鈥楽ilent鈥 hotpot restaurant that has work for disabled is here to stay
Print Edition
The Forgive Hotpot Restaurant in Beijing鈥檚 798 art zone is always packed, but most servers never talk to customers.
Greeting customers with a big smile and a welcome gesture, waitress He Hong stands silently at the entrance of the restaurant where a billboard notes 鈥渕ost of the staff in this restaurant cannot hear or speak, so please be patient with them.鈥
He, 24, shows a few cards that say 鈥淗ow can I help you?鈥 and 鈥淗ow many people, please?鈥 to customers. They are also offered cards saying something like 鈥淥rder dishes鈥 and 鈥淧ay the bill.鈥
He once studied food processing in a technical school in Zhengzhou, capital of central China鈥檚 Henan Province.
鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 find a suitable job due to my disability until I came here,鈥 she wrote down on a piece of paper.
鈥淢y colleagues are all the same as me. We help and encourage each other. I regained my confidence.鈥
Covering an area of 140 square meters, the Forgive Hotpot Restaurant opened in July. It has 12 employees, and among them, seven are hearing-impaired people like He.
The restaurant鈥檚 owner, Lu Lu, said: 鈥淚 named it 鈥楩orgive鈥 because forgiveness is a good quality in humans. The hearing-impaired should forgive their physical imperfection. As for those abled, we should be more accepting to the imperfect people and things in the world鈥.
The restaurant has become popular among local foodies thanks to its 鈥渟ilence.鈥 It usually serves more than 100 customers per day on weekdays and over 200 on weekends.
鈥淚 visit this hotpot restaurant because I鈥檓 moved by the staff鈥檚 optimism,鈥 said customer Qu Bo.
On a billboard numerous paper slips with encouraging words written by customers have been posted. Lu called it the 鈥渓ove billboard.鈥
Lu has been engaging in charity work since 2012 but realized work was a more sustainable way of helping the disabled.
So she came up with an idea of opening a hotpot restaurant with hearing-impaired employees.
鈥淚 chose hotpot because servers and customers do not need too much complex communication in such restaurants,鈥 she said.
However, she still has difficulties, with many employees lacking confidence.
She overcomes this by giving two hours counseling a day.
And to give them a sense of accomplishment, she has even allowed the hearing-impaired employees to hold a 20 percent stake in the restaurant.
Lu plans to open about 300 such kinds of restaurants in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province, recruiting more than 2,000 people with hearing impairments.
鈥淣ow there are numerous job applications, and my e-mail inbox is nearly full,鈥 Lu said.
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