And so I started to dig in deeper into the culture. But I was just astounded by the modernity of it all, the energy, how dynamic the city was - just kind of the juxtaposition of the ancient, the ancient city, you know, buildings that have been around for 800, 900 years, you know, against the backdrop of skyscrapers.Īnd I realized, when I was there, just how disconnected I'd become from my heritage, and from, in many ways from myself. I didn't know what to expect when I went there, because I was so young when I left China. And I just fell in love with the energy of the city. ![]() And that was around 2008, so right around the time of the Olympics. Jing: Yeah, so I found myself in Beijing, in college on an exchange semester. So it was, yeah, it was definitely my first love, which is what brought me back to China.Īlicia: I've read that you were working in brand management in business development, what made you move toward food, and especially toward opening that fast-casual restaurant Baoism, in Shanghai? So the through line was definitely, you know, kind of, yeah, I would say like homestyle Sichuan food that my mom would make at home, and we didn't really eat out that much. So I ate, I would say, you know, it was definitely a mix of different things, but a lot of home cooking. And, yeah, so it was kind of an interesting upbringing, you know, being put into a new country with a new culture and a new language pretty much every year and needing to code switch. I lived there for probably the longest out of anywhere else. Germany, England, Austria, France, Italy, and then Canada. So I ended up growing up all over the world, really. But my father was a nuclear physicist and a professor. So I was born in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province and food capital of China. ![]() ![]() Thanks so much for coming on.Īlicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?
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