Changing educational priorities are reflected both in the literature and the models that seek to describe initial teachers' professional formation and learning. However, do new teachers' experiences conform to these models? A sampling of Hong Kong secondary school teachers over their first year as full-time teachers provides data from questionnaires and longitudinal interviews supporting a variety of processes and related models which highlight that becoming a teacher reflects individual differences. To account for this array of individual differences an interaction model is proposed that reflects the Chinese cultural context of this study--the "dim-sum" model--a model that sites initial teachers' professional formation and learning within a multi-perspective and interactive learning context. (Contains 4 tables, 1 figure and 6 notes.)