CIVILIAN . CHANG, JEAN

MALE

HOMOSEXUAL

TWENTY FIVE

13 NOVEMBER 1986

TAIWANESE

MANDARIN, ENGLISH, FRENCH

CHANG, A-WEN

0.50

Civilian

None

Summoning Necklace

9/10/13

TERRESA

ALEXUS LOVELL
AMANDA SMITH
ERIC KOBAYASHI
JEAN CHANG
KEI TAKAHASHI
NATHANIEL BRANDT
TSUYU SHIELDS
VENEDICT CHAPLIN

YES

SAITOU YAKUMO from SHINREI TANTEI YAKUMO

Jean is the owner and head pastry chef of Belle Ile Patisserie, a small pastry shop located on the outskirts of Chinatown. He treats the store “better than his family” according to his sister and has more or less devoted his life to ensuring that his business is a success. Even during his free time, he is constantly thinking of new recipes and ways to improve. The store only opened a couple years ago but thanks to good planning and word of mouth advertising, Jean is fast becoming one of the most famous bakeries in the area.

He currently lives in a flat above the store and can easily be considered middle class since he has saved so much over the years.

Unlike in Taiwan where Jean is considered tall for a man, in the United States Jean is considered average height at a about 5 feet and 10 inches. His hair is usually unkempt and needs to be brushed. He cares so little about his hair that the most he does with it is wash it to keep it clean and cut it when it starts to get in his eyes. That is probably also why unlike many of his peers, he has not dyed it some strange shade and kept it a natural black.

While Jean was born with brown eyes, after high school, people that see him notice that he has one red eye and one brown eye. After an accident in high school, Jean now suffers from early onset presbyopia, the inability to see things that are too close to his face. Because of that, Jean uses monovision, or wearing only one contact lens, to correct it. It used to bother him at first but then he began ordering red, prescription contact lenses in order to make a lasting impression and has never been happier.

The only noticeable markings on Jean's body are a scar near the edge of his hairline and a tattoo at the base of his neck. The scar was from the same accident in high school that messed up his vision. On the other hand, the tattoo came from a night of drinking and a discussion between him and his friends about identifying bodies after people have died. Jean hopes that with the characters of his name tattooed on his body (張嘉雯), it will be easy to figure out who he is if he is ever in a horrible accident or murdered.

{ stubborn } Jean is one persistent son-of-a-bitch. If he weren't, he probably wouldn't have gotten so far today. He is extremely strong willed and ambitious. If he does not get his way, he will become extremely frustrated but he rarely gives up. Case in point, his prized bakery. It was through hard work and a lot of insistence that he was able to open his own bakery. When he first announced to his parents that he wanted to pursue a career baking sweets instead of office work, a war broke out in his household. While he fought for his future as a pastry chef, they vehemently argued against it. When it came down to it, it became a battle of wills between him and his parents. Needless to say, he won.

{ self-centered } Jean has an ego and it is huge. No one understands how or where the ego developed but most would assume that it was toward the end of high school or when he was in France. Either way, his narcissism is undeniable. His looks have contributed to this but most of his pride stems from how far he got on his own. It took a lot of talent and hard work for a first generation Taiwanese to get to America and Jean would be damned if he allowed anyone to tell him otherwise. Already, his salary is nearly triple what his parents make and his business is only continuing to grow. His pride is directly proportional to the size of his business so as sales grow so will his ego. He is confident that nothing will stop him from success.

{ realistic } Part of what makes Jean so great with business is that he is realistic. He understands what is and is not possible. He will weigh his options and always go towards what he know is safe. Of course, this also means that he has no time for fairy tales and all those fictional books and comics that his friends used to read. When they wanted to buy video games, he wanted to save his money for the future. When they dreamed of being superstars, Jean was already planning his future investments. That's not to say that he does not find them entertaining, he just knows that the average person will never be more than the average person and as a result does not overstep boundaries. Even today, Jean has made sure that his plans are reasonable. Who needs to be president when his goal to amass a realistic fortune and be able to afford two homes, stocks, and a car is still perfectly within in reach?

{ dedicated } Despite his extreme love of money, Jean actually does love baking and is very passionate about what he does. If he didn't, he would have just went back to that office job that his parents wanted him to have. Every year, he takes a week off to visit France in order to visit his teacher and learn new techniques. He works hard to make sure that the finished product is the best that they can be. Everything is made from fresh ingredients in order to uphold the standards he learned in France. If they were not perfect, Jean believes that he would be shaming his teachers, his parents, and himself.

