Walking down the bustling streets of Main Street, there is always something that meets the eye, whether it be the blinking lights of clothing stores or the aromatic fumes of the small Asian cafes. One of the hard to miss sights is the line extending from the Fay Da Bakery almost every morning.
The Fay Da Bakery is a Chinese bakery that offers an assortment of cakes, cookies, and breads as well as hot and cold beverages. If the food is as excellent as the service, there’s no surprise why the bakery already has seven other locations after being open for almost twenty years. Jiao Liang is one of the 40-year- old bakers that works at this local hotspot.
Jiao emits a motherly aura that hits you in the face as soon as you walk through the café doors. She has the brightest smiles and politely asks what she can help you with. She tends to your every request until you leave the door, which is when she waves excitedly by the exit and yells, “Please come again!”
When Jiao first came to America, she was brought here by her parents during her teenage years. Being an only child, she had a lot of pressure on her shoulders to make her family proud.
“My parents came to the America so that I could receive a better education, have a better life, and support them in their old age. They wanted me to become a doctor, but all I wanted to do was bake.”
Jiao’s mother was a housewife in China and whenever Jiao didn’t go to school, she would always stand next to her mom in the kitchen and learn how to make different Chinese pastries. Her love for baking blossomed when she started living in Flushing and saw all the different bakeries that were already established here.
Despite her parents’ big dreams of her becoming a doctor, she continued pursuing her wish of working in a bakery. In the beginning, she ran into financial troubles since her parents refused to fund her for following a passion that “would only lead to a dead end.” Once she had finished college, she started working as a dishwasher at a local restaurant.
Although at first Jiao’s prospects weren’t so high, she never lost her optimistic thoughts.
“Just like my parents were hopeful entering a different country where they knew nothing about the culture, I knew I had to hold the same attitude if I wanted things to work out.”
A few years went by and Jiao finally came across a job offering for a baking position at a new Chinese bakery. Now she continues to bake not only at the bakery, but also at home for her husband and two daughters. During her days off, she tries teaching her children how to bake and experiments with new recipes that she thinks her regular customers might enjoy.
Jiao has been working at Fay Da for ten years now and she is still brimming with happiness everyday when she gets up to go to work even after such a long span of time has passed. From the energy she gives off to every customer she interacts with, you can tell she is glad that she didn’t pursue her parents’ dreams, but rather chased after her own.
