ProfilePhotographer Vivien Liu on her Instagram fame, finishing work at 4am and the Harvard programme where ‘people broke down’
- Vivien Liu tells Kate Whitehead about her heavy workload studying at Harvard, ‘tedious’ corporate jobs and finding fame and fortune on Instagram
Cold in Canada In the early 1980s, there was a lot of uncertainty in Hong Kong, so my parents went to Canada and applied for citizenship. They were living in Vancouver when I was born, in 1983, and a few months later they returned to Hong Kong. My dad’s work with a Canadian bank took us back to Canada four years later, this time to Toronto, and growing up there I developed a Western mentality.
We moved back to Hong Kong when I was seven. My Chinese proficiency skills weren’t up to par, so I went to Hong Kong International School. In Toronto, there was a lot of space, and I missed that, and my friends, but as I got older, I started to appreciate the excitement Hong Kong has to offer and the huge variety of things to do.
I became obsessed with things from Japan – the snacks, toys, books and stationery. When I went back to Canada, to go to boarding school, I absolutely hated it and found life there slow, boring and cold.
Working for the man When I graduated, in 2006, I wanted to prove myself and applied to Ivy League schools. I was accepted by them all and chose to go to the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The four-year programme was tough and super competitive. It was a conglomeration of the best people from all over the world. The professors could be tough, it could be brutal, and people broke down. I was so sleep deprived, I just wanted to power through, just to get to the end of it.