{ critical } If it’s not up to par, it is unacceptable. This is the reason Jean does so much of the work in the bakery and why hired help often leave very quickly. Jean has little tolerance for mistakes and is a perfectionist to the highest degree. He likes to compare himself to Gordon Ramsey in his pursuit of perfection. If the dish is not perfect, Jean refuses to put it out for display. The only difference between him and Gordon Ramsey is that instead of throwing the food away he donates it to shelters. He knows what it is like to go hungry and despite not being proud of the outcome, he would sooner give the food away than throw it out.

{ charismatic } Jean is one of those people that can naturally attract others without trying very hard. His natural magnetism is something that he is quite proud of and he often uses it to his advantage. He stalwartly believes in this natural talent. If you couple that with his extroverted personality and his fantastic people skills, you get a brilliant negotiator and business man. It is with his charisma and his tact with people that allowed him to constantly achieve his goals. All it takes is the right right strategy and application of words. He has never failed. Or at least that’s what he likes to tell people.

{ distant } Although Jean is constantly surrounded by people, he rarely has many close friends. He is close to his sister but that’s family. And his obsession with success and money often means that he isolates himself from others in favor of his job. He constantly tells himself that he will be okay as long as his future is stable. Sadly, that really doesn’t help him during lonely nights where he has no one that he can call up and talk to. Now that he is in America, the work more or less keeps him busy enough that he has no time for such thoughts. He tries not to worry too much about relationships and assumes that some gold digger will come along eventually. Even so, he understands that it’s not healthy and that he should probably try letting people in once in a while.

{ level-headed } Jean has learned through years of training and the pressure of the high class pastry world that one must never buckle under pressure. To panic is the worst thing that a person could possibly do and would more than likely cause problems than help. Jean knows that if something happens then the first thing one need to do is fix it and not cry about it because then nothing will ever get done. He keeps calm for the most part and, if anything, pressure only forces him to work faster and more efficiently. When he does panic, he tries not to show it. His pride will not allow him to show weakness.

{ playful } Despite his obsession with his business that leaves him little time to worry about much else, Jean actually has a very mischievous and playful side. He does not play video games or have time for fantasy and childish whims but he has a love of mind games. If you give him the opportunity and the means, he will troll you. If you provide a challenge, he will stubbornly pursue you until the ends of the earth just to prove himself as the cleverer one. People that have known him for a long time worry what kind of CEO he will become when he actually expands his business.

JiaWen Chang was the first born child to the very proud and honorable Chang family. The Chang family was once a family of great wealth and fortune but lost most of it a couple generations back when their timber business failed. His grandparents were, for the most part, uneducated and relied solely on the traditional teachings of their ancestors. As a result, JiaWen was a boy that grew up and was influenced heavily by traditional Chinese customs.

JiaWen was the first born child of three. He will become the only male child born into his family and was held to a high regard because of it. The day he was born, a large celebration was thrown in honor of the first born son and family across the tiny island country was alerted that the main family had someone to carry on the family line. His grandmother, a devout Buddhist and believer that their family would one day be raised from destitution believed that JiaWen would be the solution to all their problems and strongly emphasized ancient customs when raising him. Because of that, JiaWen was not named for the first month. He was referred to as ‘the baby’ and ‘the boy’ until he was brought to the medium to have his spirit read.

The medium was given JiaWen’s exact time of birth and from it she predicted his future and gave him a name and prediction. The woman predicted that the child would have great luck and be extremely wealthy in the future. This pleased the family greatly. However, they then heard the name that was bestowed on the child and that was when the things became a bit awry. The medium had divined the name JiaWen for the child which was a perfectly fine name – if you were a girl. The name “JiaWen” was not only extremely feminine, it meant ‘colorful clouds.’ The Chang family was not pleased. That sort of name was hardly the kind of moniker they wanted to give to their future money maker. Unfortunately, they could not argue with the medium who was extremely reputable.

JiaWen grew up, unsurprisingly, as the not spoiled male heir to a family that had little to nothing. As much as his parents wanted to give him everything in life, they could not because they had so little. They could feed him and buy him candy once in a while but they were only just getting by. Thankfully, JiaWen was too young at the time to truly care.

His first sister was born when he turned five and began elementary school. At that point in life, JiaWen began to understand hardship. Because his sister was born into an already poor family, JiaWen began to find himself going hungry from time to time. The family obviously did not have the means to raise two children but tried their best to do so anyway. He could complain and beg his parents all he wanted but they could not do anything with their current income. His parents explained it to him briefly assuming that he did not understand at his age. JiaWen took it to heart and began to learn about the importance of food and money.

