Early Life
Born Yam Lee Chor (任麗初), Yam had been performing with a Cantonese opera troupe since she was young. When Yam was 14, her aunt (小叫天), another Cantonese opera actress, began Yam's formal training. Later, Yam furthered her musical studies with Wong Lui Hap (黃侶俠), who was known for being the female version of Ma Sze Tsang. In 1939, Yam joined an all-female opera troupe (群芳艷影), but she had to flee to Macau when Hong Kong fell to the Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War. She and a number of other Cantonese opera singers, including Bak Sheut Sin, formed a new opera troupe called New Voice Opera Troupe (新聲劇團).
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)