Welcome! In our SPICE programme, we’re going to look into Food Heritage, specifically the Peranakan culture! We’ll going to document our process of learning the Peranakan culture according to EDICT here. Enjoy!
EDICT stands for…
Empathise
Before starting, we first tried to understand our audience, which are our schoolmates. We’ve decided to ask our senior for her opinion as well as use a google form to ask others on their take. In the form, we first asked if they had eaten Peranakan food before. Not only that, we also wanted to know their opinions on what they associated Peranakan culture with when they hear the word ‘peranakan’, also requesting their take on what they understood of the Peranakan culture and food. Lastly, we asked if they felt that there was a segregation between the different cultures in Singapore.
For our senior, she knows that there are 4 main ethnic groups in Singapore, Chinese being the majority. She is also aware that old shophouses, temples etc. are part of the heritage. She feels that hawker centres bring the ethnic groups together, but although there seems like there is no tension or gap between the races, she senses that there is still a bit of segregation.
As for the google form responses…
-Out of the 10 responses we received, 90% of them have eaten Peranakan food before.
-As for what they associated the term “Peranakan” with, 5 mentioned specifically Malay+Chinese, while 2 mentioned mixed races, while another mentioned Malaysian Chinese. One of the remaining 2 mentioned Food, Kebaya, family members, while the other responded with beaded slippers.
^ from this we can tell that a common association for Peranakan is a mix of the Malay and Chinese culture, but it is not entirely correct as there is also a mix of Indian culture as well. A minority is aware of some unique areas in the Peranakan culture, such as beaded slippers and the kebaya.
-When asked on how much they knew about their knowledge on Peranakan culture, majority responded with “not much” or “little”.
^ this gives us an idea of how much we need to educate or inspire our audience regarding the culture
-Regarding Peranakan food, more than half also responded with “not much”. A few mentioned “spices”, “not easy to cook”, “spices from the Malays and the Indians, also incorporating Chinese ways of cooking, like steaming or stir-frying” and “there are Malay and Chinese styles of cooking and food inside”.
^ this also allows us to be aware that some have slightly more knowledge regarding the food as they mention how the few cultures are mixed together such that the cooking methods and the ingredients they use are infused into one.
Lastly, when asked about segregation between the cultures, half said “no”, as they feel that Singapore is a multi racial society that accepts all races and ensures that all races receive equal treatment. Not only that, the races in Singapore live harmoniously together and one can usually see different people of different races hanging out together.
However, there is one who says “half yes and half no” as there are places designed especially for certain races, but HDBs have all races. Another mentioned that there is actually a separation as many talk about racial harmony but sometimes many still exclude other races. One respondent, in particular, wrote a long response. Here’s what that one wrote: “I think that there is a little separation. I do not have many chances to interact with students of other races as most of my classmates have always been Chinese. I am also in a SAP school now and rarely get the chance to meet people of different races. I think that people are willing to befriend others but I think that there a few chances for Singaporean students to do so. We also feel a little hesitant about participating in other culture’s activities (e.g. Malay dance class) alone as we will feel a little awkward. This further discouraged us from making new friends of other races. I think that once we overcome that stigma, there will definitely be more unity and closeness between the races in Singapore. “
From this particular question, we can tell that some feel that there is a segregation while the others don’t, but personally we feel that the respondent who mentioned about Singaporean students having few chances to befriend people of different races especially in a SAP school has a big impact. We can use this information and encourage our audience to step forward and not be hesitant to mix with other cultures. This way, the segregation between the different cultures in Singapore slowly fade away as long as Singapore students especially those in SAP schools are willing to accept other cultures and be proactive in befriend those of a different race. We can also reach out to our audience and encourage them to accept other races for every race is unique, expanding their social circle to consist of people from different races.
Now that we are aware of how much audience knows about the Peranakan culture as well the racial harmony in Singapore, we will be able to relate to them more and come up with ideas better suited towards them.
The key elements of the problem is that our audience may not understand much about cultures and their practices other than the Chinese culture. They may also not be willing to accept others from a certain culture or are hesitant to befriend them. Through this project, we will try to educate and inspire our schoolmates, allowing them to understand other cultures better, trying our best to encourage the acceptance of different cultures in Singapore, as well as expand the knowledge of the Peranakan culture especially in relation to food. We have come up with ideas, like explaining more about the common kuehs as many may eat them without actually knowing the history or meaning behind them. Not only that, we will also introduce the Peranakan version of the Chinese birthday noodles (Mee sua with egg), called “lam mee” in Hokkien. We will also interview some store owners in Joo Chiat for a more realistic example of conserving the Peranakan culture in Singapore, asking them about why they decided to carry on the businesses and their views on the future of traditional food with the rising number of people preferring fast food over tradition food.
