Making a dumpling sounds easy until somebody tells you it needs 18 folds.

A Grade 12 student, Filipino, stepped onto a stage at the SMX Convention Center Manila and tried his hand at xiaolongbao, the Taiwanese soup dumpling whose delicate wrapper is traditionally pinched into a neat crown of folds.

But he had another surprise. He introduced himself. In Mandarin.

The student, who plans to apply to a university in Taiwan after senior high school, became an unlikely symbol of what Taiwan was trying to accomplish during a three-day food program in Manila: To make a neighboring country feel a little less foreign.

The Overseas Community Affairs Council’s 2026 International Tour of Taiwan Gourmet Cuisine, held 17 and 19 September during the Taiwan Expo in the Philippines, drew more than 350 people to cooking demos and tastings.

Taiwanese chef Kuo-chih Wen and assistant chef Jui-chang Chen served up some of Taiwan’s best-known exports: popcorn chicken, beef noodle soup, xiaolongbao, bubble milk tea, pan-fried dumplings and thick pork soup.

But some of the ingredients had traveled considerably less.

For the opening demonstration, vegetables grown in the Philippines with assistance from the Taiwan Technical Mission were turned into Taiwanese salted chicken and salad.

Grown here. Cooked Taiwanese. Eaten in Manila. Nobody needed a translator.

Okra, cucumber, bitter melon, tomatoes, cabbage and spring onions became an edible demonstration of agricultural cooperation between the two sides.

Taiwan’s representative in the Philippines, Wallace Minn-Gan Chow, said food offered people a direct way to encounter another country, while Philippine officials pointed to broader opportunities for cooperation in agriculture, trade, culture.

Visitors watched dumplings being folded, drank winter melon tea, sampled food straight from the chefs and tried the dishes themselves.

Filipino food creator The Chui Show brought the experience to an online audience.