Meet Tina Long

Tina Long was born in Taiwan, she came to South Africa 25 years ago and lives in Cape Town. Tina recently started Home Bao, an online food store that currently sells frozen dumplings and potstickers.

Read more about why Tina is proud to be Chinese and a South African.

Although there are still a lot of issues we face as South Africans, you can feel there is slow growing movement between the various communities to accept each other’s differences and appreciate the cultural diversity. I love this growing positive energy amongst us and it’s what we need to move forward as a country. ~ Tina Long

Name: Tina Long

Occupation: Business owner & Founder – Home Bao

1. Where were you born?

Taipei, Taiwan.

2. What school/college/university did you attend?

The Settlers High School – Northern Suburb of Cape Town and then later to UCT.

3. What is your fondest childhood memory, growing up as a Chinese child?

It might not be the fondest but probably most memorable is to attend an Afrikaans primary school in 1994 with pidgin English, never mind Afrikaans. My mom says it was character building.

4. What is your favourite Chinese food?

Dumplings of course 😊.

5. Where do you live?

Rondebosch, Cape Town – also where Home Bao operates from.

6. What work do you do?

I recently started an online store that sells frozen dumplings.

7. What do you love about your job?

Our dumplings come in a variety of colours and made from fresh vegetable puree. Each batch of vegetables are slightly different to the next and without using any colourants. It’s amazing to see how the colours differ slightly from one batch to another. Everyday there are little surprises waiting.

8. What is your proudest achievement?

Creating Home Bao. Although Home Bao just started, but starting a business is probably the most difficult challenge I have tackled and the scariest.

9. Why are you proud to be South African?

Growing up in South Africa as an immigrant from Taiwan 25 years ago was not easy. The country is just out of apartheid and as a new comer you are not quite sure where you stand most of time. Now I can easily call South Africa my home and being a proud South African citizen because South Africa is beautiful inside and out and possess such great Gees (spirit). Although there are still a lot of issues we face as South Africans, you can feel there is slow growing movement between the various communities to accept each other’s differences and appreciate the cultural diversity. I love this growing positive energy amongst us and it’s what we need to move forward as a country.

10. Why are you proud to be Chinese?

Family and tradition. In any significant life event - may it be a wedding, funeral or to celebrate a birth of a new born, it is often filled with tedious and cumbersome Chinese traditions that have been passed from one generation to another. I now realise that these laborious traditions are there for a purpose, mostly to keep the family united through family gatherings and for the young to learn to respect the old. For funerals, all the rituals are only completed after the first year, where the first 49 days are the most intense. From the outside it may been long and tiring, but it serves a great purpose for family to get together during this time and strengthen the bond. It also gives one the opportunity to properly take the time to mourn and say their goodbyes. It’s a process that takes time.

11. Name one Chinese tradition that you’d like future generations to continue with?