Define
As a Chinese, most of us only understand the Chinese culture, which is not a good thing. This is because when we are working with people and building relationships with them, it helps to have some perspective and understanding of other cultures. Sometimes our cultures divide us, but in this multiracial society we live in Singapore, we have to learn to coexist with people of a different race and religion to maintain peace and harmony in the country. By only understanding the Chinese culture, some might become intolerant to certain practices of another culture due to lack of understanding and that is how some racial disputes occur. Thus only understanding the Chinese culture is not right.
Minister Ong Ye Kung once said that one-off event like Racial Harmony Day is not adequate to engender learning of the ethnic diversity in Singapore for students from SAP schools – which are more focused on the learning of Chinese Language and culture – as these students are mainly surrounded by schoolmates of their own culture every day, not having a chance to interact with students of other cultures. Further more, Racial Harmony day is only an annual event and the students’ impression of other cultures are only limited to what they had learnt that day. It is a different experience compared to, for example, having Malay friends where you get to better understand the practices by seeing the people of that race doing them and the reason behind them. That is why Minister Ong Ye Kung mentioned that Racial Harmony Day itself is not sufficient to engender learning of the the ethnic diversity in Singapore for SAP school students.
In NYGH, minority of us are people of a different ethnic group other than Chinese. Some classes don’t even have non-Chinese students, disallowing them to have interaction with these students. Also, some of us are from SAP primary schools, so for most of our lives, we are surrounded by those of our race only, preventing us to have a deep understanding of other cultures.
To truly understand a culture, we must first know the definition of the particular race. For example, there is a number of people who do not even understand what a Peranakan is. Not only that, we must also know the practices and their reason behind them so that we do not have a wrong interpretation of the culture. Later in the future, when we see the carrying out of the practice, we will respect it with the knowledge of it in us.
Not only can we use our infographic board to allow our schoolmates to learn more about the different delicacies in the Peranakan culture, we can also use our food models and elaborate more from there, for example, explaining about the making process of the Peranakan food and compare it to other cultures, stating its unique elements. We can also use our Chinese video to share with our schoolmates the different viewpoints of shop owners regarding the continuation of traditional food in the future as well as their story on why they decided to take over the business from their elders. We also can encourage our schoolmates to eat Peranakan food more often or share it with their family members to encourage the continuation of the Peranakan food culture which is slowly fading away due to the lack of successors.
Ideate
We want our schoolmates to understand the importance of racial harmony by understand each culture better. In our group, we are focusing on Peranakan food culture, as it may seem complicated and confusing to many due to the fact that it is a mix of the races, Chinese and Malay/Indian. We want to focus on this as we eat a variety of food daily, but not many of us take note of what culture it is from especially when we eat local food at hawker centres. In addition, not many are familiar with the Peranakan culture, so we have decided to educate or inspire them with our infographic board -containing information on Peranakan food- our food models of kueh and Peranakan birthday noodles, as well our chinese video about our interviews with the traditional Peranakan food makers (Curry Puff and Laksa). We’ll wrap it up in the video as well as on this blog with a summary of what we’ve shared and learnt about Peranakan food culture.
As we looked through our ideas, we realised that they were all leading to preserving the Peranakan food culture through learning the different delicacies, their uniqueness, the sharing of tradition Peranakan food makers and lastly wrapping up with a summary of what we’ve shared and learnt.
How we go about doing this project is that we split jobs. After a module, the group leader will allocate the other group members to do certain portions of the content mentioned during the module and fill it in the blog. Usually, the group leader would write a list of what everyone had to do in the SPICE whatsapp group chat we had created. We would also check each other’s process and remind each other to do our jobs or reflections. When we had the chance to go to the computer lab, the group leader and another member would ask the members who had yet to do their allocated job or the reflections to do it then, since it was convenient because it was online.
During our discussions, for example what material to use for our food models, we would sit in a small circle and ask each other, stating the pros and cons of the different materials, and before ending the discussion, we made sure there were no objections before our confirmation of our decision made. During discussions like group reflections, we would gather around the computer and ask for everyone’s thoughts. Later we mixed it all together, but there are instances where we had to brainstorm about the best way to phrase our answer as the ideas were all somewhat different and hard to put together. After some discussion, we would manage to come up with an answer we were all satisfied with.
