Lien Truong: Finding America
December 2008 Cover Woman
By Spaine Stephens
Carolina Charm
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Lien Truong takes a sip of her drink and gracefully returns the glass to the immaculate tabletop in a corner of Hing Ta restaurant. A couple of customers follow a waitress to a private table in the back, but not before they spot Truong.
They descend upon her, showering her with enthusiastic salutations and the kind of hugs that greet long-lost family members. She hugs them back, calling them by name, and turns to watch as they settle in at their table in the elegant back room of Hing Ta.
Truong looks around her and smiles gently yet assuredly, almost like she owns the place. In fact, she does. But Truong’s ownership of Hing Ta goes much deeper than serving food and making a profit.
It’s about tradition, honor, kinship and soul.
A plateful of the American dream
It’s a typical day at Hing Ta, 1276 N. Wesleyan Blvd. in Rocky Mount, and Truong is running the cash register, checking on customers, making sure the hot containers at the buffet are full, and communicating with her chef. She notices customers at the door waiting to be seated, and she promptly whisks them to a table, where they smile, take their seats and eye the steam coming from the heaps of hot food.
When there is a quiet moment, Truong pauses, as she often does, to remember how it all began.
At 13, Truong immigrated with her family to the United States from Southern China. After living in Michigan, her family moved to California and she began to fully realize the opportunities that awaited her in a new country. As a woman, doors opened for her here that might always have been closed to her in China. Inside her, a dream was born and grew.
Truong decided to make a way for herself, and she chose to pursue what she knew. Food.
“Food has been deeply connected with me all my life,” Truong says. “In China, you celebrate life by eating. Now, I remember the food to connect with my soul.”
Hing Ta showcases Cantonese, Hunan, Mandarin, Polynesian and Szechuan cuisine, and the authenticity of the dishes is Truong’s pride and joy.
“All the sauces we make are family secrets,” she says. “My restaurant is unique that way, and we only use the freshest ingredients. We even travel overseas and bring spices back.”
The restaurant boasts not only a buffet but an extensive menu that offers customers variety, but at the same time, a constant they can depend on for sustenance and comfort. The menu has stayed the same since the beginning, as have the prices. The restaurant’s chef can make dishes that meet special dietary needs and requirements.
Watching Truong in action makes owning and running a restaurant look easy, but it took courage and determination. After growing up somewhere in the middle of a jumble of 11 children, she decided to make her own way, and moved to North Carolina, where she chose Rocky Mount because of its Southern charm, and opened Hing Ta in 1995.
Catering to both new customers and the faithful patrons who have been eating at Hing Ta for years, Truong serves up plates and to-go boxes of the food that represents her family’s heritage. Another way she honors where they came from is the décor of the restaurant.
At first glance, the tank of fish, the soft pink and green color scheme, the fragile paper lanterns over the lights and the paintings and artwork on the walls are simply in place for aesthetic purposes. But like Truong, there’s more than meets the eye.
They represent Truong herself, a flash of color, subtle beauty, a touch of China in the midst of a small Southern city. Each piece of artwork that hangs on the walls has a story to tell from Truong’s past. The ones a relative brought back from a faraway land just for Truong, and the beloved one her mother insisted she bring with her and hang in her business.
The relics from her heritage frame Truong naturally, and she looks picture perfect in her environment. Surrounded by items that remind her of who she is, where she came from and what she stands for, Truong is free to enjoy the rewards of her hard work.
For her, the hard work is the reward. Customers appreciate the quality of their meal when they visit Hing Ta, and in return, they open up and tell Truong about their lives.
“Over time, they share their life stories with you,” Truong says with wonder. “It’s amazing the people you meet through here. I feel like I have a much bigger family here in town.”
No stranger In a strange land
The secret to Truong’s success can be found perhaps in her willingness to take a chance in a new country. But maybe even more likely, it comes from her decision to never take anything for granted, to appreciate what she finds in everyday life.
As a child, Truong observed the ways of the Chinese society, and while she treasured her life and experiences, knew that more opportunities awaited in the United States. Her parents wanted her and her brothers and sisters to be able to pursue their hearts’ desires, so they made sacrifices for their children’s futures.
Since then, Truong has made sure to stop and reflect on what she has accomplished, and why.
“My parents basically gave up everything they had to give their kids a better life,” she says.
Like the secret sauces that bring flavor to the chicken, pork and beef dishes in her restaurant, Truong has developed a personality made up of a unique blend of ancient culture and innovative entrepreneurship. She has found a niche in what was once a strange land full of promise but also full of challenge and uncertainty. Truong has formulated a sort of philosophy of life from her life story.
“You can do anything,” she says. “Children in America are very lucky, and I always tell her (Truong’s daughter, who is 20) that. In China, being a woman is very hard. I could not see myself running a business there.”
The experience of her immigration taught her to enjoy the present, to savor the little things in life. Even things like television and snow, neither of which she had ever seen before coming to America, invoke in her an appreciation for each day.
She has become a popular personality not only in her restaurant, but to those who meet her in the community and through chance. No longer unsure of her place in life, she has found where she belongs.
Her past has encouraged her to explore the unknown, to always experience new cultures at the first chance. Because of what she learned when she took a chance on herself in a new place, she celebrates diversity.
“I love to travel,” she says. “I’ve been to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Europe,” she says.
Of course, she makes sure to try the food.
“I always try the local specialty,” she laughs.
Family ties
That central focus on food carries with it the ties that bind family over two continents, by timeless memories and through the sharing of recipes and table talk.
It’s the certainty of family, her rock, that enabled Truong to make a new start for her and her daughter, in a town she discovered when she was just passing through. Southern hospitality invited her to start her new business in Rocky Mount, and she jumped at the offer. The kind of business she would open just came naturally.
“Food just became a passion.”
As much as Truong loves being in her restaurant, she makes sure to take the time to enjoy the good things in life with her family.
“I love work, “ she says, “and I love family.”
Having them so intertwined is a blessing to Truong, and for years, she has made sure to return to China to visit family who remained there, like her grandmother, who died at 105 years old last year.
When she visits, she is reminded of the rich culture she still carries with her. She still observes those virtues, like respect for the elderly and service to parents, and she knows she will carry them with her as she flourishes in her business and family lives.
She is close to her daughter, who is now an international business major in college. She has instilled in her the same will that she honed growing up, and repeated to her over the years the importance of becoming a leader in her community and in her own life.
She hopes her daughter can find something she loves to do and spend many happy years fulfilling that purpose. She wishes — as mothers often wish — for her own daughter to be as happy as she has been.
Truong looks around Hing Ta and listens to the happy din of workers and diners. Laughter rings out across the room at a table where a family eats and chats. More customers crowd in through the doors. The popping sound of sizzling meat comes from the kitchen, and tantalizing smells waft over from the buffet table.
Truong smiles.
“I love it so much it doesn’t seem like work,” she says. “To do something you love to do, that’s the luckiest thing.”
