Blog Post #1:How a Dish can spark your own Cultural Renaissance (Revised)

It was not surprising to discover Singapore’s national dish of Hainanese chicken rice to be one of the most popular dishes in the northern Singapore’s border. Chicken rice is available all over Malaysia, and it was introduced to me when I first moved there. Like its name suggests, the dish’s main ingredients are chicken and rice. The rice has to be cooked with the “essentials” of the chicken, which mean the boiled broth of the chicken and butter in order to give the rice a sweet taste. As a complement to the rice, the chicken has to be plunged into the delightful brown “kicap” sauce. This mouth-watering dish is not only food to me, but little did I know, it has actually played an important role in my life. It has helped me to grow as a person as I learned how to appreciate and tolerate different cultural backgrounds, even encouraging me to understand different cultures.

Chicken rice may seem to be just like any other ordinary dishes, but to me, it is significant. This chicken rice story brings me back to my high school years. When I first moved to Malaysia, I was scared of how life might be there. Questions like how will I survive in Malaysia, how will I adapt to its nature and how will I make friends started to arise as moving to a foreign country was a big change to me. The most difficult part was getting accustomed to the different racial backgrounds that exist in Malaysia. In Malaysia, I attended to the International School of Kuala Lumpur. As a new international student, the first day of school is always the scariest part of the school year. I was worried, nervous and lost. Furthermore, the fact that everyone had their own “cliques” did not make the process of making friends any easier. As the bell strikes for lunch break, I went to the sophomore’s deck, hoping to find a friendly face. Just then, an Asian classmate of mine approached me and asked if I wanted to join him to get some chicken rice. Not knowing what chicken rice was, I hesitantly agreed to his invitation.

The kind fellow brought me to the chicken rice stall, which was situated by the roadside, across the school. The place seemed unhygienic as there were flies flying around the leftover foods and stray cats crawling under the table across my shoes. I was too disturbed by the surroundings that it affected my first impression of the chicken rice. The chicken rice didn’t look appetizing at all and I was afraid that my food might have been contaminated. However, as I chewed on my first bite of the succulent steamed chicken and rice, my worries were put aside as the chicken rice was just delicious! Words could not describe how I felt at that exact moment. The only word that came to my mind was scrumptious! As I was savoring each bite of the chicken rice, I got to know the nice fellow. He had the I-told-you-so look on his face as I told him how delicious the chicken rice was. Sitting across a completely new person would create a rather uncomfortable situation. However, it was different with this fellow. He made me feel comfortable and it was as though I was chatting with a long lost friend. We may not have known each other that well, but we sure had one thing in common, our love for chicken rice. Gradually, our visit to the chicken rice stall after school became a daily habit. Each trip strengthened our friendship bond and as different people joined the visit, my network of friends continued to grow. Even though there were some limitations to the bonds we had made through our constant trip to the chicken rice stall, the common love for chicken rice made the fabrication of friendship a lot smoother despite our different cultural backgrounds. Chicken rice acts as a cohesion factor as it bonds people of different racial and cultural backgrounds together. I realized that, when it comes to meeting people of different cultures, I try to connect with them through the comprehension of food.

The chicken rice did not just break the cultural barrier, but it also encouraged me to try and understand different cultures through food. Motivated by the exquisite taste of chicken rice, I challenged myself to delve deeper into the source of this wonderful dish: Chinese cuisine. My love for food has always been centered around Korean cuisine, which is mainly based on garlic and spice. But I figured that there would be more dishes as exotic and unique as chicken rice to be discovered. Chicken rice reminds me that one should try an unfamiliar food before succumbing to preconceived negative impressions about it. Chicken rice had initiated my adventure to understand Chinese cuisine better. With the abundance of Chinese restaurants in my area, my search for Chinese food was relatively easy. However, acclimatizing to the taste of Chinese food was harder. The second challenge after the chicken rice I tried was shark’s fin soup. The traditional dish was served in a very contrasting environment compared to the chicken rice stall; it was in a luxurious hotel restaurant. All the spoons, chopsticks were neatly placed, the table was covered with a fancy tablecloth and the waiters were waiting for our orders in uniforms. Conversely, my high expectation of shark’s fin soup turned out to be a disappointment. Its stickiness and the thickness had strayed my tasting sensory away from enjoying the consumption of this exotic dish. These characteristics prevented me from enjoying my bowl of soup, as they were unusual qualities to a Korean’s palate, which lacked the stickiness in the soup. Although my first attempt to appreciate shark’s fin soup was a failure, my exposure with the soup was inevitable as it was one of the most popular Chinese dishes. As most Chinese waiters recommended shark’s fins soup, I became more accustomed to the exposure of the stickiness of the soup. Eventually, shark’s fins soup had made me realize the sticky and thick consistency of the soup made it the more special, almost unique. I was impressed with the rich texture of the soup and ate faster to taste more of the fibrous shark fin and bits of crabmeat. Gradually, my initial affection towards Chinese cuisine grew. However, my adventure did not end here, as chicken rice is a fusion of Malaysian and Chinese cuisine. I had the desire and hunger to experience more Malaysian dishes, which turned out to be surprisingly appetizing as well. I had no problems in trying and enjoying traditional dishes such as nasi lemak, roti canai, and mee goreng. My experiences with these foreign dishes, helped me realize how accepting other cultures would sometimes be more strenuous than expected but if one tries hard enough, one can start understanding other cultures and even start loving them. Chicken rice had ignited my constant longing for new, different, extraordinary foods and also learned to understands the difference in culture through food. Chicken rice had ignited my constant longing for new, different, extraordinary foods and also learned to understand the difference in culture through food.

The taste of chicken race has helped shape my life’s journey. It had eased my transition to a foreign country as it helped me adapt to the new surroundings. Through this dish, I was able to establish strong international friendship bonds that still last, and I also experienced the significance of food in linking different people of cultural backgrounds all around the world. This shows that food acts as a medium of cohesion bringing people together despite individual’s differences in terms of race, culture, and religion. In addition, due to this remarkable dish, I was motivated to try new dishes from different origins. It was not just an appreciation for different cultural dishes, but I was also able to enlarge my scope of cultural understanding. There is a saying, “Always try something new, and you will find surprises awaiting you.” With that said, I will always remember that phrase as I truly believe it, based on my chicken rice experience.

Explanation for Images:

Image1: Steamed chicken rice

Image2: Some close friends with me at the chicken rice stall

Image3: Shark's fin soup

Citation

Image1: ZiJun, photographer. “Hainanese Chicken Rice.” Photograph. 2007. From SingaporeFoodRecipes. http://www.singaporefoodrecipes.com/ (accessed September 1, 2009)

Image2: Own photograph of “Us waiting for Chicken Rice”

Image3: Camemberu, photographer “Shark’s Fin Soup.” Photograph. 2009. From Camemberu.com http://www.camemberu.com/2009/01/sharks-fin-soup-to-eat-or-not-to-eat.html (accessed September 3, 2009 )