about
i grew up on Turtle Island, raised by parents who themselves were born on an island that was then part of British colonial Malaya, and is now known as Singapore. my mom spoke Hokkien growing up, and my dad also spoke a version of it mixed up with Malay and some other Chinese dialects. while most of the more affluent Chinese in Singapore spoke Mandarin, most working class people in Singapore spoke Hokkien. many that ended up in this part of Southeast Asia were part of the vast Fujian diaspora that poured out of port cities like Zhangzhou for centuries.
'jiak' means 'eat' in Hokkien. it's something i said to my grandparents, or aunts and uncles, out of respect before taking to my own food. it's also a building block of many Singlish terms today. for example, 'jiak zua' (direct translation: eat snake) means to be lazy or slack from one's duty. i have no idea why, or what the story is behind that. i do know i myself am a slacker so identify with the term. also there's a 'jiak kantang' (direct translation: eat potato) which basically is a way of calling people white ('westernized') or pretentious. growing up on Turtle Island, i have low cred among my aunts and uncles when it comes to being Chinese, as i never learnt to speak the language (in any dialect) growing up. an embarrassment of one's own culture, something colonial administrations worked very hard to enculturate in their non-white subjects (see Cecil Clementi's suppression of Tamil and Chinese language schools in Singapore), afforded a generational neglect in learning such a language. the only Chinese i do know is related to food.
colonialism, and the perpetuation of settler society today on Turtle Island, fails to ever be justified, yet i live here and many days don't know what to do with myself except to try and stand in solidarity with Indigenous peoples whenever they ask for such solidarity. i know many settlers today on Turtle Island are immigrants from every part of the globe, often themselves once subjects of European colonizers. the small silver lining is that so many culinary traditions are brought into a thriving metropolis like Tkaranto. people here are afforded the opportunity to try incredible food from traditions springing from so many different sorts of geographies and histories. yet there's always a darkness that unsettles all of it, and i hope some things i write about on this blog can attend to some of the more discomforting aspects that food can provoke contemplation of. mostly though, this site is just an outlet to jot some frenzied notes down on the stuff i put in my mouth for pleasure.
'jiak' means 'eat' in Hokkien. it's something i said to my grandparents, or aunts and uncles, out of respect before taking to my own food. it's also a building block of many Singlish terms today. for example, 'jiak zua' (direct translation: eat snake) means to be lazy or slack from one's duty. i have no idea why, or what the story is behind that. i do know i myself am a slacker so identify with the term. also there's a 'jiak kantang' (direct translation: eat potato) which basically is a way of calling people white ('westernized') or pretentious. growing up on Turtle Island, i have low cred among my aunts and uncles when it comes to being Chinese, as i never learnt to speak the language (in any dialect) growing up. an embarrassment of one's own culture, something colonial administrations worked very hard to enculturate in their non-white subjects (see Cecil Clementi's suppression of Tamil and Chinese language schools in Singapore), afforded a generational neglect in learning such a language. the only Chinese i do know is related to food.
colonialism, and the perpetuation of settler society today on Turtle Island, fails to ever be justified, yet i live here and many days don't know what to do with myself except to try and stand in solidarity with Indigenous peoples whenever they ask for such solidarity. i know many settlers today on Turtle Island are immigrants from every part of the globe, often themselves once subjects of European colonizers. the small silver lining is that so many culinary traditions are brought into a thriving metropolis like Tkaranto. people here are afforded the opportunity to try incredible food from traditions springing from so many different sorts of geographies and histories. yet there's always a darkness that unsettles all of it, and i hope some things i write about on this blog can attend to some of the more discomforting aspects that food can provoke contemplation of. mostly though, this site is just an outlet to jot some frenzied notes down on the stuff i put in my mouth for pleasure.
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