Mia Bi from Yunnan, China sets up shop in Longford.
A minority ethnic woman from Mai Ye, Yunnan in rural China, Mia Yong Fen Bi met her Northern Irish husband in a tea shop she owned in Beijing on a Chinese Dragon Boat Day celebration. She moved with him to Longford in 2017 where she learned to speak English by volunteering in a charity shop and by studying at Longford Adult Learning Centre. She now owns a Chinese supermarket called “Home Sweet Home” and tends chickens and grows corn and vegetables on an acre of land which she hopes will be a sensory garden for people with disabilities. She loves the fresh air and the canal in Longford, and would want the Irish to visit Yunnan to see the beautiful mountains, try their exotic food like flame-roasted rice in bamboos, and listen to Chinese indigenous songs.
