Old Photos – Lan [Sweet and Sour]

An early photo showing Lan's grandparent's family. Lan's grandmother had 18 children!.

Can you tell which one is Lan? If not, here she is.

Lan's parent's family - with 11 children! And they wonder why they were poor.

Lan is on the left. See close up.

Lan at eighteen.

Lan in 1981 with two special people.

Lan in 1981 with Willemjin and Maarten. Their mother Dorien came to the refugee camp in Singapore to teach English and French and took Lan home from time to time.

Lan's clothes were provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and you can see the trousers don't fit. She looks older here than she did when we were married ten years later.

Lan with the late Jean Peacock.

Jean wanted to help some new migrants to Australia get settled and took Lan under her wing, helping her to integrate with society. She taught her conservative dress sense too!

Lan visiting America in 1983.

When Lan was in the refugee camp, she desparately wanted to go to America since she had a distant relative there and knew no-one in Australia. Just two years after arriving in Australia, she set off to the US (seen here in Disneyland) to look around. . By then she was somewhat established in Australia working 2 jobs and studying and had bought a townhouse and with the need to get INS permission,it got too difficult and she stayed.

Lan became an Australian citizen, 24 September, 1984. Here she is after the ceremony with the Mayor of Ashfield.

Are they in front of a bike shop?

As you probably know, the ability to wrestle crocodiles is an essential requirement of Australian citizenship. Here she is giving a demonstration in Thailand in 1991 after we had visited Vietnam.

Lan bought a soft toy for a neice and discovered it made quite a dandy necklace. This photo was taken in the back garden of Lan's townhouse after we were married.

Lan is a keen gardener but in our townhouse at Auburn in Sydney, most of the back garden was concrete so her plants were mainly in pots. Here is an iris she grew.

Lan at South Head, Sydney.

Lan suffered from a "frozen shoulder" in 1994 which delayed our departure to America. One of my co-workers noticed this photo on my desk and commented, "I know why your wife has a sore shoulder - she keeps lifting heavy objects"!

Lan looking good in a high-visibility vest.

This was taken at a freeway reconstruction site in Los Angeles after the 1994 earthquake. Lan has a cousin that works for the California Department of Transportation who kindly showed us the damage and the speedy repair work.