Having gone from an unseasoned pastry apprentice to owning a chain of bakeries in New Taipei City (新北市), Lin Liang-hung (林亮宏) gives away hundreds of loaves of freshly baked bread each day to elderly people living in solitude, to express his gratitude for the long-time support of local residents.
“The giveaway project started a decade ago when then-Sanchong (三重) mayor Lee Chien-lung (李乾龍) called on all sectors of society to lend a hand to elderly people living in solitude, a proposal I completely agreed with,” Lin said.
Born into an underprivileged family with 11 siblings, Lin grew up in straitened circumstances because his father, a miner in Pingsi (平溪), made only a meager salary and was the sole breadwinner of the household.
Photo: Tsai Pai-ling, Taipei Times
Lin dreamed of becoming a top-notch pastry chef at a young age, after seeing the booming business of a traditional bakery in the region.
After graduating from junior- high school, Lin worked as an apprentice in a Chinese herbal medicine store until the age of 16, when he began to accumulate bakery experience.
Having served an apprenticeship in a biscuit shop for two years, Lin resolved to open a store of his own on Fuhua Street in Sanchong, a location introduced by his relatives in Pingsi.
In spite of his lofty ambitions, Lin’s store failed to make a profit at the beginning, he said, adding that he “had to make fried dough sticks at night and work part-time at a factory during the day to eke out a living.”
Business at Lin’s bakery only started to pick up after he relocated to a more prosperous area on Bihua Street in the same district, while dramatic increases in the prices of raw materials in the 1960s ratcheted up his operating costs and nearly drove his bakery out of business.
Intent on realizing his childhood dream, Lin later took his bakery to the pastry battlefield on Chongxin Road in Sanchong, where competition between established, celebrated bakeries was fierce.
Despite enormous challenges, Lin prospered by launching a series of diverse products — such as Western-style pastries and traditional engagement cakes — to differentiate himself from competitors in the saturated market.
Lin now owns six bakeries in New Taipei City.
“I could not have accomplished what I have accomplished today without people’s support, which is why I have spared no effort to repay society when I can,” Lin said.
He added that he hoped his charity work would inspire others to perform good deeds.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching