In the photo, 17 years old Eileen (1959), has just arrived from China and is smiling outside Lean Sun Low café in Chinatown, in which her father had a share. She would eventually make her home and raise her family above the restaurant. Also pictured to the left are Chinese Moon Cakes that she and her husband famously was the first to bake in Australia in 1960, more on that below.

 

But back in China, she was once a young girl wishing for just one thing—to have her family together again. That wish came true in 1958, when she was finally reunited with her father and older brother in Sydney.

 

The first time they all sat around the table in Sydney, her father, LEE Tung Hoi, laid down the rules. “Don’t talk so loudly. Don’t make a fuss. Learn to be respectful, like Australians,” he told them. He helped guide his children through life in a new country—right down to teaching them how to eat hamburgers, just like everyone else.
 

Meeting Alen marked the next chapter of Eileen’s life. They began working in their own restaurant in Rockdale, called "Rockdale Chinese Restaurant" (樂都餐厅). It was in 1961 when Eileen and Alen Lai began baking their own mooncakes out of their Rockdale Restaurant kitchen, marking their claim as the first business to do so in Australia. Mooncakes are traditional Chinese pastries commonly filled with lotus seed paste or sweet red bean paste and can be seen on the left of Eileen’s portrait. It is a long held tradition to share them between family and friends in the annual celebration of the moon harvest season. 

Prior to the 60s, the Chinese communities of Australia celebrated mid-Autumn festivities with mooncakes imported from Hong Kong. Like many of the goods at the time, the pastries would require three to four weeks of travel time via sea before reaching Sydney. This delay resulted in a lack of freshness, and high levels of preservatives were often included to make up for it. Popular classics with the salted duck egg centres could not be brought back to Australia due to its short shelf life. 

“My job was to make the fillings. We had various types of fillings, but red bean paste was the most difficult! In a large wok almost the size of a lazy-susan, I’d rigorously mix the thick sugary paste with a large wooden spatula to ensure that it wouldn’t stick on the bottom. It was quite dangerous and exhausting work in high temperatures. If there was trapped moisture in the mix, the steam would create pockets of air that would dangerously pop unexpectedly.”  - Eileen Lai

Eileen and Alen’s freshly made pastries were an instant success and became national reaching Chinese communities all over Australia. Before long, the couple found their way back to Chinatown, taking over Lean Sun Low and later expanding into The Eastern next door. Together, they became one of Chinatown’s most enterprising couples.

For Eileen, Sydney’s Chinatown gave her more than a place to live. It gave her a sense of wholeness. Even the long hours felt light, because she was home—working alongside her family.