Museum researchers conduct recorded interviews with immigrants, refugees, settlement workers and others who have lived experiences relating to immigration. As a learning institution, these accounts help us understand how individuals recollect, interpret, or construct meaning from events and experiences that are within living or family memory. Excerpts of these audio and video interviews, such as those accessible here, are used by the museum in various ways. Please consult the Reproductions and Use information page for details on how to request the original, unmodified recording.
Qing Li talks about her feelings on going back to China to visit.
QL: This is a, so, like, a weird feeling, so I love here. But I miss China. And I go back to China I feel—it’s different, so I feel so good too. And, the, the one words I maybe understand. Just because I’m boyfriend and the girlfriend. Finish relationship about for a few years. You go back to see, wow, I don’t know what, how to see the feelings. I go to China, feels, feels, feels part of my home. And I miss China, beginning, because I have families, friends, and, beginning I can’t go back to China more often and then after I met my husband and I getting used to my husband. First year we difficult because, like, some cultures, and after getting better and better, I understand more each other. So, and then now I feel, real home is here now, I don’t much miss China now. And husband is here and son is here. Yeah.
Qing Li Murphy was born in Sichuan Chengdu, China in 1964. She grew up in severe poverty and survived serious complications from childhood malnutrition. She has three living siblings. When Qing Li was 15, she started learning acupuncture from her uncle. She attended university in Chengdu then worked as an acupuncturist in both hospitals and independently. Her father suggested she bring her son to Canada for better opportunities. They arrived in fall 2004, first living in Ottawa then moving to Halifax. Qing Li met her husband a few months after arriving in Halifax at a street party. She originally planned to stay two years to help her son settle then return to China, but married and became a Canadian citizen. Her son finished high school in Canada then went to acupuncture school. He then spent three years in China and returned to work with Qing Li.
Video oral history conducted by Lindsay Van Dyk on 19 October 2015 at the Shadow House Studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This interview is unrestricted; please contact Museum staff for access to full interview.
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