First hour of 20 hours of travel before I get to eat delicious food, enjoy tropical weather and see my loved ones.
I’ve decided my first meal when I arrive will be ‘zi char’. Zi char is 煮炒, also known as ‘dai pai dong’ in Hong Kong, the type of Chinese high heat cooking that warms the hearts of pyromaniacs.
Until then, there’s TSA, airport experiences, airplane food (thankfully not terrible on Singapore Airlines), and travel anxiety (I hate covid-era travel, obviously)
So whenever I read someone in the west write a recipe that calls for ‘sambal’ and they mean ‘sambal oelek’, I get very irrationally angry. Sambal should NOT be sour. It should not have only vinegar notes. It should arguably not have vinegar at all!
As I scroll through #Substack, which is VERY North American, and read their content ... I keep wondering: Do US folks think about perspectives beyond their own?
The answer doesn't seem to be yes 😆
I don't blame US folk in any way. It's just that we Internationals know a lot about the #US and talk, write & even discuss their issues with them, but we don't get that in return.
Interacting on a platform heavily dominated by one #culture can be an experience.
So because I have visible tattoos and I speak the equivalent of a 10 year old’s Indonesian, and all my friends here are Chinese Surabayans, people basically read me as ‘dumb ass local kid who went to Singapore or the US to study and now can’t speak properly’, but maybe that’s better than being coded as a foreigner
When I was growing up I was a devout student of southeast Asian colonial and post-colonial history but my studies largely focused on the British empire. I am now spending my free time reading about the Dutch.
Oh look my very first CW police! My answer is - no I shall not 🖕It is not my job to take care of your tender, easily offended self. We #Malaysians love to celebrate food and will not hide #MakanApaToday to cater to your tender dietary sensibilities.
If you are offended by the #Food I eat there is the mute and block button and do kindly unfollow.
People can be so ridiculous 🤣 Those 10 calories used to type that message could have been used for something better.
There is this news floating around - "Asians are less ‘humane’ – Ukrainian security chief" where he says Russians are North Asians and thus less humane. For me personally the anger at being calles inhuman is infinitesmally less than the joy of someone acknowledging North Asia exists. 🤣 Everyone talks about South Asia, South East Asia and "Middle East" Asia but never about North Asia or West Asia. We have one direction reclaimed friends. Let us fight to let every call Middle East Asia what it actually is - West Asia. 🤣 Our Asia is not some freak continent without North and West.
I found myself agreeing a lot with this Chinese Cooking Demystified video. The southern Chinese (especially tribal) foods near the border with Southeast Asia has a lot more in common with Lao or northern Thai food than with say, Shandong food (which in turn more closely resembles Korean food). The idea of nation states falls flat in the culinary sense.
Coming from a culture of ‘eating street food is cheap and tasty, cooking for yourself is expensive’ (and I think that’s true of Singapore / Malaysia / Thailand / Taiwan and lots of places), I still can’t wrap my head around the US’s ‘eating out will ruin you, you need to cook every single meal to exist’
I don’t really understand the math here, but it has been true in my experience. So it’s like, hard for me to balance my frugal goals with my ‘I need many different types of food’ needs
This month is my 5th wedding anniversary. My wife and I grew up in conservative Abrahamic faiths in Southeast Asia and, somehow when we found each other all hell did not break loose; our families accepted us, and now we are able to build a life we could have only dreamed off, far far away from home.
The Kiwis married us, and the Californians gave us a home. We are thankful. Immigrant life has been immensely difficult, but ultimately worth it.
Another film / airport update: Changi Airport terminal 4 scans bags immediately after immigration (other terminals sometimes defer that to at the boarding gate). Spoke with an officer, he said they were happy to hand check but I was in line specifically at one of the lower powered film safe scanners (had a huge sign that said film safe on it), so I just went ahead with the scan. Will share what happens when I develop the film!
Hi there, I am looking to follow personal #blogs written by #SouthEastAsians, other #Asians, #Africans. Basically not Western. Nothing wrong with the West just that I have a huge RSS feed full of US, UK blogs. I want to diversify my feed.
Apparently, Malaysians like to #blog about 3 things: Food, politics & money 😂
I prefer genuinely personal blogs that are slice of life stuff. If you know of any please recommend to me! 🙏
One of the saddest things about leaving Singapore for the U.S. is, not only does McDonalds suck they also don’t have curry sauce. Which makes it impossible for me to eat nuggets
"It's a good idea to put your country's flag in your profile so they can quickly know where you're from. IE, don't presume you're from a certain country."
Me, wondering if they'd recognise my country's flag or ... think it's American
So people love or hate durians, but I think most people haven't been introduced to durians properly. There's many different types, with different textures / flavors, even smell. I don't love durian the way people from home do, but I can appreciate an excellent one from time to time. My favorite type is 'Red Prawn'. You can't get it outside of Malaysia/ SG. Many growers have farm to table cafes for durians and it's great & they even run durian classes
One of the biggest culture shifts, in having grown up in Singapore and Malaysia and having lived in Thailand and Indonesia, is that I think I can count with my hands the no of not great meals I’ve had. In my entire existence over there.
Like, almost every meal is either pretty good or exceptional. So I think when I first left that region, I was not used to the idea of food not having to be exceptional all the time. That people save that for special occasions. It truly spoils you
For Asians, especially #TootSEA folks, Kishore's talking points will be familiar. But Western readers will find it confronting as it pops many ideological bubbles & it'll hit at the ego.
It is refreshing to read geo #politics from a SEA perspective. I'm used to Western narratives, so to see my thoughts represented here is quite validating. This was written in the Trump era, so it's painful to see his warnings come to pass especially with China, Ukraine & Russia😞
When I worked in Indonesia, lots of folks would read about founders talking about the times they had to ‘eat ramen to survive’ and we’d all be like, so? Indomie IS delicious! Even if I had lots of money, I’d still be eating Indomie!
Then I had to explain to them that not everyone has Indomie as default ramen, and that instant ramen in some places can be.. awful
I don't think this would be true in Southeast Asia just because the industrialization of food is relatively new, and people still have a lot of traditional cooking skills
I was vacationing with a friend on Scotland island, off Sydney, #Australia in this amazing B&B. We were having breakfast at the verandah when the host approached us hesitantly.
"I hope I am not offending you if I ask this, but we were curious why you were speaking #English after we have left."
If I was in Singapore or Malaysia right now, I would have no shortage of delicious food, with minimal effort (well that’s actually how it is for me every single day there, not just during the festivities).
So now I have to make my own.
Today I’m going to attempt to make pineapple tarts from scratch. Again, never had to do it before (every family member has their own specialty and they give it to me to pick the best).
Being home means breakfast that makes sense to me. (I don’t need to hear about how you can’t imagine eating such a thing, I can’t imagine eating donuts, cereals and fruit for breakfast either! Team savory and spicy breakfast forever)
My all time favorite laksa store in Singapore is Wei Yi in Tanglin Halt. In the Bay Area, Noodle Station in Daly City does one that is very similar (better than the Singaporean and Malaysian Bay Area places doing laksa)
Desperately looking for a way to DIY our own Indomie seasoning from scratch because ‘export version Indomie’ (the ones sold outside Indonesia) are not as good as the original.
They’re just.. nowhere as spicy, or umami?! (The export version that says hot and spicy is closer than the normal one, but also has the same problem)