Vietnamese actress Trần Thu Liễu, also known by her Chinese name Chen Chiu-liu (陳秋柳), has realized her acting dream in Taiwan, a place she has called home for more than two decades.
Trần played A-Li (阿莉), a character working at a noodle stand in a Taipei night market in the Taiwanese movie Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), which was shortlisted last week for an Oscar for best international feature film.
Photo courtesy of Trần Thu Liễu via CNA
"Taiwan's culture is truly diverse, and it allows me to pursue my dreams," she said in a recent telephone interview.
Photo courtesy of Trần Thu Liễu via CNA
Trần said she was very happy to have been a part of the film.
"I was only a supporting actress, but the director and producers invited me onto the red carpet with them," she said.
She was referring to her attendance at the 62nd Golden Horse Awards in Taipei on Nov. 22, which celebrated achievements in filmmaking in the Chinese-speaking world.
Left-Handed Girl, directed by Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, was nominated for eight Golden Horse awards.
The film ultimately won one honor for Best New Performer for Ma Shih-yuan (馬士媛).
Trần, who is married to a Taiwanese citizen, came to Taiwan from Ho Chi Minh City in the early 2000s at the age of 21.
Before that, she worked in a shoe factory in Vietnam. During her early years in Taiwan, she worked toiling jobs like giving manicure services at a local park, she said.
With assistance from New Taipei City's New Immigrant Family and Women Service Center, she began taking classes to learn Chinese and develop new skills, which helped her discover and cultivate various talents, including the performing arts.
Originally passionate about the arts, Trần gradually honed her craft through years of hard work and perseverance, allowing her talent to emerge.
Today, in her 40s, she has appeared in movies, on television and on stage.
While pursuing her dreams on stage, Trần also works as an interpreter, providing judicial and administrative translation services for Vietnamese in Taiwan.
This year, she was honored as one of New Taipei City's 10 influential cross-over figures and received a contribution service medal from the National Immigration Agency.
Asked about her reflections on Left-Handed Girl, Trần said that she felt the movie artfully explored themes of tradition and sexism, all while successfully introducing the beauty of Taiwan's night markets to an international audience.
"The entire movie conveyed to me the cultural uniqueness of Taiwan's night markets and challenged patriarchal traditions," Trần said.
"Through a grassroots immigrant character like mine, the movie also showcased that Taiwan has a diverse society populated by immigrants."
She said that in her more than 20 years in Taiwan, she noticed that the country went from one where Vietnamese immigrants were afraid to speak their mother tongue in public to one where different languages could be heard spoken everywhere.
Trần said she wishes to use the unique opportunities her acting career has given her to bridge Taiwanese and Vietnamese cultures.
"Using culture to communicate could cultivate more compassion and curb prejudice," she said.
Over her many years in Taiwan, she found that "if I had not come to Taiwan and had stayed in Vietnam, my dream might never have had the chance to come true," she said.
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