Carrying a lute and suona, surrounded by auspicious clouds, the details are realistic. This kung fu panda made of bread, which is more than 1 meter high, is from the hands of the post-95 boy Gong Xin.
In January 2020, at the 10th Baking World Cup Finals held in Paris, France, Gong Xin, as a Chinese player, won the championship with the work of “Music Panda”. This is also the first time since the establishment of the Baking World Cup in 1992, the Chinese team won the championship podium.
The operator starts, the work must be interesting
Gong Xin was born in Xiangtan, Hunan Province in 1995. After finishing high school, he felt that his academic performance was average, holding the idea of ”study is not good, work early”. At the age of 16, he resolutely took a suitcase and came to Shenzhen to meet his parents.
Soon after, he applied for an electronic equipment factory and became an operator on the workshop assembly line. The factory implements two shifts, and Gong Xin often has to work night shifts. It is very hard, but the salary he gets is not much. All along, his ideal job is full of fun. In the face of this boring and monotonous first job, he retreated. But he didn’t have the skills and education. After a long search, he didn’t find a suitable job.
One day, he talked to his father about his confusion. The father suggested: “Son, there is an old saying that is good,’One skill is at hand, don’t worry about food and clothing, you go to learn technology!” Gong Xin thought his father’s words were very good Makes sense. Then his father gave three choices: cooking, hair cutting, baking. Gong Xin once read some baking knowledge on the Internet and found this industry very interesting, so he chose baking without thinking about it.
He found a bakery and began to be an apprentice. When he first came into contact with baking, he was at a loss for the smooth and soft dough. Although he was careful when kneading the dough, he still scrapped the dough. The master on the side didn’t blame him, just said lightly: “I want to pay attention next time!” Gong Xin is a sensitive apprentice. The more the master said lightly, the more he blamed himself.
In order to practice his skills, except for sleeping, Gong Xin stays in the shop almost all the time, and asks the teacher for help with an open mind. The master saw him so easy to learn, patiently instructed him, which are the key steps, how to do plastic surgery, and what skills, Gong Xin stood attentively, with a small book in his hand to record at any time.
In this way, after more than half a year of hard training, Gong Xin was much more skilled, and although he worked hard, he was also very happy. But shortly afterwards, the chef who had been good to him suddenly resigned, and the new chef was not very friendly to people, which brought a great psychological gap to Gong Xin.
Run away from the baker, almost missed the baking
The bread chain store where Gong Xin is located has its own central factory, and many baking processes are completed in the central factory. I can’t learn the whole set of baking technology, no technical advancement, and I am just an operator on the baking line. Thinking of this, Gong Xin has no enthusiasm for the previous work. In addition, the new chef has more differences with him in work, and many discomforts have made Gong Xin feel frustrated. In a dispute with the new chef, he resigned in one breath. When my father asked about his plans, he said, “I want to change industries and find a new job.”
My father persuaded him with pains of heart: “You have also studied West Point for 1 year, and you have to start from scratch when changing industries. Time is precious. Which industry is not difficult at first? Besides, you don’t have a job that you like clearly. This industry continues to do.” Father also said that he was like him at that time, he went out to work at the age of 16 and was in contact with the auto repair industry. At first it was not smooth, but he has been working hard to persist, and now he has been doing auto repair for decades The skills are becoming more and more skilled, and the days at home are getting better every day.
Father’s appearance made Gong Xin shake. It was at this time that his friend recommended him a job as a teacher in a baking training institution. This sudden new job opportunity awakened his childhood dream: to be a teacher, teach and educate people. Therefore, Gong Xin cheerfully accepted.
It was the timely appearance of this job that gave Gong Xin a new understanding of baking. After entering the training institution, Gong Xin systematically and deeply studied West Point’s production process and theoretical knowledge, while teaching production experience to students. The working method of learning while outputting makes Gong Xin thoroughly love baking. Later, on the recommendation of the master, Gong Xin went to Suzhou Wangsen Baking School to continue his studies.
Concentrate on learning art, strength to win the championship
Gong Xin made West Point with great attention to detail control. After more than a year, he came into contact with art bread, and he gave full play to this characteristic. It was also since then that he fell in love with the production of art bread.
From not making stick bread to becoming a master of art bread production, in addition to talent and interest, more behind is the sweat and persistence of Gong Xin. At first, Gong Xin was unfamiliar with French and crisp bread making. He thought: As a teacher, if you have enough capital to bring students, you must have excellent skills. Driven by his sense of responsibility, he took the initiative to apply for practice materials to the school outside of work. At night, he kept practicing French pastry making in a quiet classroom. He took the finished product to the office the next day and asked other teachers for advice.
Kung fu pays off, Gong Xin’s skills have been greatly improved quickly. Because of his remarkable achievements in an internal competition, he was selected to join the competition committee, fortunately becoming assistant to technical director Peng Fudong. In 2017, Gong Xin and Mr. Peng participated in the World Bread Contest and won the Six Nations Classic Championship, refreshing the highest score of the Chinese team in the World Bread Contest. This competition broadened Gong Xin’s knowledge and also opened up his vision. From then on, he firmly regarded baking as a career he pursued throughout his life.
Time flies and soon usher in the 10th Baking World Cup, Gong Xin decided to participate in this game. He asked himself: West Point Baking has always been a strong project in Western countries. How can I stand out in the competition? After much consideration, he decided to work hard on the creativity of the work. Hearing the theme of the competition is “Music of the country”, the first thing that appeared in his mind was my country’s Peking Opera and Panda. He set Kung Fu Panda and Chinese traditional musical instruments as the theme of his work.
A total of 12 teams including China, France, Japan, and South Korea participated in the finals, and competition was fierce. As soon as he arrived in Paris, France, Gong Xin devoted himself to the intense training before the game. However, in the first training, Gong Xingang’s artistic bread modeling soon fell down, and the situation was the same in the second training. Gong Xin was extremely frustrated. Later, with the help of the staff, he came to a local flour mill in France, and finally found the reason why the bread shape could not be supported. It turned out that there were different varieties of rye flour used in making bread. After changing the rye flour variety for the third training, the bread styling never fell down. In order to win the game, Gong Xin constantly adjusts the operation details, which is 10 hours before the station. Seven different kinds of dough are used to make this art bread, including hot dough, syrup dough, batter dough, French yeast dough, etc., all made by hand. During the baking process, the dough is easy to encounter blistering, deformation, color change, etc. How to avoid these problems, the test is a player’s control of the raw materials and equipment. In the work, the final size of the yeast dough is also one of the difficulties of art bread. At the same time, the size error between the splicing points of various accessories must be close to zero to ensure the perfect work.
In the end, Gong Xin won the championship with “Peace Ambassador-Music Panda”. Standing in front of the work, Gong Xin frankly said that the road of the competition made him lucky to reach the top of the world. The next thing he wanted to do was to pass on the valuable experience gained along this path to the students who participated in the competition. . As a champion, Gong Xin does not think he is so great, because he always believes: “If there is a miracle in the world, it is just another name for hard work!”
