Mai Nguyen reflects on the Vietnamese Canadian experience and growing up in her family's Halifax nail salon
The Canadian writer talks about what inspired her to write her debut novel, Sunshine Nails
Growing up, Mai Nguyen spent a lot of time in her family's nail salon business in Halifax. In writing her first novel, Sunshine Nails, she discovered a fascinating history behind the nail industry as it related to her family, her community and their contemporary struggles.
Mai Nguyen was raised in Halifax and currently lives in Toronto. She has written for publications such as Wired, The Washington Post and The Toronto Star as a journalist and copywriter. Sunshine Nails is her first novel.
Sunshine Nails, is a humorous and heartfelt novel about a Vietnamese Canadian family who are trying to keep their family business, a nail salon called Sunshine Nails, open. Family relationships are put to the test as they work together to save their nail salon.
The Next Chapter's Ali Hassan spoke with Nguyen about her family's immigrant experiences and working in the nail industry.
My first question to you comes from the last page of the book at the end of your acknowledgements, you say "there would be no Sunshine Nails without my parents." Tell me how are they responsible for your book?
It's true, I wouldn't have written this book without my parents. Since I was eight, my parents have run a nail salon in Halifax for a very long time. It was where I hung out after school; I did my homework there, I brought my friends there to hang out and when I got older they hired me to do manicures and pedicures and it was where I spent a lot of my childhood.
As I got older, I realized that my parents weren't the only ones that operated a nail salon. There were so many other Vietnamese immigrants in Halifax that also opened up nail salons. It was a refuge for them, it was their financial salvation and I learned that thousands of Vietnamese immigrants in Canada and the US opened up nail salons all over. It was their way to build a livelihood and seeing my parents thrive just from operating a nail salon inspired me to write a book showing the behind the scenes of what goes on there.
Seeing my parents thrive just from operating a nail salon inspired me to write a book showing the behind the scenes of what goes on there.- Mai Nguyen
More than 100,000 Vietnamese people immigrated to Canada in the years following the Vietnam War, people like Debbie and Phil Tran. What did you want to say about their experiences fleeing their homes to make a new life here in Canada?
There's a lot of books out there centred around characters in the Vietnam War and I wanted to continue that story.
I wanted to show that there's still a story to be told once they landed in North America. The story doesn't end because they fled the war and they found a home here. There's still a struggle, still issues that they have to go through. Yes, Debbie and Phil aren't fighting war and famine anymore and their struggles are a little bit more contemporary, but I think a lot of immigrants still relate to that.
A lot of stress happening, things that could break somebody and yet somehow in your writing you never feel the heaviness. It has a real light hearted touch. How do you achieve that?
I grew up in a family that always laughed. We always look for the joy in things despite how dark it could be. I think that might be an element of my parents coming from a war-torn country. They never looked back, they always looked forward. They always saw the light in the dark or the lotus in the mud.
They were always very optimistic, sometimes unnervingly so, but I think that's how my writing style emerged. I wanted to showcase the stress of the Tran family but I also want to showcase their humour and how they see the lightheartedness in things.
Sometimes it's hard to always read characters struggling so it's nice to see them laugh and take a break — I wanted to have a little bit of a balance there.
The story doesn't end because they fled the war and they found a home here. There's still a struggle, still issues that they have to go through.- Mai Nguyen
This story takes place in 2016 in a real Toronto West End neighbourhood called the Junction. It is gentrifying quickly, both in your book and in real life. Why did you decide to make gentrification an important theme in your book?
The Trans are struggling to keep their business alive because a chain nail salon has moved down the street. They're taking all their customers and there's not as many customers coming into their salon. I wanted to spend the majority of the book where the Trans blamed that chain nail salon for all the troubles that they're facing.
But if you really see the bigger picture, it really isn't that chain nail salon that is the problem, it is the changes that are happening to the neighbourhood. That increase in rent, the skyscrapers moving in, the zoning bylaws that allow for big businesses to move in and for 16-story towers to move in, jack up the rent and displace a lot of low to middle income families.
If you really see the bigger picture, it really isn't that chain nail salon that is the problem, it is the changes that are happening to the neighbourhood.- Mai Nguyen
I think it's something that a lot of small business owners in Toronto and any city in Canada are struggling with.
You see a lot of mom and pop shops open up to a lot of excitement and then they slowly fizzle out, quietly close down and then you never hear of them again.
That's just a story that we're so used to and familiar with, unfortunately.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
