As the day for family reunions approaches, do you have any idea on the right gifts to buy for family members? Along with a bottle of wine, a delicious cake is surely a good choice! And what if that cake is baked by yourself? Follow our reporter Zhu Yuting to the DIY bakery "Zi Wei Wu Yu". After a few minutes there, you may also want to become a baker.
REPORTER: For most Chinese, 'cooking skills' do not include the baking of cakes. However, in recent years, this craft is gaining popularity.
Following this trend, a new DIY bakery, "Zi Wei Wu Yu," has opened in downtown Beijing. The shop is "hidden" in the corner of an office building in the CBD area. It looks tidy and cozy. In the middle of the room, four long operation tables form a circle. And dozens of customers' pictures are pinned up on one side of the wall.
This shop is actually a DIY club. It does not have a retail business but provides DIY courses. That makes the shop unique among other bakeries in Beijing.
Su Tao is the manager of the bakery. She hopes her clients can get more than a cake out of the process of DIY.
"If you buy a cake from a shop or even a hotel, you only get the 'form' of the cake. However, in DIY, you can get the process too. And that is more meaningful."
Before Su Tao started the business with her best friend, she had already tried to bake cakes at home for her husband. In her view, DIY is rather a personal return to innocence and love than a "trend."
"Nowadays, few people want to 'waste time' in choosing a gift. To some extent, baking a cake adds a personal touch and closes the gap between people."
Placing your love into your gift, enjoying the process and sharing those joys may be seen as the essential elements in baking one's own cake. Beyond that, DIY also blurs the lines between creator and consumer as it ties them closer together.
For China Drive, I'm Yuting.
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