Born as Chan Wai Chang (陳惠珍) in Soochow, China, in 1925 to acrobat parents, Chan was brought to Kuala Lumpur in 1931, at the age of six, by her adoptive mother.
Still only 12 years old, she started working in a button-making shop, earning six gantangs of rice and one loaf of cornbread a month plus 12 cents per thousand buttons.