Profile | Sichuan chef for whom cooking was just a job until he learned to love it and taught fellow cooks at culinary school in Hong Kong
- Ronald Shao Tak-lung’s first job in a Sichuanese restaurant in Hong Kong when he was 16 was to wash and prep ingredients, because he didn’t know how to cook
- He took jobs in Manila, Jeddah and Mumbai, before returning to Hong Kong and taking on a teaching position at the Chinese Culinary Institute
How did you come to Hong Kong? “I was born in Chengdu, Sichuan, but my father died when I was young so it was just me, my older sister and mother. My paternal grandfather had already moved to Hong Kong before 1949 for a business venture, but he lost money and didn’t want to go home.
“I didn’t meet him until he came to see us and brought me back to Hong Kong, in 1981, when I was 15 years old, to look after him. At the time, he was working for The Star [newspaper], where he wrote stories on entertainment and horse racing. When I arrived, I learned to speak Cantonese and distributed newspapers for The Star in Wan Chai from 1am to 7am.”
What was your first kitchen job? “A few months later, when I turned 16, my grandfather got me a job in a Sichuanese restaurant. I didn’t know how to cook, so I washed vegetables and shrimp, and prepared raw ingredients.
“I finished my tasks quickly so I could watch the chefs and learn how to cook. Nevertheless, my weakness was not finding solutions and arguing with people. My master chef didn’t like me at first because he found me bothersome, but I learned quickly.”
How much did you earn? “My salary was HK$850 a month – with tips it was just under HK$1,000 – while chefs made HK$2,000. When I got my first salary, I held the money tightly in my pocket because I had never earned so much before; my mother made only HK$36 back home.
