Wu Pao-chun: A Promise to a Paiwan Child

He went to a Paiwan elementary school in Sandimen Township, Pingtung County, to give a demonstration. After the event, a child tugged at his sleeve: Could you bring our millet wine to the world?

Wu Pao-chun said: Yes.

That promise was later fulfilled — in the form of a loaf of bread, in Paris in the spring of 2010.¹

30-Second Overview: Wu Pao-chun, born 1970, rural Pingtung County. His father died when he was twelve; after junior high he headed north to become a bakery apprentice. In 2008, he led Taiwan's team to a silver medal at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie (World Bread Cup); in 2010, he won gold at the Les Masters de la Boulangerie (World Bread Masters) with his lychee-rose bread, becoming the world's first Bread Masters gold medalist. French judges said that bread was "the best French bread they had ever tasted."

From Longquan Village, Pingtung to a Taipei Bakery

Wu Pao-chun was the youngest of eight children. His father died when he was twelve; his mother held the family together alone. He grew up in Longquan Village, Neipu Township, Pingtung County. He dropped out of high school not long after starting, headed north to Taipei at fifteen, and began as an apprentice in a bakery.²

This path was one many people walked in 1980s Taiwan: rural kid, head north, do manual work, earn a meal. But most treated bread-making as a means of livelihood; Wu Pao-chun treated it as a discipline. He self-taught French to read French baking books, saved to travel to Japan to study with world-class masters, apprenticed under Chen Fu-guang in Taiwan, and took something others considered a dead end and worked it to the very top.

"What makes people poor is often not their wallet, but their inner world."

Placed against his background, this statement reads not like an inspirational slogan but more like a firsthand report.

2008: The Silver Medal and the "Taste of Mother"

In 2006, Wu Pao-chun won Taiwan's regional selection; in 2007, Taiwan's team won the Asian qualifier in Guangzhou and earned the right to represent Asia in Paris. In 2008, Taiwan's team stood on the stage of the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie and took home a silver medal, second only to the French home team. Wu Pao-chun was responsible for the European bread category and also took the gold medal in the individual European bread category.³

His individual competition entry was "Longan Wine Bread" (酒釀桂圓麵包) — dried longan fruits soaked in sweet rice wine, drawn from kitchen memories of his late mother. After the competition, when asked where his inspiration came from, Wu Pao-chun said through an interpreter:

"I suppose it was the taste of mother that moved the judges."³

A Taiwanese man who couldn't speak French, using the flavors common in his home after his father died, won gold in France.

2010: The Loaf That Held a Promise

After 2008, Wu Pao-chun did not stop. He remembered the Paiwan child's question and began spending time researching how to bring the flavors of Taiwan's eastern mountain regions into French bread: Paiwan millet wine from Sandimen, black-leaf lychees from Fenyuan Township, and organic rose petals from Puli. The dried lychees were soaked in millet wine overnight; the dough fermented for at least fifteen hours; the entire R&D process took twelve months.⁴

In 2010, the Les Masters de la Boulangerie was held in Paris — the inaugural individual competition. Wu Pao-chun brought his triangular lychee-rose bread to the stage. The triangular shape was drawn from the imagery of Taiwan's indigenous mountain ranges.

He won gold, becoming the world's first Bread Masters gold medalist. The French judges' words have been quoted ever since:

"Wu Pao-chun made the best French bread."⁵

Not "French bread with an Eastern touch" — not "Asian interpretation of French baking" — but the French judges' determination that it was the best French bread, period.

Back to Taiwan, Back to Local Things

Five months after winning the championship, on November 4, 2010, Wu Pao-chun opened his first "Wu Pao-chun Bakery" (吳寶春麥方店) in Lingya District, Kaohsiung. The lines never stopped from day one.⁵

On why he uses Taiwanese agricultural products, he put it directly: "Although the Chinese market has 1.3 billion people, the whole world has more than 7 billion. I'm not going to limit my vision to China. I represent not just Wu Pao-chun, but Taiwan — I want to bring Taiwan's agricultural products out into the world along with me."

In 2013, Taipei Eslite Songyan opened; in 2017, the Taichung flagship; in 2018, the Taipei Xinyi flagship; in 2019, Singapore. Each step was deliberately slow — he said he was not opening a chain store, but choosing the right location to plant a tree.

The "Wu Pao-chun Clause": How a Baker Changed Taiwan's Education Regulations

In 2016, the National University of Singapore (NUS) invited him to enroll in its EMBA program. The problem was that he only had a junior high school education, and Taiwan's regulations required an undergraduate degree to apply for graduate programs. NUS made an exception for him, and Taiwan's Ministry of Education subsequently amended the rules to allow outstanding talent without formal academic qualifications to apply for graduate programs. The public called this amendment the "Wu Pao-chun Clause."⁶

On June 18, 2022, the "Wu Pao-chun Baking Academy" opened at Kun Shan University of Technology in Tainan, with Wu Pao-chun serving as dean and honorary professor — Taiwan's first baking academy of this form, in which students participate directly in the store's actual production and operations during their enrollment.⁷

The Meaning of That Promise

Disney+ made a documentary about him: "World Number One Baker" (世界第一麥方). His book "Softness Achieves the Extraordinary" (柔軟成就不凡) continues to sell. In 2016, he led Taiwan's team to another silver medal at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie; his student in 2018 continued the teacher's line by taking "Guan Jiang Shou" (官將首, a traditional Taiwanese deity attendant procession) as inspiration and winning an international award.

But it all comes back to that triangular loaf of bread. No French, minimal schooling, grew up rural, father died young, resources nearly zero. He told a Paiwan child yes, then spent ten years bringing that child's hometown millet wine before French judges who said it was the best French bread.

That outcome doesn't quite make sense on its face — and then you look closely and realize that's precisely the point.

Further Reading:

• Andre Chiang — From Danshui Commercial and Industrial to world number 14: another story of a chef who conquered the world with Taiwan's flavors
• Taiwan's 16 Indigenous Peoples Cultural Map — The cultural context from which the Paiwan millet wine in the lychee-rose bread emerged
• Night Market Culture — The foundation of Taiwan's everyday food culture: understanding where Wu Pao-chun's ingredient aesthetics grew from

References