A Little More About Me

Before Bread

Before bread became my work, I thought I would become a chef.

When I was twelve, I was already drawn to that world. I followed Hong Kong chef dramas, and in school, I once wrote an essay called “My Dream”, about wanting to become a chef. That essay won a prize.

At that age, I did not fully understand what the work would demand. But something about kitchens, chefs, and the life behind food had already entered me.

As I grew older, I began paying attention more seriously. If I came across an interview with a chef in the newspaper, I would cut it out and keep it. If a magazine featured someone I admired, I would save the pages. I kept folders of these things — part scrapbook, part private archive.

Back then, you held on to what you found.

I liked looking at the chefs, their jackets, their words, and the stories of how they had begun. Even without realising it, that world already felt close to me.

It began there — not with bread, but with admiration, curiosity, and a quiet certainty that I wanted to enter this line of work.

The Conversation with My Father

When my father fell seriously ill, that dream stopped being something I could keep only to myself.

I told him I wanted to leave school and pursue this path properly. I still remember the weight of that conversation. He did not agree easily. He spoke about education, about knowledge, and about not making decisions lightly. But he also saw that this was not something new. I had been carrying it for years.

What stayed with me was not the feeling of being allowed. It was the seriousness of it.

Once I had said it aloud, it became something I had to answer for.

The Bakery Near Home

Not long after, my mother told me that a bakery near our home was looking for an apprentice.

It was a place we already knew. My family used to buy bread there on weekends. By then, I had already left school and was staying at home, waiting — with the strange feeling of having chosen something, but not yet entered it.

I went for the interview, but was sent back because I had not yet reached the legal working age.

So I waited again.

About a month later, they called me.

Even now, that detail stays with me. The beginning was not smooth. It started with wanting something, being told to wait, and then finally being called in.

That was how bread entered my life.

Along the Way

Around that same period, I watched The Gâteau Affairs (情迷黑森林).

It did not begin the dream, but it deepened it. It made the work feel beautiful, exacting, and meaningful in a way I could not yet fully explain.

At that age, that was enough.

The First Time I Wanted to Leave

The first day was much harder than I had imagined.

I stood the whole day. The pace was fast, and I was slow. If I could not keep up, someone would say so. The hours stretched from morning into late at night. The company gave only one uniform, so every evening I had to wash it myself and prepare it again for the next day.

Very quickly, I felt I could not do it.

In less than a week, I stopped going.

Then my mother said something simple. She said I should not become someone who gives up halfway.

It was not a long conversation. But it stayed.

Perhaps I did not want to become someone who had left school halfway, and then left work halfway as well.

So I went back.

Looking at it now, I think one of the earliest things this work taught me was not skill.

It was simply staying.

The First Lessons

In the years that followed, different places shaped me in different ways.

In a Japanese-style bakery, I learned that discipline is part of craft. Arriving early. Preparing yourself properly. Treating cleanliness as part of the work. Watching waste. Respecting ingredients. The manager would even look into the rubbish bin and teach us from what had been thrown away.

At the time, I did not fully understand it. But those lessons stayed.

I also remember struggling with bread that was not coming out right. My sandwich loaves would develop large holes. The manager and Japanese chefs explained how much temperature affected everything. They gave me a thermometer and told me to check room temperature, water temperature, and dough temperature every day.

That small act changed something.

It made me realise that bread is not only hard work. It is something to observe.

From around then, I began to feel a real interest in it.

And somewhere along the way, I started buying baking books on my own.

Learning Through Difficulty

Later, in a factory producing croissant and pastry items, I learned endurance.

The work was repetitive, physical, and relentless in a different way. Much of what I thought I knew no longer felt useful. It was another kind of beginning.

I remember the pressure, and I remember one sentence:

If there is something here to learn, do not leave empty-handed.

I carried that with me.

In a hotel kitchen, I saw a wider world. In smaller bakeries, I learned responsibility from another angle — stock, suppliers, production, and the direct relationship between what you make and the person in front of you.

Over time, I began to understand that a bakery is not held together by product alone.

It is held together by timing, control, systems, and care.

The Lessons That Took Time

Some lessons arrived later.

I once worked under a pastry chef who opened my eyes to taste in a way I had not known before. He brought me to try ingredients and foods I had never experienced, and that expanded something in me.

But he was also demanding.

One night, during my final week there, he asked me at around two in the morning to prepare a complicated cake for the next day. I was upset. It felt unreasonable. There were ingredients I had to go out and find myself, and he stood beside me the entire time, watching and correcting.

When it was finally done, he picked up the cake and said,

“Happy birthday.”

I still remember that moment.

It made me realise that what we make every day may begin to feel ordinary to us, but to someone else it may hold meaning.

Since then, I have tried not to forget that.

Beginning Again

There were also places I had begun to care about that changed too quickly.

Some endings came suddenly. Some things I thought I was building did not continue.

At the time, I did not know how to make sense of it. I only knew I had to move again, adjust again, begin again.

Looking back now, I think that pattern shaped me quietly.

It taught me that this life is not only about progress.

Sometimes, it is also about returning to the work — before disappointment turns into something heavier.

What Has Stayed

As the years passed, the work grew.

It moved into product development, training, costing, purchasing, and operations. But even as the role became larger, the centre of it remained small.

I still come back to the same questions.

How can this be better?
What did I miss?
What is the dough telling me today?

Bread looks simple, but it is never fixed. The same ingredients and the same method can still produce a different result each day. Temperature shifts. Fermentation moves. Timing changes.

There is always something just outside certainty.

Perhaps that is why I have stayed.

Bread does not let you become complacent. It asks you to pay attention again.

For Now

If this is a little more about me, perhaps this is the simplest way I can put it.

I began as a boy who kept newspaper cuttings of chefs he admired.

I became a young apprentice who wanted to leave almost immediately.

I was shaped by strict kitchens, long days, one washed uniform at night, generous mentors, difficult corrections, unexpected endings, and the quiet habit of returning to the work.

And even now, I am still learning —
to make something a little better than yesterday,
and to understand it a little more today.