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From Vietnam to the Land of Opportunity

2020 December, Guest Post · November 30, 2020

by Marcia Lam – I was born in North Vietnam. In February 1978, as property was being confiscated and relations with China were deteriorating, my parents (like thousands of other ethnic Chinese) decided to leave with their four kids (ages 8, 6, 4, and 2) plus one in my mom’s tummy. We were accompanied by my thirteen- year-old Uncle Vincent, my Aunt Ida (who was 14 and had polio) and her sister, my Aunt Mindy who was fifteen. We took the train but were kicked off before our stop and had to walk to a river and then cross over to China. Since Aunt Ida couldn’t walk, my dad carried her on his back the entire way. Farmers took us in and gave us refuge, allowing us to stay in their pig pen in the beginning. Soon after, my youngest brother was born in China. As we settled down, my parents found housing and jobs.

Aunts Ida & Mindy at Center

We were in China until June 1979, when we found passage to Hong Kong. After surviving the boat ride, we were taken in as refugees from Vietnam. We stayed at the refugee camp while my parents found work. My mom worked in a toy factory. My dad worked in construction or whatever manual labor he could find. In February 1981, under the sponsorship of my great uncle who was already living in Oakland, we received permission to emigrate to the United States. Aunt Ida stayed in Hong Kong for another year to have surgery to correct her back so she could walk with a crutch, and Mindy stayed behind to wait with her.

I was ten when we arrived at SFO and came directly to Oakland.  My great uncle  helped us find a place to live.  Eventually, my parents found work to make money to pay my great uncle back plus the government for the airfare, I think.  My mom worked as a seamstress and got paid by pieces.  My dad found restaurant work in the kitchen doing miscellaneous work and washing dishes.  Given time, he learned to cook.   He was able to open his own restaurant in 1990 in Hayward, CA.  It was called Hong Kong Seafood Restaurant, named after the restaurant where he learned how to cook.  I was going to college at that time and was helping him run the restaurant.  I went to Cal State Hayward and graduated in 1994 with a B.A in Business Administration.  After I graduated, I worked for Prescolite for four years and then briefly returned to help out at the restaurant. By that time, my two brothers (Peter and Greg) were stepping in to help my dad and thanks to their great service sales were booming.  Eventually Peter and Greg burned out and started Superprint. At that point, since none of his kids (including my younger sister, Cinda wanted to work in the restaurant, my dad sold it  in 2005 because none of his kids wanted to work there anymore.

Dad in the Kitchen at Lin Jia

Peter and Greg sold Superprint in 2018.  Peter now works for Panasonic making batteries for Tesla.  Greg works for TargetCW and is currently assigned to Blackstone Data Processing. Cinda works for SAP in New Jersey.   I last worked at my dad’s restaurant in 1999 when I traveled to Beijing and studied there for three months.  After that trip, I really wanted to open a tea cafe which led to the opening in 2000 of the L’Amyx on Piedmont Avenue in partnership with my sister and brother-in-law. That was followed seven years later by a second location on Lakeshore which failed – partly due to the stock market crash.  In November 2010, we re-opened as Lin Jia Asian Kitchen serving the kind of wholesome food my dad cooked for us growing up and for several years thereafter, dad was one of the chefs behind the counter.

Marcia, John, Keira and Chloe

Filed Under: 2020 December, Guest Post

Previous Post: « Festival at the Lake: The Early Years
Next Post: Splash Pad News – December 2020 »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Richard and Lisa Young says

    December 1, 2020 at 2:24 pm

    Marcia, we are so grateful that you made your journey and ended up in Oakland! You are a hero to our family and, as you know, Lin Jia is our place to celebrate both special occasions as well as everyday life. Many thanks to you and your family for creating such wonderful food and for nurturing us for all these years. Hugs from the Youngs

    Reply
  2. Richard Weiss and Patricia Davis says

    December 1, 2020 at 3:13 pm

    What a wonderful story! We love Lin Jia and eat there at least once a month. (Or did, until the pandemic. Now we take out from there.) It’s so nice to hear how you got to where you are and how you became such an important part of our neighborhood.

    Reply
  3. Annette F. Wood says

    December 1, 2020 at 3:32 pm

    Love knowing your story and how fortunate we are to have you in our neighborhood to nourish us with your fantastic food.

    Reply
  4. Linden Young says

    December 1, 2020 at 5:04 pm

    We started going to Lin Jia back when they opened. The economy was bumpy at the time and they wondered if they would “make it”. We love the high-quality food and have been patronizing them for a decade or more—at least once a month. I really enjoyed learning more about their story and more about the neighborhood businesses.

    Reply
  5. Joanne Devereaux says

    December 1, 2020 at 7:08 pm

    What a great story! During these past many months of Covid we miss our neighborhood especially Lin Jia.

    Reply
  6. Stu_Sweetow says

    December 1, 2020 at 7:55 pm

    Thank you for sharing your story, Marcia. That really shows the bravery and resilience of your family. I met you when you were running L’Amyx. You were also very active with the Piedmont business association and I was pleased to see you volunteer for projects with the OMLF.

    Reply
  7. Carole Levenson says

    December 2, 2020 at 12:59 pm

    I love your story, Marcia, as well as your wonderful food and your generosity!
    Marcia has been a great supporter of the Autumn Lights Festival, raising funds for the Gardens at Lake Merritt
    and providing food for the artists and volunteers!

    Reply
    • Ken Katz says

      December 2, 2020 at 1:22 pm

      Carole, I’m in total agreement and want to add that as generous as Marcia is, she never asks for publicity in return. Not a lot of people know that, in celebration of Lin Jia’s Fifth Anniversary, they donated 5% of their proceeds for an entire month split equally between four neighborhood nonprofits – the Morcom Rose Garden, Fairyland, the Lakeside Gardens and Splash Pad Park which allowed us to expand the California Native plant bed by several hundred feet.

      Reply

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