Cho-Cho Lin

Florence Lim (21 January 1905 – 16 February 1979), better known as Lim Cho-cho, was a Chinese Canadian actress in the cinema of the Republic of China and British Hong Kong from 1925 to 1954. She was the second wife of filmmaker Lai Man-Wai and the mother of actors Lai Hang and Lai Suen. Gigi Lai is her granddaughter.

Early life Florence Lim was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, where her grandfather, an immigrant from Xinhui (now part of Jiangmen), Guangdong, China, owned a rice shop. Her father died when she was 3. She attended Chinese Public School in Victoria When she was 9, her widowed mother went to Hong Kong to receive medical treatment, and at age 12 Lim joined her in Hong Kong, having completed primary school. In Hong Kong she enrolled in Ying Wa Girls' School. One of her classmates named Lai Hang-kau (who would later become known as Lai Cheuk-cheuk) introduced her to her uncle Lai Man-Wai. Even though he was 12 years her senior and already married, Lim married him as his second wife in 1920, when she was 15.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), the Lais first returned to Hong Kong when Japan invaded Shanghai in 1937. In Hong Kong Lim continued to act in films, many patriotic and anti-Japanese in nature. Following Japan's invasion of Hong Kong in 1941, the family escaped to mainland China, first to Chikan, Kaiping, Guangdong, where at one point Lim had to peddle old clothes on the street to make ends meet. When Japanese soldiers overran Kaiping in 1943, they fled again, this time to Guilin, Guangxi, where they ran a photographic studio. After the war ended, the family returned to Hong Kong, and Lim acted again for another 8 years. She retired after her husband's 1953 death to raise their 9 children. She visited mainland China in the 1970s before her death in Hong Kong in 1979.

Lim Cho-cho on the cover of The Young Companion, September 1926.

Filmography

In popular culture In the 1991 film Center Stage, Lim Cho-cho is portrayed by Cecilia Yip, who spoke Cantonese, Mandarin and English in her role.