
Second-generation Canadians weigh the cost of carrying on the family business – and their parents’ legacy
In the corner of her family’s downtown Toronto restaurant, Jeanette Liu’s young son eats a plate of chili chicken as customers gather around tables and servers bustle across the floor.
Her son spending the summer at Yueh Tung is “full circle” for Liu, whose own childhood memories are flooded with the sound of clattering dishes and the smell of her parents’ cooking in that very space for decades.
She also remembers her parents’ gruelling 15-hour days as they proudly served customers who lined up out the door, chasing what she describes as their “Canadian dream” after they moved to Toronto from India in the early 1980s.
“My dad worked seven days a week. He only took one day off during Christmas Day, only for the morning, and then he would go right back into work by himself to prep for the next day,” Liu recalled.