34. Nailed it! By Helen Bondarenko

34. Nailed it! By Helen Bondarenko

My name is Helen. I’m 29 years old, and I’m from Ukraine, from a small city named Zaporizhzhia. I have been living in China for more than 6 years and I bake the most delicious cakes!

But it wasn’t always like that. One day there was a turning point that allowed me to see new talents in myself and completely change my career.

My mother always cooked very delicious meals, and all of my childhood is associated with memories of holidays, feasts, and weekends, when my mother cooked a lot of very tasty dishes. In the post-Soviet space, it was not possible to buy a cake in a supermarket. After all, there weren’t even any supermarkets. So my mother cooked cakes for every holiday, birthday, New Year, etc., when she wanted to treat us with something delicious. When I was little, I would try to help her, and sometimes I just watched the process! It fascinated me that mom had a lot of signature cakes, but my favorite was meringue cake. My grandmother’s signature desserts were always “cherry house cake” and “Napoleon.”

As a teenager, I also became interested in cooking desserts. Using my mother’s cookbook, at the age of 14, I was already preparing my first profiteroles. I really enjoyed the process and the joy of family members trying my desserts. But, unfortunately, the older I got, the less time and energy I had to cook. Over time, priorities changed, and I stopped cooking altogether. School years were replaced by university years, then studying in China, work… In the blink of an eye more than 10 years flew by.

I graduated from the Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University, majoring in Chinese Philology, even though I had never been interested in Asian culture or China, and in general I had never planned to study this subject.

How did I end up there? Pure chance, or even fate.

At the age of 18, one of the criteria I had for choosing a university was “somewhere, but not in my hometown.” So I went to admissions offices in other cities: Kharkiv, Dnipro, Kyiv. I dreamed of studying journalism or international relations. Back in 2011, there was no way to submit documents online, so I had to personally go and queue for hours (sometimes at 6 o’clock in the morning!).

When I arrived at the admissions office in Dnipro, I stood in line for four hours. Finally, it was my turn, and I thought I was applying to major in journalism; imagine how disappointed I was to be told that I had been waiting at the wrong door. But I thought it would be a shame for all that time to go to waste, so I asked: “Well, what do you have here?” It turns out that it was the Department of Languages and Culture Studies (Philology). I saw “Chinese Philology” and chose it randomly.

I actually forgot about it, until one day, they called me and invited me to study there with a scholarship! That’s how the Chinese language came into my life, and it brought four years of hard work! I had never been an excellent student, but I was very hardworking. Unfortunately, Chinese was really hard for me. The language was very challenging and I couldn’t get along with my main university teacher. But diligence is the mother of success. After graduation, I won a state scholarship for a year to study the language in China in 2015. That sounded like a dream! Such an adventure and such an achievement!

Currently I have lived in China for more than six years, in Xiamen, which has become my second home! In six years, I:

• Improved my Chinese;
• got a master’s degree in China in international relations;
• worked for several years as an English teacher & worked as a sales manager in a Chinese company (selling marble from China abroad);
• got married;
• gave birth to a daughter;
• and opened my own business!

During my studies, I never had time for hobbies. That changed when I met my husband. Thanks to him, I got the opportunity to work less, relax, and do what I like.

So how did I start?

I came across an advertisement about an online confectionery school on Instagram, and childhood memories came flooding back. Around that time, I also started to think about what my talents were, and I felt kind of talentless. It seemed to me that I was good at nothing. Looking back on it now, though, that seems absurd, because by that time I had achieved a lot: I was able to speak four languages and started to learn Spanish as the fifth; completed my master’s degree in China and I was earning good money.

But in my heart I felt as if I had never found myself. So I decided to start seriously learning confectionery skills! I saw in it not only an interesting hobby, but also business potential.

 

Once, I organized a ladies Christmas event where I did a dessert tasting, and very quickly, people started asking me if I could make a birthday cake for them. Soon, most of the foreigners in Xiamen knew about my cakes, and 2 years later, I’m more successful than I ever would have imagined. I expanded very quickly, and now I have a team of almost 10 people. We bring joy not only to people in Xiamen, but also to people in other provinces and all over China! I now offer party balloons, flowers, desserts, an online grocery store, supplies for a coffee shop and even a cooking school!

China was not in my original plan, but it is now where I live, where I started my own family and business, and where many opportunities have crossed my path. Xiamen, with its remarkable scenery and loving community, is now the place I call home.

Now, it’s also a safe place for my mother. With the recent difficult times for every Ukrainian, she has finally found some peace here, with me and my family. I hope that one day my father and brother will also be able to come here, and that we will live our Xiamen life together! I know it will never make up for the losses of the war, but this city is definitely full of joy and beauty, comfort and opportunities!

 

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