At home with Mai Chen
Mar 3, 2012 20:02:03 GMT -5
Post by helen on Mar 3, 2012 20:02:03 GMT -5
Insight into a child migrant's mind and the achievement of Mai Chen - in New Zealand
If Chen puts her success down to anything, it is to never being expected to make much of herself at all.
She was doubly cursed as both an immigrant and the fourth girl in a Chinese family, "which, you know, wasn't great in Taiwan".
"People don't seem to realise. I know that I'm no-one, I was born no-one, I was the fourth girl in a Chinese family, I wasn't ever supposed to be anyone.
"My dad spent a lot of time on the first two girls because he thought they were going to be great.
"But actually the last two? I don't think he learnt my name. So I wasn't ever meant to be anything, because, you know, they wanted to have a son and I understand that."
So she always knew that if she was going to get anywhere, it was going to be under her own steam.
"My mum and dad had made it very plain to me what my future held. They said: 'We are Chinese, you are a girl, we have no money. You have to do it for yourself'."
www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6520753/At-home-with-Mai-Chen Well done Mei Chen - number 4 daughter
If Chen puts her success down to anything, it is to never being expected to make much of herself at all.
She was doubly cursed as both an immigrant and the fourth girl in a Chinese family, "which, you know, wasn't great in Taiwan".
"People don't seem to realise. I know that I'm no-one, I was born no-one, I was the fourth girl in a Chinese family, I wasn't ever supposed to be anyone.
"My dad spent a lot of time on the first two girls because he thought they were going to be great.
"But actually the last two? I don't think he learnt my name. So I wasn't ever meant to be anything, because, you know, they wanted to have a son and I understand that."
So she always knew that if she was going to get anywhere, it was going to be under her own steam.
"My mum and dad had made it very plain to me what my future held. They said: 'We are Chinese, you are a girl, we have no money. You have to do it for yourself'."
www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6520753/At-home-with-Mai-Chen Well done Mei Chen - number 4 daughter
