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Belinda Finds Culinary Success in Man's World

Belinda Xu has cooked up a nice career for herself as a chef at one of Beijing's top 5-star hotels, a success based on her simple premise that if men could make a living from creative cooking, so could she. Xu, sous chef at the Coffee Garden of Beijing's China World Hotel, also took cooking to her heart in a more romantic way by marrying a chef who works at the Kempinski Hotel.

Xu, one of only a comparative handful of hotel female chefs in the city, has worked at China World for 11 years -- a long stretch in that most chefs are itinerant in their unceasing pursuit of new cuisines and preparations of ingredients to reinforce their experience. Xu, of course, is aware that good chefs are at a premium among Beijing's intensely competitive hotels. But she has never been tempted to move on, her loyalty being as hard-set as any principle she may apply to her culinary creations.

Today enjoying a high reputation for her skills, she admits to having never thought of becoming a chef when considering a career after middle school. Then, in 1987, she received an acceptance-for-training note from a cooking school. "At first I was shocked because it meant that I could later become a chef," recalled Xu. "As I had no other career choice at the time I decided that, just like young men, I would study hard and make a living from cooking."

At the cookery school she found a natural instinct for cooking pastries, but had to change her major to cold dishes in order to join China World. "At first I knew little about cold-dish making, but luckily I had the confidence to overcome all the difficulties and challenges," she said.

A highlight of her career came last June in a Beijing chefs' Salmon Cooking Contest, where she won third prize. "My husband did better," she smiled. "He came first." Even third prize in such a tough competition is commendable for a woman in a largely male world, any laurels usually being carried off by the battalion of famed male chefs, many of them foreigners, now working in Beijing.

Now the mother of a two-year-old daughter largely looked after by her parents-in-law because of the irregular hours she sometimes works, Xu generously attributes her success mainly to her family, "especially my husband and his parents. Often I have to work late because Coffee Garden work is round the clock. Without the understanding and support of my parents-in-law, I could never have made a success of my career".

Sometimes, she said emotionally, she felt guilty about not spending more time at home, especially during festivals and holidays when other people could share merry times with their family. "But my job needs me at work. The only way I can repay my family's kindness is to work hard and make them proud of me."