Chue and Tou Lee: The Legacy of Home

[dogs barking] [birds chirping] - [Tou] We can't just be farmers.

We have to be people that are willing to educate.

People that wanted to go out of the norm a little bit and make sure that the community is benefiting.

- [Chue] When you build that relationship between you and your customer, you bring your produce to them, and they come back and thank you for what you do.

You know, it's that feeling that you bring something good to the society.

That's what made me wanna grow more.

- My name is Chue Lee - And my name is Tou Lee.

- [Chue] Our home is Marion, North Carolina.

- [Tou] We are the owners.

Officially, she is the owner, I'm the worker, of Lee's One Fortune Farm.

We grow, mainly, specialty Asian fruits and vegetables.

And heirloom rice.

Four varieties of it brought over from the mountains of Laos.

We produce it here with our extended family network in the western North Carolina area.

[upbeat music] You have the onion skate today?

Yep, don't forget the onion skate.

Good morning.

- [Customer] Good morning, how are you?

- This is spinach, the Japanese spinach.

Cilantro.

All these are Asian varieties, by the way.

First time you guys are with us, right?

- [Customer 2] Yeah.

- [Customer 3] Yes.

- Oh, my, well, welcome.

- [Rongrong] Chue Lee is really outgoing.

When people come by and don't know what something is he'll say, "Oh, that's such and such."

And they'll say, "How do I cook this?"

And he's got all kinds of suggestions.

- He like to talk, I just like to listen.

- Well, it's true.

Bok choy will work good.

You, Troy, will have a better flavor.

You gotta go one to one.

- One to one?

- Yeah.

- [Customer 4] Chives?

- Garlic chives.

Chop it fine, put in your fried eggs.

It actually builds a very nice flavor to it, yeah.

In a combination of never being able to meet a stranger, and don't know how to shut up, and have a little bit of business training background.

You can see where that can go.

Chue?

Harry wants a whole basket.

I remember the first three years that we started, if we had one person in the stall with us, it was great.

Nowadays, we'll have 25, 30 people standing in line just waiting to get into our stall.

- [Rongrong] They have a very loyal fan base, including some local restaurants who, sometimes, will swoop in and grab everything.

- I got Buckingham, you like it?

- I do, but I really love these Virginia beauties.

- Okay, good.

- Can I buy a whole case of these?

- That's yours, my man.

- Awesome, that is wonderful.

I believe it was like 2017, or 2018 maybe, when we first started really buying from them.

And we've been buying every week since then.

We basically have their rice on the menu all year long.

We buy hundreds of pounds and put it in the freezer, and use it the whole year.

- Unfortunately, no, we don't have rice.

We sold out in December.

- Their rice is amazing.

It's just got so much flavor.

And it just brings a dynamic thing to any menu item that I just can't get anywhere else.

And that's the thing, that they do all of this hard work growing these vegetables, and I just try and get it on the plate.

[chainsaw revving] - [Tou] Once we got the property, it looked like this, overgrown with the saw briars, blackberries, the Sycamore, you name it.

And my wife and I cleared everything here to get the field to look like it is right now.

We had a little small, what they call a garden size tractor.

I cut quite a bit here with a chainsaw.

An old traditional tool to cut the saw briars.

And it takes a lot of work.

But I kind of consider us lucky, 'cause the Hmong families that first started growing rice in North Carolina 40 some years ago, this is all they had, hoe and pickax.

No tractor at all.

So, it was tough.

I remember how it was in Laos growing things.

But, in Laos, if you didn't know how to utilize the land, you wasn't going to eat.

So, all of us as kids, as soon as we were able to hold a tool in your hand, were ushered out into the fields to help.

The thing with the Hmong people is, you know, you do have that reminiscence of how life used to be in the old world that you came from.

The majority of the older families that came here, they look at these mountains, and that's what it was like in the old homeland that the Hmong community lived.

We're considered the mountain people of Laos.

And so, when the Hmong people came here, it feels like home.

- [Chue] I was born in Laos.

Through the refugee camp, my uncle sponsored us and we arrived in America in 1984.

I was about 10 years old.

- [Tou] My father worked with the United States Military and the war in Laos that was supportive of the Vietnam War.

He flew with the United States pilot on scouting missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The place that I was born in was, actually, a secret covert operations military base built by the United States.

And that city, it's called Long Cheng.

That's the focal point of where we feel like we lost everything.

My father was shot.

Luckily, the pilot was able to bring him back into the airfield.

What my grandmother told me was, when she heard that his plane was hit, she left everything that she was doing, she ran to the airfield, and, she- She was able to hear a final word.

It was something that she told me many times, of what he said, and the only words that he utter was, "It is all gone."

I was three months old and it wasn't long after when the country start going through turmoil before the fall of the Vietnam War.

Unfortunately, my brother and sister both died during the trek in the jungle.

And I was the sole survivor for my entire family.

My uncle, he got onto the aircraft to escape outta Laos.

And then, when we sent word to the United States Embassy that we have made it to Thailand, he immediately sponsored my grandmother and I, and that's how we was able to be brought into this little town, called Marion, North Carolina.

This is, I will say, progress 2.1.

Once all this is done.

But right behind there, on that berm, the other way, that, once converted, will add another four acres.

- [Interviewer] You have some big plans for this place, don't you?

- Yes, I do.

As a matter of fact.

She wants me to retire and do this permanently.

I don't mind that.

That'll work.

[somber music] In a way, I want to go beyond the farmer.

I want to go to the educational side and create a little mini cultural teaching center where we can teach people the variety of greens that we grow.

How they can grow themselves.

I want to teach people that, yes, you can grow this variety of rice, here in the mountains of western North Carolina.

I wanted to see something like that happen, here, in this area, because this area, to be honest, has given my family a lot.

And here is something that we can give back.

[uplifting music]