San Francisco (CNN) — Randy Lau will never forget his 33rd birthday. Two and a half months after launching “Made With Lau,” he was “stoked” to find his Chinese family cooking channel had reached its first milestone: accumulating enough subscribers and viewing time to start making money through YouTube.
Their first check: $3.57.
“I was like, ‘Yes, we made it!'” Randy says with a laugh. “I was just really excited to see that, because it was such a promising signal, that we’re onto something here.”
In less than two years, “Made With Lau” became one of the fastest-growing multilingual Chinese cooking destinations online, racking up more than a quarter-million followers on TikTok and 700,000 subscribers on YouTube.
A thoughtfully curated mix of traditional Cantonese home cooking and familiar restaurant dishes, the channel has turned into something far bigger — and more meaningful — than anything the Laus ever expected.
Made with love
With more than 50 years of experience cooking professionally in China and the United States, Chung Sun Lau, known as “Daddy Lau,” had plenty of culinary experience — and since retiring, free time as well.
Randy had always dreamed of documenting his father’s recipes. Stuck at home in the San Francisco Bay Area in the spring of 2020, he realized the time was right, especially with his first child on the way.
“I just wanted to spend time with my dad, connect with my culture, and just be able to pass something down,” Randy tells CNN.
The chef was quick to get on board.
“A lot of people love to cook, but they don’t know how, especially Chinese food. So I want to show them all my knowledge, my skill,” Daddy Lau explains, via his wife, Jenny Lau, translating. “I want to make this video to pass to the next generation.”
Centering the project on food made total sense for another reason; it was a bridge in the Lau household.
“I’ve always had a language barrier with my dad,” says Randy, who can hold basic conversations in Cantonese but does not consider himself fluent. “I never really doubted that he loved me because he’d always make this delicious food for me. So that kind of transcended language — food was our love language.”
Inclusion and accessibility were priorities for Randy. He refused to dub over his father to preserve his speech and personality, opting instead to subtitle their entire videos in English and Chinese, mainly so Daddy Lau could follow along, too. </…….
Source: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/iyw-wellness-made-with-lau-chinese-cooking-youtube/index.html