In pictures: My life growing up in a Chinese takeaway

Angela worked in her parents' takeaway from when she was eight until 2018

"You have to put the shop before yourself, because that's the very thing that puts a roof over your head and puts food on the table."

In her new book, Takeaway: Stories From Behind the Counter, 31-year-old Angela Hui recounts a special childhood, living above Lucky Star Chinese takeaway in the south Wales valleys.

Her parents left Hong Kong in 1985 to search for a better quality of life and opened the takeaway in 1988 in Beddau, Rhondda Cynon Taf.

She reflects fondly on living in Wales, despite some of the challenges she faced.

Angela would work in the takeaway alongside her brothers, with her mum and dad seven days a week

"The community is what makes Wales so great. You pass someone and they will always stop by for a chat. Everyone is super friendly.

"Obviously though, there are the 1% of people who were quite racist, they would vandalise our shop, we had broken windows, people breaking our shutters and our bins set on fire.

"My parents took it as part and parcel, this is just a part of the business, just how it is.

"I found it really difficult being one of the only few Chinese families in south Wales, everyone in my school was pretty much white apart from one or two other students.

"It's quite hard being the minority. People always pick on you, bully you. But you just kind of make do with what it is."

Angela said she found growing up in south Wales very difficulty as a minority

Angela recalled how racist prank calls were a regular occurrence when working at the takeaway.

"Every day we'd get a prank caller, there's always one, receiving racist prank callers was just bloody annoying."

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Since sharing her experiences, other Chinese families who run takeaways have said they have been in similar situations.

"Writing it and seeing it again: it makes you realise it's not OK. It brings up all the emotions again."

Angela says her dad would always be seen in the kitchen with a wok in hand

Angela, the youngest of three siblings, spoke of the blurred life of living above a takeaway.

"You would look in the fridge and there would be lots of bamboo shoots and shredded crispy chicken, and then next to it were our family's Frubes.

"I was eight years old when I started. As soon as I was old enough to stand behind the counter, I was there.

"I had a little blue folding stool where I would step on and then give stuff to customers. I think customers were like 'why is there an eight-year-old girl serving me?'

"When I was working front of house, I'd be doing homework and coursework between calls."

Angela - pictured in 2001 - would help in the takeaway in between her school work

The family's takeaway opened from 17:30 until 23:00, seven days a week. All other takeaways in the area closed on a Tuesday, so her parents saw an opportunity to capitalise.

"If there was a lull in business, we were allowed to go upstairs and play video games, and if it was busy my parents would just call us down every night.

"We would close at about 11, then my parents would deep clean, mop everything and they probably didn't finish until one or two in the morning. Then they would do it all again at 6am."

As well as working shifts in the takeaway, throughout her childhood Angela was also a translator for her parents. They did not speak English and she had to translate everything for them into Cantonese.

"Me and my brothers had to translate everything and we still do now. Anything they didn't really get, I had to read bills, I had to talk to accountants for them.

"They will still send us a very blurry picture of a letter and be like 'what does this say'?"

Angela's parents sold the shop in 2018 to another young Chinese family, after running the takeaway for 30 years.

She said she "finds it weird" seeing a different name and branding on the shop, but she is glad that it is still a takeaway.

Angela's parents on their last day of service in August 2018