we only feel the fear of everybody in the worries and and on the day that we fled of course my parents could tell us that we were fleeing. we never thought we would survive the butchery. we went to montreal to meet. and despite the chilly weather we couldn't have wished for a while mobile come. out of the russia has been living in canada for over 40 years now and much acclaimed novels draw on her own experiences and memories.

you were 10 when your family fled saigon. doing remember anything what happened in saigon was how 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 children i think you have a very tunnel vision of things right and so i wouldn't go through the smell the kitchen the women 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 the day that we fled of course my parents couldn't tell us that we were fleeing right. but the tension was so dance that you can you know you know

without anybody say anything and to have certainly all of the adults 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 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 50 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 everything goes after. kim and her family lived in a repeat camp in malaysia until her parents secured entry to canada the start of a new life today she's one of the country's most celebrated authors his 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 can't so basically do 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 couldn't compare with anything else we compare with 0 rights or any. 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 arms 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 canadian on that 1st moment because you fall in love you fall in love with these people who didn't hesitate to pick up a dirty roof and i mean dirty you know we had infection everywhere we had lies 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 tweets family had been affluent and well educated her parents valued tradition as refugees they lost everything.

going to canada was a decline for their parents for your father was a philosopher professor and both of her parents worked in factories in kenya where did save see their stay the start of their new life in kenya as it would enrich went on as a loss because my parents could already speak french and english so they couldn't follow courses and i have a salary from the government for learning the 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 didn't leave 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 saying we are so on. 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 on. also to give us back

our dignity and so giving is a very difficult gesture and he knew 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 wants and you you know you have that back then you're really consider as a full human person. you can do anything. so how can we complain. kim and her 2 brothers didn't just have to learn english and french upon arriving in quebec they had to learn how to trust again. and then 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 don't make your the people around you bad information because we were all forced

to the nouns any gestures or actions which were considered to be anti-revolutionary are anti cultural as you know you know in a communist context and saw as much as possible that you don't you no longer speak you no longer you try not to hear it try not to see and so that's how we moved it to me years after the end of the war and before that because i was such a shy kid i didn't speak at all or of her very little all i did was crying i was very good at crying canada and our specify kubek because we arrived here and go back and that's why french isn't now my 2nd mother tongue i would say. gave me a voice a voice that i didn't know that i had and that i was not looking for. with this voice came to become an author of a. actually there 1st book ruth 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 tour 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 a musician had been there he would have heard the orchestration of all that moved or striking the sides of the tins if a 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 play.

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 is also somewhat autobiographical published in 2016 it's protagonist is a vietnamese woman living in exile in canada who gets relocated to hanoi for work. i have a chance to go back to work as a lawyer i was sent to vietnam on a project and that that's when i had the chance to meet vietnam again you know to return to norway as an adult and what more than that not only as an adult but as a comedian but hung noise was not cells it was. enemy's land yes it was

a different country. to me hanoi words totally unknown and i think you know i would have adopted at that to myself better in germany then in hanoi simply because i thought i knew hanoi was germany i accept but i don't know anything or gonna learn the language i'm going to learn the culture was when i went in as of yet the marines 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 that's 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 it's the same it's the same suffering

it was the same sadness it was the same last nobody won in a war. i don't think so. millions died in that war which also drove the 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 prime minister justin trudeau even came to greet the 1st syrian refugees but there isn't a phobia in canada to come to a hopes her own story could help counter anti immigrant sentiment but when you came to canada you your received a warm welcome what about today's canada it's not recession 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. it's not the same situation and that's 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. canada's hospitality it's breathtaking scenery can make us forget the darkest chapters of this country's history its banning of the cultural practices and languages of its indigenous peoples the so-called 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 images very

often we have one image or one portrait of the typical can but today canada and especially canada is such a new country and they're so they have been so many many layers of of migration of people coming in. so yeah i think we're more to 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 don't know the story of our 1st nations then we will never be able to connect and live together and saw their stories have to be top we asked canadians need to know it's our responsibility to know like a family we need to know our brothers and sisters and stories and. lives and their

love for break ups so it's all for so i think fought for our nation is so important to have conversation and as you know as soon as we have the communication is broken and that's where misunderstandings start and war you know and hatred are right so we need to have this conversation. a conciliatory attitude means that came to an influence extends far beyond the literary world and she doesn't shy away from to use one of her sons has autism the author says he has changed her perceptions and her writing. and i always think that i'm 10 years late because i arrived here at when i was 10 so i'm always running to catch up the 10 years that i have lost that i'm late on everybody else rationally and normal ok you know at the same pace than everybody but i don't know instinctually i'm always running in my son who's

