Life & Work with Kesia Eng

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kesia Eng.

Hi Kesia, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Sure! My name is Kesia Eng. I’m a SoCal native and a UCLA grad. My hobbies include cooking the occasional subpar omelette and bothering my parents. To get a clearer picture of how I got to where I am today, I guess we could rewind it back to 2020. Everything was closed. Schools were shut down. Sports games were canceled. My favorite Target store started closing at 8 p.m. The world truly was ending. But the most devastating thing? My beloved dim sum restaurants have stopped indoor dining.

I know it doesn’t seem significant. There’s plenty of other food. Plus, we can still get takeout. But I grew up coming to these restaurants with my family. And every time I came back from college for the weekend, my parents would take me to eat dim sum – it was a huge part of our everyday life.

Most importantly, dim sum helped me better understand and appreciate my parents and our Chinese culture. I think I can speak for many American kids who have immigrant parents: There aren’t a lot of things in common between our upbringing and theirs. But food is our shared connection.

So I decided to write, create, illustrate and self-publish a book in hopes of sharing dim sum with younger generations (which ended up being a 1.5-2 year process). (I made the characters, mini items, and sets by hand. Then I learned photography, product lighting, and photo editing to put it altogether.) The story is about how Baby Bao (protagonist) doesn’t like dim sum at all. The dishes, tea, chopsticks, and noise — all of it! But it’s because he misunderstood what this traditional Chinese meal is actually about. After seeing his family selflessly love one another through a dim sum meal, Baby Bao realizes the true meaning of dim sum: the importance of family.

I uploaded the project to Kickstarter, where it was featured on the Kickstarter homepage and chosen as a staff pick. With the support of so many family, friends, and generous strangers, it was fully funded within 1 week. In April 2022, the book became available on Amazon.

My hope is that parents can use this book not just as a cultural educational tool but as an opportunity for bonding between them and their children. Through this story, I hope we can all appreciate dim sum as an avenue to love our families more and continue to pass on the values embedded in it.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Haha, it wouldn’t be a good project without bumps along the road!

It wasn’t super major, but I think the first obstacle was just having people who’re close to me believe it. When I first told my parents the idea, they weren’t exactly jumping with excitement. Their first reaction was hesitation — they didn’t think my children’s book would sell a copy or think people would even want it. But I think after they saw how hard and diligent I was working on it after my 9 to 5, and how cute the characters were, they began to see the value of it. And they became more supportive! So now, they love talking about it with friends and family now. (I guess that’s just a parents’ tough love huh?)

Bigger struggle would be an internal one of mine. In the beginning of the process when I was revising drafts of the story, I had doubts whether or not I should continue to pursue this. Thoughts like: Would people even like it? Is it worth it? I think the self-doubt and hesitation, on my part, slowed the pre-production process quite a bit. But what got me over this major hump was reminding myself of the why. I was doing this to pass on the cultural values expressed in dim sum, to younger generations. That holds a great value of significance to me, and I didn’t want to neglect trying my best to produce good art in order to share a good message.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
That I LOVE writing. Truly. And that my debut children’s book, “Baby Bao at Dim Sum” is just the first of (hopefully, more) stories that I’ll be publishing! I have some more ideas on what my upcoming other books would be and I’m excited to share that in the near future. I guess it’d be accurate to say that this work of literature is the art I’m most proud of so far!

I think what sets me and this book apart from others is the fact that it’s mainly self-produced by me. I wrote it myself. I made all the sets, characters, mini items, myself. I set up the lighting myself, I photographed everything myself. I learned Photoshop and photo-edited it all myself. I even formatted the manuscript and self-published it myself. (But shout out to my awesome friend who did help me look over the grammar of the story!)

I think what’s also cool is the fact that the illustrations/visuals are of 3D objects; they are not the 2D animated artwork that is typical in children’s picture books. So it definitely took a lot of love, care, and attention to detail to make everything perfect.

Lastly, I think the message of the story is unique. I know a lot of Asian American children’s books are about food like dim sum, but my main theme is that dim sum is an AVENUE in which we can LOVE our families more. So there’s a larger emphasis on caring for your family.

Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
I did also make high-quality, durable, matte sticker sheets inspired by the characters and food found in the book! They can be found here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/BabyBaoAtDimSum

Also, if people wanted to watch a quick 2-3 minute video on the process of the book, they can view it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/babybao/baby-bao-at-dim-sum-childrens-book

(No donations/financial support is needed anymore. It is a closed campaign, but has a great video!)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/babybao
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/babybaoatdimsum/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Baby-Bao-at-Dim-Sum-109131915270366
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@babybaoatdimsum