Mobile and Free: From Hong Kong Aircraft Engineer to Milk Tea Startup in Taiwan

Making a living from a mobile beverage truck, Thomas and his wife Emily live by the motto: ‘Although making money is important, freedom is even more precious.’

Thomas Cheung, an aircraft engineer, and his wife Emily Chan emigrated to Taiwan four years ago and operate a food truck called "Tea Stall" in search of an alternative way of life. Courtesy of Thomas Cheung

Thomas Cheung and his wife, Emily Chan, left Hong Kong and moved to Taiwan in 2021. They left their well-paid jobs as an aircraft engineer and bank worker, planning to develop and operate a mobile food truck and make a major change in their lives. They started to investigate this possibility after the troubles in Hong Kong in 2019 and after attending a lecture on immigration to Taiwan in 2018.

“My wife used to drink Yuanyang (Hong Kong-style beverage of mixed milk tea and coffee) when working in Hong Kong,“ Mr. Cheung told The Epoch Times. ”She first came to Taiwan to apply for permanent residence and found that the Yuanyang found in Hong Kong-style restaurants in Taiwan was comparatively less tasty than that offered in Hong Kong. She missed the sort of Yuanyang in Hong Kong. For that reason, I started to learn the trade...”