Profile‘Spinning is such a great release’: spin-teaching, food-blogging lawyer Joyce To wants to keep doing all three
- Joyce To started her food blog in the UK but it was in Hong Kong that it took off and she began getting event invites – ‘it was a window into a whole new life’
- Stressful corporate jobs and spinning go hand in hand she says – and she enjoys the activity so much she became an instructor
I was born in 1996 in Hong Kong. I’m an only child and at home a lot of attention was focused on me. My dad was an engineer and had his own firm. My mum worked when I was young but stopped when I reached high school and watched my every move.
I went through the ESF (English Schools Foundation) system, from kindergarten to Kennedy School and then West Island School. I was an above-average student, but I wasn’t anything special.
School was a place to get my extracurriculars in. I ran cross-country in school and outside I did piano and Mandarin, the usual Asian extracurriculars.
On Sunday mornings, my dad drove me – with my mum in the back seat – to Beas River Equestrian Centre (in Sheung Shui) to go horse riding. After that, he’d drive me to Festival Walk (in Kowloon Tong) for four hours of ice skating.
My body should have already broken down by the time I was 13.
Proper behaviour
I was surrounded by English-speaking people – friends at school, my helper at home – so there was no need to speak Cantonese. My parents spoke to me in Cantonese and I’d reply in English.