During showcase day, we also made sure everyone had a chance to elaborate about a delicacy and the food model, so as to make sure it was fair for everyone. As for the design and layout, the 2 who had made the infographic board talked more about it.
Creating a Prototype
We made food models of Peranakan delicacies, like kueh or main dishes. When we did so, we usually looked at pictures we had found online and made the food models based on them as it was easier as we would have an idea of the colours they had to be. Each of us made a kueh while some worked on the main dish, Nyonya birthday noodles, also known as “lam mee” in Hokkien. Due to time constraint, we only managed to make one main dish. Kueh is a sweet or savoury bite sized Peranakan snack or dessert originating from Southeast Asia. It is a fairly broad term which includes food items such as cakes, cookies, dumplings, pudding, biscuits, or pastries in English and are usually made from white rice or glutinous rice. One of the common kueh that can be found in Singapore, which is also popular among children, is the kueh lapis. Some people call this the “thousand-layer cake”. This is a snack many adults ate most of the time during their childhood days.
During the time when we were starting the process of making our infographic board and food models, the group leader allocated the 3 members who preferred hands-on experiences to complete the food models, while the rest worked on the infographic board. One of whom doing the infographic board was the group leader, and she had assigned one of the members in charge of the food modelling to look out for them. She would text that member how the process was and make sure that everyone was doing what they were supposed to do. If there was any changes to the plan as some delicacies didn’t have much significance to the Peranakan culture, other than that it was a snack from it, we would text the others to make another food model. (Those working on the infographic board went to the library while those working on the food models stayed in the classroom.) When there was insufficient resources, we would discuss on what coloured clay, how many packets to buy and who to get them, either using face-to-face communication or through text. We would send pictures to the group during the process so as to keep each other updated on it.
As for the Chinese video, the 2 doing the infographic board would be working on the editing as one of whom is quite tech-savvy, while the other was slightly better in Chinese. For the content, the other 3 contributed in different ways. One spent the most time thinking of the best questions to ask and did much research on the potential stores to interview before we went to Joo Chiat, while the other 2 did the videography and audio-recording (as the store owner did not allow videography). The 2 members crafting out the video decided to spend some days during the June Holidays to work on it. This is because there was not much time to work on it before school ended as we were all struggling to give our best on the deliverables due by Week 10.
Test
For this, we included the feedback from those who had took their time to look at out mini showcase at the end of Week 10, as well as the feedback from out seniors after they had reviewed our website (we texted them)! Let’s see what they had to say:
Mini showcase: Those who had popped by to review our mini showcase had commented that we were creative to have used superglue for the Peranakan birthday noodles food model to obtain the glossy soupy look. Some also mentioned that the kueh border we had come up with was cute. They also mentioned that the details on the Ang Ku Kueh food model was well-done, as well as the ongol ubi as we made sure the grated coconut was shown clearly.
Seniors:
> very informative
> interesting topic
> layout is easy to read / organised (easy to find what you want to read)
> aesthetically pleasing
> understandable (have pictures to depict what we did)
> reliable (as references to ministers, for example, we made)
> think that more can be written about why it’s important to understand cultures and food (eg why this subject is important in the first place)
Our prototype was well-liked by the audience, especially the Peranakan birthday noodles and Ang Ku Kueh. Although we felt that we could have done better for the kueh lapis as it had only 6 layers instead of 9 as well as making the kueh dadar more realistic as the tone of green we had used was too bright, we were glad that our audience was able to identify the food models correctly. The food models also allowed us to show the audience some details that may not be able to be seen through the pictures on our infographic board, like the word 寿 (which represents longevity, just like what the kueh symbolises) on the Ang Ku Kueh which we managed to carve onto the food model. It also allowed the audience to have a better understanding of the Peranakan food culture and the different ingredients that the Peranakans used in their cooking as well as the cooking methods.
Through the feedback we have received, we can improve by putting more emphasis on the more important subject as an overarching idea of our project so that our audience would be able to understand the purpose of it better. We could also spend more time on making our prototypes more realistic by making sure the colour tone is somewhat the same as the actual product and not missing out any layers (kueh lapis).
With these feedback, we can carry out a similar project but to a greater height in the future.
109 Group 2 