‘Silent’ bakeries serve the world through smiles

WUHAN — At Pica Pica Bakery in the Central China city of Wuhan, cashier Wan Xiaohui bends her thumb twice as she hands paper bags packed with fresh bread and cookies to customers.

The gesture, meaning “thank you” in Chinese sign language, has been repeated countless times over the past four years by employees and patrons in the bakery, which employs people with hearing impairments.

During a charity bakery course in 2017, Tan Ting encountered a group of students with physical and intellectual disabilities.

“Their upbeat manner and attentiveness touched me deeply,” Tan says. That was when she had the idea of opening a bakery that could provide jobs for the disabled.

For the next six months, she busied herself collecting information from overseas and visiting “silent” bakeries, cafes and special education schools in major cities including Nanjing, Guangzhou and Changsha. After learning the relevant policies and professional training and management methods, she opened Pica Pica, which means magpie, in December 2017.

“Though ordinary as the Pica Pica, or magpie, may be in China, it represents a tough-minded personality and serves as a representative of joy and good luck in our culture,” says the 34-year-old. “The bird is just like us, ordinary but unflinching in life and spreading happiness.”

After the bakery opened, she began to recruit people with hearing impairments. “We’re not a charity organization and we face fierce market competition, so we do not just accept anyone who is looking for a job,” Tan says. Communication and writing skills, as well as an understanding of the baking industry, are what she looks for in potential employees.

After a three-hour written and in-person interview in 2018, Wan joined Pica Pica. “For me, the bakery is my school and home. I’ve learned many baking skills and made many friends,” says the 27-year-old cashier in sign language. Wan had lost her hearing at birth. “What’s more, the job ensures I have a great sense of accomplishment.”

In their spare time, Pica Pica employees often visit nearby communities, nursing homes and schools to offer free baking courses.

“Hearing-impaired employees cannot engage with the world through sound, but they always embrace the world with smiles,” Tan says. “We organize an average of five charity events every month to bring joy to others with our professional baking services.”

Apart from Pica Pica, other bakeries and cafes hiring people with disabilities have mushroomed over the years in China’s major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Changsha, providing more job options to the disabled.

“These new forms and channels of employment enable people with disabilities to support themselves through their own efforts and allow them to realize their value,” says Zhang Wanhong, executive head of the human rights research institute at Wuhan University and vice-president of the Hubei Disabled Persons’ Federation.

Zhang says the services sector such as bakeries and cafes can help bring people together to learn about different skills and talents, and this will also help change negative stereotypes of people as disadvantaged or being a social burden.

Han is the mother of bakery employee Li Xing, who has hearing impairment. Han says that special education schools in China have helped her daughter become educated, and that increasingly diversified career options have facilitated her daughter’s integration into society. She also praised the country’s subsidies for those with disabled family members.

“This job enriches her life and guarantees her an equal opportunity to earn money through her own efforts, just like others,” Han adds.

Looking to the future of people with disabilities in China on the National Day for Helping the Disabled, which fell on May 16 this year, Zhang notes two concerns.

“Though China’s poverty alleviation campaign has been successful, the disabled, especially those who live in rural areas, still face the possibility of returning to poverty. It is necessary to further improve their development opportunities and consolidate the monitoring and assistance mechanism for the disabled,” Zhang says.

“This year marks the 30th anniversary of the implementation of China’s law to protect the rights and interests of people with disabilities. Over the past three decades, the legal system protecting the rights of disabled people in our country has been basically established. The focus now is to implement the laws.”

To date, Pica Pica has hired eight employees with hearing impairments. Some of its former employees have since launched their own businesses in the sector.

Tan hopes Pica Pica can be a place that creates dreams for those with hearing impairment.

“I will give them all the support and guidance I can provide, hoping that the skills they learn here will help them lead better lives in the future,” she says.