She grew up in B.C. and went to China as a teenager where she discovered that her grandfather had left another wife and family. She was also impressed by Chairman Mau and worked in Beijing for a time with Chinese T.V. as a translator. However, after being arrested in 1982 because she was mistaken for a Chinese citizen and was doing work forbidden in China, she returned to Canada, married her high school sweetheart, who was not Chinese, and has raised a family in Canada.