STUDY

Becoming a pastry chef in Kyoto!

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ทีม PR Study Kyoto

2020.06.02

The Café, Western sweets, and Bread-making Workshops

After Japanese sweets, it was time for the café workshop. I associate cafés with being stylish, so this was the workshop I was most looking forward to! The café had an extremely pleasant environment: we were greeted with the lovely smiles of current students.

This workshop was about parfait-making! It was also great to be able to choose between two menu options, strawberry and mango.

I decided to try my hand at making the mango parfait. It was my first time squeezing cream out of a pastry bag, so I was a bit awkward, but the teacher and current students were kind and patient in helping me.

Here it is! The final result! What do you think? I tried a bite, and…oh, it’s perfect for summer!

As I was eating, I was able to talk directly with a Japanese student about her fun experiences in class and life at the school, and I was able to get a better image of what it would be like to study here!

After the café workshop, it was on to Western sweets. Here, I tried making peach compote! I was surprised by how easy it turned out to be to make. The resulting jelly was extremely refreshing and fruity.

Last of all was the bakery workshop. We put melted chocolate on bread, so the activity was slightly related to Valentine’s Day. The baking teacher was also quite young, and, it turned out, a graduate of this very school. The teacher was really friendly and enjoyed joking, so the activity was fun up until the very end.

Interview with a Current International Student

As a part of this visit to the open campus event, we were able to interview Ms. Zhang, a Taiwanese student at the college studying Japanese sweets-making.

Interview Team: What led to your enrollment here?

Ms. Zhang: Originally, I was studying at a Japanese language school in Tokyo, but I’d always loved traditional Japanese sweets, and after looking through a bunch of information online, I found this school. The fees were lower than other confectioners’ schools, the burden was lighter, and I was also attracted to idea of Kyoto, so I decided to study here.

Interview Team: What was it like at the open campus event before you enrolled?

Ms. Zhang: Everyone surprised me with their kindness, and when they realized I was a foreigner, they carefully explained the international student course to me.

Interview Team: How did you sign up for the open campus?

Ms. Zhang: I applied with both the email address and phone number listed on the website.

Interview Team: Did you have any difficulties coming to Japan from Taiwan? Is there anything people should be careful of?

Ms. Zhang: In the beginning, I had a lot of difficulties with my visa. I also had N2 level Japanese when I was in Taiwan, but there aren’t many opportunities to speak Japanese in Taiwan, and I was worried I would have difficulty in my classes once I started school, so I went to a Japanese language school in Tokyo for a year to begin with.

Interview Team: Are there any international student-specific entrance exams or requirements that you noticed in particular?

Ms. Zhang: In my case, there was just the paper application and an interview. Of course, having N2 level Japanese was a minimum requirement.

Interview Team: What did you do to prepare to pass the interview?

Ms. Zhang: I think it’s really important, first of all, to really understand the meaning of the interviewer’s questions. After that, I think the most important thing is to make sure you get across just how much you want to enter this school as you try to sell your self-introduction.

Interview Team: What kind of support is there for international students?

Ms. Zhang: There’s scholarship support! There’s also a school faculty member designated to look after international student affairs. I’m a recipient of this scholarship, actually. The faculty here really looks after international students well, and I’m quite satisfied with the amount of support we get.

Interview Team: What are classes like, and what do you think of them?

Ms. Zhang: I chose a two-year course. I’m still in my first year, so I’m expected to master the basics now. With the basic classes, many of them emphasize creating the perfect cake for commercial sale.

I used to work in a Japanese restaurant part-time, so I was already more or less able to make one.

I was really nervous about being put together in a group to work with other Japanese students, though. But all of my classmates were really nice, and I’ve gotten much more used to it recently.

Interview Team: What courses are most popular with international students?

Ms. Zhang: I think the international students really want to get to know Japan, so the Japanese sweets course is the most popular.

Interview Team: What are your plans for after graduation?

Ms. Zhang: My dream has always been to open my own store. Once I’ve graduated, I want to return to Taiwan and open my own specialty Japanese sweets store!

Interview Team: Lastly, could you please share a message for other potential international students?

Ms. Zhang: To be honest, since coming to Japan, I’ve had a lot of difficult moments, but there were so many things that I could never have experienced in my home country. I’ve also been able to gain a deeper understanding of Japanese culture since coming to Kyoto, too.

Whenever I had a difficult moment, I would think back on the reason I wanted to come to Japan in the first place, and think to myself, “You’ve got this!” I’d like to encourage future students hoping to come to Japan not to forget their initial goals.

Conclusion

With all of the workshops during the open campus, we really got to see the best of Kyoto Pastry & Bakery Art College. The students here were always smiling and answering our questions, and reaching out to shier participants—everyone was kind.

For someone like me, who thinks of school as a place to sit down and study, it was a completely new experience to try out making our own desserts. Even for a beginner like me, I feel like I was able to become a pastry chef for a day!

Why not come to Kyoto yourself to become a professional confectioner?