Taiwan natives provide help during the pandemic

Guo Yi-fan, 30, from Taichung, Taiwan, coffee shop owner in Fuzhou, Fujian province

In February, I provided more than 1,100 free cups of coffee to medical workers at hospitals in Fuzhou.

It was my way of thanking them for their devotion in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

I love coffee culture. After years of learning about it, I founded my own coffee shop in Taichung, the city where I was born and raised, in 2014.

In 2016, I visited Fuzhou and came across a city that is very similar to Taichung in both culture and climate. Moreover, the coffee industry was set to boom with a huge potential market, which helped me envisage many new opportunities.

The following year I returned to Fuzhou and started my own business.

I began a workshop that offered coffee-making classes in a local startup center and took advantage of preferential policies designed to help Taiwan people who are living on the mainland.

The workshop helped me make many friends, and I gradually acquainted myself with the city. In September last year, I opened my coffee shop-it's about 60 square meters-with two mainland partners in the downtown.

To prepare for the expected consumer boom during the Spring Festival holiday, I returned to Taiwan before the holiday to reunite with my family.

I came back to Fuzhou on the second day of the new Chinese year, but the novel coronavirus outbreak pressed the "pause" button for the city and also for my coffee shop.

Although people felt scared, I saw news reports that medical workers had volunteered to help patients in Hubei, which had been hit hard. Moreover, traffic police, sanitation experts, community workers and volunteers all remained at their posts.

There are three hospitals near my shop and many of my regulars are medical professionals. They were under pressure, so I wanted to treat them to coffee to cheer them up.

I contacted the hospitals and explained my plan. I made coffee according to the required number of cups and flavors, and sent them to the specified locations. The first batch was sent out on Feb 3 and we delivered more than 1,000 cups in about a month.

I received many thank-you messages. Some said it was a very heartwarming gesture and the doctors and nurses had drunk the coffee as soon as they got off work. Some wrote things like, "The disease will go away and Fuzhou will get better."

Those messages gave me courage. Many warm-hearted citizens sent fruit and other gifts to the hospitals. They just left the items without giving their names. We locals did what we could to show respect to those who battled the disease and protected us.

My business has now recovered to about 60 percent of normal operations. I will open another coffee shop by the end of the year, so the premises are being renovated now.

I have also become a member of a local entrepreneurship and employment service center for Taiwan residents, which aims to help boost the careers of young people from the island who come to Fuzhou.