The older he grew, the more he applied himself to figuring out how to make enough income to at least feed himself. If his parents could not feed him, then he would feed himself, but to do that he would need money. At first, he tried to find a job. Sadly, no business was willing to hire an eight year old. He then tried hunting for money that people may have dropped along the roads but that worked about as well as you’d expect. JiaWen even considered begging and stealing but considered such actions beneath him. He was destined for greatness and greatness did not resort to such tricks. His grandmother told him so. When he was ten, JiaWen discovered what he could sell: himself. In return for doing summer homework for his classmates, JiaWen charged them a fee for each homework booklet he completed. His business was a success and the teachers never found out. By the time JiaWen graduated at the age of eleven, he had already made a name and a steady income for himself.

Once graduated from elementary school, JiaWen moved onto a public middle school. He watched the classmates that he had completed homework for move onto private middle schools that he could only dream of attending. JiaWen was smart but he did not have the opportunity to use it. The middle school he went on to attend was second rate at best and did not challenge him. JiaWen knew he could do better. He knew he could excel in a much better setting. Too bad he didn’t have the money.

In his second year of junior high school, JiaWen’s youngest sister was born and the Chang family suddenly experienced an economic upturn. His father received a promotion at work that came with a huge pay raise. JiaWen found that though he could not go to the private school, he no longer had to work to feed himself. Despite that, he found himself continuing with his business in order to save money for a rainy day. He did not want to experience such hunger again.

In the third year of JiaWen’s junior high school career, JiaWen received a confession from a girl and got his first girlfriend. He did not feel anything for her but everyone else was doing it so why not? Their first date was to a local pastry shop in town. JiaWen found himself fascinated by the cakes not only because he noted the amount of business they received but also because he had never had good pastries before in his life. Other than the candy and traditional Chinese pastries his parents used to give him, he had never had Western styled cakes. He and his girlfriend broke up after that date because he wanted them to split the bill but JiaWen discovered a newfound love of cake. He would revisit the pastry shop whenever he got the chance and decided that to open a cake shop would be his goal in life.

He presented this idea to his parents at the end of Junior High and demanded that he be allowed to go to the famous Kai-ping Culinary School in Taipei. His parents denied his request, arguing that he should go for a stable job as an office worker. JiaWen stubbornly refused. He presented facts and his plan to run a successful bakery in the future but his parents still found his dream to be unrealistic. In the end, JiaWen sweet talked his grandmother who then forced his parents to give in. JiaWen was headed to the capital city of Taipei to begin training as a pastry chef.

The training in and stress to become a pastry chef was harder than JiaWen imagined. The competition at the school was fierce and because he came from a poor background, JiaWen found himself behind in comparison to his peers. While his classmates went night market shopping in their free time, JiaWen stayed back to study and practice the techniques necessary for his success.

In Taiwan, most high schools require students to choose an extracurricular activity. JiaWen chose baseball because he at least knew what that was. JiaWen could never say he was amazing at sports but he was descent. His average skills made him boring in the eyes of many but at least he fulfilled his extracurricular assignment. One day, while on the field practicing, JiaWen was up at bat. The pitcher lost control of the ball and the ball went straight for his head. JiaWen had his helmet on but it was knocked off and JiaWen’s head collided with his baseball bat in a freak accident. Not only did he get a concussion and require stitches, but he was diagnosed with early onset presbyopia. JiaWen was excused from all sports activities from then on.

Kai-Ping Culinary High School has a special system where chefs from around the world come to their school to choose students as their disciples. JiaWen had worked hard through the years and managed to charm a graduate from the high school to take him in. He was then whisked away to France where his new teacher had set up shop and trained with him for the next five years. There, JiaWen perfected his craft and learned the ins and outs of owning a successful restaurant. It was also in France that JiaWen learned English, French, and was given the name Jean. It was certainly easier for the French people to pronounce and understand.

At the age of twenty three, JiaWen, now predominantly Jean, bid goodbye to his teacher and moved to the United States as a first generation immigrant. There, he opened up his first pastry shop and named it after his home country. Jean’s plans have gone extremely well thus far and he doesn’t foresee things changing any time soon. Enter, Fate and Destiny to fuck things up.

-His favorite dessert is tiramisu. He enjoys experimenting with the recipe to create new variations to test out on people.

-After he dumped his first and last girlfriend, Jean found himself strangely attracted to a male classmate also on the baseball team. He later came to the conclusion that he was gay. His parents and grandparents still do not know he’s gay. He doesn’t plan on telling them anytime soon, either.

-The only pranks that Jean considers to be off limits are when people mess with food. Never mess with food in front of him unless you want him to truly be angry. A childhood of never having enough to eat has taught him the value of eating and feeling full.