artistic cannot go with that pace he goes at his own wisdom and he forces me to slow down like he does 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 don't understand why he prefers one room to the to the other is of the right is it the shape of the lamp is it the number of people is it the the texture of those the so far or you know i have to analyze all of the senses and because of him at become 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 world over and then get out and then leave and would not have even seen that there was a soulful kim tweeter and challenges into opportunities. her 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 worldwide and swung world market at work young . michael and that maybe you where where do you see yourself in canadian literature i don't know. i just don't see myself as a writer. because a writer has to be. mr they they think more you know and i don't think so what i only enjoy what you know what i am and the way i read it to me it's 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 i'm a i don't know a writer has to be like this you know i don't know in my ever h.

him to he isn't troubled by what others think of her she enjoys trying out new things she's been a lawyer and a restaurant and become a bestselling novelist she's even written a cookbook which she also presented in berlin with a cooking class. here but 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 can trace delicious homemade sources. she didn't 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 contained 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 terrain didn't amaze field also plays a large role in her novels where it's used to seduce to comfort and to celebrate she says the vietnamese people eating is about much more than sustenance it's an attitude to life as she learned in her early childhood in saigon. my cousin's parents would base their choice of what to buy on the color of a fruit or the purchase 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 didn't fresh over the empty rice char 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 being around and around like tops to the music of the doors sylvie tongue 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 a friend who is really suffering and what do you call when you're happy oh i think the same. it's the fresh rolls because in vietnamese food is really. a particular for it. and romas we eat a lot of fresh herbs just really yeah you don't cook before they just put on the table and for the fresh rolls you put the leaves in the role 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 you 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 opening up and everybody is different because. as you can never have this

the same intensity in each leaf and the same amount of leaves and all so each lie is a new experience try to at the end think it's almost like a garden in your mouth so if you sat that will make you happy and if you're happy then you explore if you flow through. always in a muse for just canaria food and have a similar effect not yes yes i know but you laugh but it's called but they seem more and the 3rd layer of names means being corn and mashed potatoes it seems very simple but it's so comforting it's something i hear a lot of over and over and it's 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 don't need that much strength from food. but when i eat petitional

it's 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 comedian all of vietnamese i would say i'm both i don't have to choose the same so-called you know 30 percent of either me 7 you know i'm 100 percent on both especially because i would say i've even too much cheese and bacon now i'm 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 i've also become of fully to me when you know i i don't know i consider myself a very often i forget. that you can tell that i am not

a white person that. the readings of your books if be publicly about your past about your experiences as a refugee does your success help you 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 i'm always you know happy when there's one person in the room who would come up to me and say you've changed my view on the refrigerator you know on how we see with fiji's and that's the whole purpose you know of yeah of me speaking because it's very you know when do you give a microphone to a reef which is never very rarely or when we talk about immigrants or refrigerate we talk as a about them as a group there's no story there's no name there's no age there's nothing right

there's no history to each of them it's like a big group and as a human person you know our brain we cannot relate to a whole group we have to wait 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 they 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 flight from viet nam her marriage to a canadian came to his personal experience a service suffices for characters in all 3 of her novels can you imagine to write a novel that has no connection to your personal life. right now i. and i

have so much to say still about the people that i've 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 don't even have enough time to write about the things i know so. maybe once the barrier i finish that then 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 don't need to go anywhere really and so maybe that's why it's so close to me you've changed 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 haven't but i'm so yes absolutely i've just last friday i've 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 will learn something so absolutely that's what should know i would love to be an astronaut. but i think i'm too old. oh yeah oh on model i think i'm too short i'll never get to be a wall. thank you very much it wasn't my place it was a better fit but. it seems unlikely they came to even run out of material anytime soon and through the storytelling she will continue to act as a force for others.

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issues stuff. african fashion is on the run be the one design or just something i want only once a big inspiration from her marriage but she doesn't want some from what i can bring a beautiful gowns. each other story something which is quickly to my kotter. in 60 minutes on d w. 60. early the global tourist guide function is booming capital i love berlin the scope of the multicultural metropolis you know your remarks series the band on the bonus money like the terms of the new i love feature in motion once again so it's a mix of the cuts where it's like me just writes as the 15 nations of the 50 story

and 50 very personal tips on berlin's very best in terms of. looking down in atlanta every week on d w. come. a neighborhood that consists entirely of floating how's the best though a model for the future. we'll see more of those floating houses later in the show and with that a warm welcome to the new.