Feature in The Advocate

‘Homecoming’ – with a new book

By Jackie Jardine

Special to the Advocate / July 15, 2026

Talk about a full circle moment.

Holly Du came to Scotsburn as a young refugee in 1980, thanks to the sponsorship of the community’s Bethel Presbyterian Church.

Accompanied by two older sisters, Du spoke no English, (although she spoke Mandarin, Cantonese and Vietnamese fluently), knew very little if anything about the rural life here, and left most of her family and everything she was familiar with far away in Hanoi, Vietnam.

She stayed here for almost two years, before heading to Toronto, Ontario for more educational/employment opportunities.

Du can now read, write and understand English and holds a master’        s degree and various certificates after receiving her education at Canadian learning institutions.

She returned to Pictou County in early June to promote her newest book – the 14th she’s written. 

By the Riverside of Kampuchea  –  Memoirs of Sieu Van Tran: Return from the Killing Fields, A Love Story, is the life story that follows a Canadian-Chinese-Cambodian woman who endures sexism, ethnic violence and trauma, and ultimately discovers healing and identity with her husband through faith in Christ. 

Scotsburn resident Joan Graham attended Du’s presentation at the Pictou Library and could not keep the smile from her face.

“Our church sponsored them. We all got together and donated furniture and clothing, it just felt so good to be helping them in whatever way we could,” Graham explains of the sisters’ arrival here.

“All these years later, I feel very proud that we were able to help (Holly) and keep in touch. It is gratifying to see a young refugee who spoke no English and came to Scotsburn… and now here, today, to be promoting her English book.”                                         

Scotsburn’s Eric Wilson had a front row seat to Du’s life in the community since his parents were among members of the Vietnamese Refugee Project Sponsorship Committee under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Paul Brown. During Du’s recent return to the community, he had the privilege of assisting her with her presentations and re-introducing her to the community she once called home.

He says her return was a ‘homecoming.’ 

“Holly and her two sisters and her brother and his family were sponsored and taken in as "Boat People" by the Bethel Presbyterian church in Scotsburn. Durham Presbyterian sponsored a  refuge family as well. She has remained in touch with us over the many eventful years of her life. Now as an accomplished author, her book is packed full of everything you could want in a Hollywood blockbuster. I bet you could write a screenplay for it!”

Before Du left the area on her recent trip, Wilson hosted a party for her at his home. “Many attended and we had many great laughs as we reminisced about all the funny situations that arose back in ‘80-‘82,” he said.

The author’s early life was shaped by political upheaval and displacement. The Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) refugee influx hit many Southeast countries in 1979. Du explains, “I was one of those tens of thousands of people who lost their home due to my ethnic background. I, along with my sisters and brother, fled to Hong Kong in 1979 and we stayed in Kai Tak refugee camp for about a year.”

Yearning for and searching for a home brought her to Canada in April 1980.

Armed with an “Exit Visa” from Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security and a “Certificate of Return” from the Chinese Consulate in Hanoi, she left Vietnam and entered China. For a brief time, she lived in the Returned Overseas Chinese Collective Farm in Guangxi before fleeing in 1979. Her journey led her through the port of Beihai, across treacherous waters, and eventually to Hong Kong, where she stayed in the Kai Tak camp before being sponsored by the local church to come to Scotsburn. Her brother Ping and his wife Che and their daughter Phuong (Victoria) came the next year (1981).

She was in her early 20s when she came here, along with her two older sisters, Mai and Yo. They went to live with Lilla Elliot for the first two months.

“We had zero English. Our first English lesson, we sat at the table for dinner and Lilla, whom we later called Canadian mom, held up a fork and said, ‘fork’, then she held up a spoon and said ‘spoon’, and so on. She was a retired teacher and some people were concerned that she opened her home to strangers and they didn’t know how we would work out. But in Asia we respect the elderly so we were more than happy to follow her orders,” she recalled. 

“Fork, spoon, knife, these were easy words, it took me an entire evening to learn the word ‘Presbyterian’, it was so hard to pronounce such a long long long word! Chinese and Vietnamese words are monosyllable.”

She laughs as she explained the experience. She adds, “Only after I attended Seneca College (Toronto), then I realized that what I learned from Lilla was too formal, too polite for daily conversation!”

 After a few months, the Du sisters were attending ESL (Engliash as a Second Language) class in Pictou. One evening, Eric’s father, Steve, visited them, and he spent entire evening explaining the verb has, have, had, had been. The next day, when they got from school, they found a plastic bag hanging on the door of their home, and in it they found a frozen chicken and a note that read: One chicken has two legs, two chickens have four legs. Happy eating!”

“I immediately recognized that was Steve’s hand writing, and that was how I learned English grammar!” she laughs again.

“I was here less than two years but I made lifelong friends in Scotsburn, particularly Eric’s mother, Kay, who kept in contact with us by writing and calling from time to time. We kept in touch for all those years.”

Du currently lives in Toronto. She worked to earn a master of theological studies, a certificate in occupational health & safety instructor, a certificate in counseling, and a certificate in drafting. She had worked in mental health/social work for many years and says the ability to listen to people’s story for writing was a useful skill for her work, on the other hand, her mental health knowledge also helped in interviewing the subjects for her books, including the latest one.

The story of Sieu Van Tran is not written in chronological order as most biographies did.

“Their story is very touching, yet was challenging to present. I did not how to write their story, and I pray that God gave me the wisdom to write. Later, the story came to me like a movie and the book flows that way in its writing.” Du explains.

Writing in Chinese since the age of 14, Du has published 14 non-fiction books across Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan, specializing in biographies that illuminate the strength of the human spirit. By the Riverside of Kampuchea is her first English work.

Wilson praises the story.

“People ought to hear the real story of Sieu Van and her family helplessly caught in the middle of clashing world ideologies and paying a huge price but winning through love in the end,” he said.

For information on how to get a copy of the book, email Holly Du at duholly@gmail.com ;

or find it on Amazon,

paperback, https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0FB3XJ4B6;

e-book https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0F9LRMCV5.

It is also available in the Pictou, New Glasgow and Antigonish libraries.