makers in the late 19th century. (Chatta means umbrella in Hindi, walla means people, in this case, makers) The Chinese moved into the street in the 1920s.

I always try to make life interesting.

I made life more interesting for my parents when I was about six or eight months old. My father meet with his friends at the local tea-stall after dinner almost every night. One evening, my father, very proud of his daughter's tottering steps, took me with him to the tea-stall, to show me off to his friends. The tea-stall owner raked out his stove and spread the hot coal outside his tea stall. I tottered onto the embers. My mother told me that the blisters on the soles of my feet were the size of melons, and when she applied cloth soaked in ice water, the blisters burst, and sprayed across the room. That was my first and only attempt at walking on hot coals

I came to Canada through an arranged marriage and became an accountant.

Contact Kwai-Yun Li