Entrepreneurship in a foreign land
Duong Thi Hong Gam, a fellow Vietnamese immigrant, sees Nguyen’s success as a real achievement. After reading about Nguyen in a magazine, Duong decided she wanted to meet her. Nguyen’s shop wasn’t far from her home, so she dropped by. The two chatted and hit it off. “I went from being a customer to a friend, and later began working at Te Mei Xiang,” says Duong.
Nguyen likes to bring in other Vietnamese immigrants when the shop gets busy and she needs an extra hand. Like Duong, these other helpers originally came to Taiwan to work or when they married a Taiwanese man.
Nguyen is the axis around which all parts of the business revolve. She cooks cakes through the night, takes a breather at noon, and then packages the cakes for delivery. She got her driver’s license in early 2016 and bought a new vehicle so she could also handle the deliveries herself. That means that she is now the shop’s owner, its pastry chef, its salesperson, and its delivery driver.
Friends often express pity for how hard she works to support her family, but Nguyen herself doesn’t see it that way. She began working when she was just 13 and underwent many trials before coming to Taiwan.
She was born in a small fishing village about two hours by car from Ho Chi Minh City. Her father passed away when she was young and her mother married another man. Within a few years of the new marriage, she had two new sisters. Meanwhile, the family’s finances remained just as dire as before.
Nguyen left school and began working when in just the fourth grade to help ease the family’s burdens. She remembers going with her two little sisters to a nearby beach to catch fish to sell in the market for extra income. People often say that her current life is difficult, but the camera-shy Nguyen laughs: “No, no. My life in Taiwan is good.”
Having experienced the bitterness of often having to bow her head and ask others for help, Nguyen has long looked forward to a future in which she would be able to provide assistance rather than receive it. Nowadays, she makes a point of taking time out of her busy schedule for charitable work, which includes delivering her cakes to the nearby Shih Guang Educational and Nursing Institution. “Seeing the residents there smile is the happiest part of my day.”
Nguyen spent the last three years getting her business up and running, and doing charity work. She calls herself a “doer,” someone who forges ahead with her ideas without giving them too much extra thought. When the Hsinchu County Government honored her with a model immigrant award late last year, she was both happy and surprised to see all of her hard work and sacrifice finally acknowledged.
Her delicious old-fashioned cakes have made a name for Te Mei Xiang, won praise from customers, and generated a seemingly endless stream of online orders. But when asked about her success, the humble Nguyen My Lan always responds that it isn’t enough. “I need to work harder, even harder.” It is a familiar sentiment, and the one that Nguyen most often uses to encourage herself.
Nguyen isn’t just making her own way in Taiwan; she’s also hiring other Vietnamese immigrants to help at her cake shop.
Nguyen pours the batter into molds.
Nguyen mixes her ingredients, pours the batter into molds, then pops the molds into the oven to bake.
The delicious cakes cook in less than half an hour.
Nguyen personally delivers cakes to Grown-up With Hands, an affiliate of the Shih Guang Educational and Nursing Institution. She loves seeing the residents tuck into her cakes.
Having grown up in poverty, Nguyen My Lan looks forward to being able to help others. She often visits the Shih Guang Educational and Nursing Institution to share her compassion.
After 15 years in Taiwan, Nguyen’s entrepreneurial endeavors were acknowledged last year with a model immigrant award from the Hsinchu County Government. (courtesy of the Hsinchu County Government)