Tiffy Iris aka Tiffany Iris Kwong
Tiffy Iris's legal name is Tiffany Iris Kwong. She is a Chinese Canadian dreamer. Sometimes she lives in her own imaginary world. She is best known for her love of selfies and pictures of food on her Instagram page tiffyiris.
Tiffany is standing next to her Yorkdale poster
Tiffany Iris Kwong was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She spent her early years growing up in Pickering, middle childhood years in Markham, and her pre-teen to early adulthood years in Richmond Hill. She understood some Cantonese Chinese learnt from her grandparents, but truly started to learn and put it in use in high school with classmates and friends. She became conversational in Cantonese Chinese by the time she finished high school. She attended Bayview Secondary, where she participated in DECA (a business club) and went on to compete nationally.
Tiffany loves acting and being in a role of someone else. She actually loves lots of things! She never had a chance to learn gymnastics as a child so she signed up for classes in her adult years. Although she will never be a gymnast or anything remotely close she has a passion for life and just wants to try everything. She is someone that believes in life you need to try everything (well almost everything). She once decided to jump off a cliff into the lake, but once she got to the tip of the cliff she got scared and just climbed down. Well at least she had the chance to see if she really wanted to do it. She was afraid she wouldn't jump out far enough and hit a rock. Still she had no regrets. She enjoys kayaking, canoeing, and any sports where there is a minimal chance of getting hit in the face by something or getting injured in anyway.
Throughout Tiffany’s childhood and early adulthood life, she suffered from depression resulting from the physical and verbal abuse she faced from her parents. So shortly after she landed her first job after graduation, she moved out of her family home.
Tiffany’s family had a very bad opinion of the entertainment industry. They viewed the whole thing as a scam for naive people that had to sleep their way up, whether it was a radio station or TV station whether you worked there as a secretary or a broadcaster it didn’t matter it was the same opinion. It was Tiffany’s dream to work in the entertainment industry, so against her parents’ wishes she went on doing it anyway. Some of her experiences include:
One of Tiffany's first modelling gigs
Growing up in Canada, Tiffany had limited knowledge of the outside world including China. Afterall, there is only so much you can read and understand from books, sometimes you just need to experience it. Her curiosity brought her to Beijing, the capital of China, the most expensive city to live in in Northern China, and classified as a 1st tier city. Before she went to China in 2012, she spent 6 weeks exploring Thailand and volunteering as an English teacher in the villages. When Tiffany first arrived in China, she couldn’t communicate at all with any of the locals, but upon leaving China she was able to communicate with all the locals and developed the ability to read at a school grade 1 level. She loved China and wanted to stay, unfortunately the air pollution in Beijing was at a hazardous level and she developed lung infection after a year, thus feeling the need to leave. Tiffany had a very memorable journey in China and very much wanted to return. So she packed her bags and left again, only this time to the old capital of China Nanjing, located in Southern China, classified as a 2nd tier city tier city in 2018 and now a new 1st tier city in 2019. During her first three months in Nanjing, Tiffany felt culture shock. Not everyone spoke Mandarin Chinese (the official language of China), the Chinese accent was different so she found it difficult to understand, almost no one she came by except at her workplace spoke English, very few foreigners in comparison to Beijing, and more importantly the toilet situation. In Beijing, most places would have what they call “western toilets” or a standard toilet in our case where you can sit down. In Nanjing, most places only have “squatter toilets” where you can’t sit down, you can only hover over a hole or toilet dug into the ground. After the three months, she learned where should find the “western toilets” and learned to adapt into the environment where she then started to have any enjoyable time.
Tiffany now attends Centennial College studying Interactive Media Management hoping it would lead her into a career allowing her to release her creative outlet.
During her high school years, she worked as a Sales at Esprit. During her university years, she interned at Epilepsy York Region as a Resource Coordinator. Shortly after graduation, she landed a position as a Property Tax Consultant. She then decided to work in Beijing, China as a teacher to adults mostly consisting of businesspeople. Through this experience she learned the hardships of being in a foreign country especially with the inability to speak or read the language. (In Mainland China, the official language is Mandarin Chinese. Cantonese Chinese is only the official language for Hong Kong and Macao.) Although, it wasn’t easy it was the best experience she has ever experienced that she still treasures till today. After returning to Canada, she got a Real Estate License and mostly dealt with friends and referrals. Shortly after, she also started working at Sentry Investments, but due to the same routine work she felt like she really wasn’t learning anything and grew disappointed in life. From the disappointment, she returned to China to further her language skills and learn about the culture of Southern China, while working as an English teacher to kids age 3 to 11.
There were many things in Tiffany's life that she appreciated, but the one thing that she appreciated the most was her maternal grandmother. The grandmother's name was Sarah. She passed away from lung cancer in 2017. Although, Tiffany didn't have the best childhood Sarah would always try to be there if she was ever needed. Tiffany will always treasure every moment they shared together. Sarah was warm, kind, and always tried to give the best to her family. Although she is not longer here, she will always live in the hearts of her loved ones.