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Outside In

Of colonial cuisines and fusion foods

If the food we eat is a mirror into our culture and our times, which culture does fusion food reflect?
by Shweyta Mudgal

For years, food has been used for more than just eating. It has provided a lens for social and anthropological analysis. Its production, procurement, preparation, presentation and consumption has always been central to our times and culture.

Of particular intrigue to me has been the concept of fusion in food. Somewhere between my inherent ‘purist’ culinary preferences of eating a cuisine the way it is meant to be eaten (respecting its original, ethnic procedure) and a new-found flexibility in blending various flavours and ingredients together, such that they individually compliment each other, I am now more open to the idea of fusion food – that which is cooked consciously, with definitive techniques, intentionally marrying ingredients and tastes to produce a state of delightful transcendental culinary bliss, appealing to the most refined palate.

Contrary to assumption, fusion food is not really a new world phenomena. It has been around since eons. For time immemorial, knowingly or unknowingly, people all over the world have been indulging in fusion food. Many centuries ago when the Chinese came to America, the Africans moved to Europe, the Brits colonised over half the world and the East Indians and French learned to dine together, was when fusion was born.

Soy Sauce, the quintessential condiment sauce that accompanies Asian meals, is a great example that illustrates how colonialism permeated Korean cuisine. Considered the ‘soul’ of Korean cuisine, soy sauce was originally made in Korean homes, with each family having its own recipe handed down from generation to generation. However, with the industrialisation of its manufacturing process in the 20th century, this distinction began to disappear. The manufacturing techniques drifted, far from being traditional Korean methods into those introduced by the Japanese during the colonial period.

Today, most Koreans do not even realise that the soy sauce they consume on a daily basis is a product of the colonial experience. The story of the soy sauce thus, shows the far-reaching, longstanding and unforeseen consequences the Japanese colonial rule had on the Koreans.

The infamous Indonesian Nasi Goreng (in pic on left) is a stir-fried mixture of rice, chicken, shrimp, and seasonings. This dish exemplifies the complex culinary heritage of the Indonesian islands, which have been conquered and colonised by many different countries over the centuries. Here, rice – the main ingredient – was introduced by sailors from India, who arrived around the time of Christ. The technique of stir-frying came from the Chinese, who explored the islands in the fourth century. Chillis were brought by Renaissance Portuguese explorers who first discovered this ingredient in the Americas and the accompaniment of hard-boiled eggs is a legacy of Dutch traders from the colonial era.

Banh Mi, which is the name for both the bread and the sandwich, is also a classic fusion Vietnamese dish, the ingredients of which have roots in old Vietnam, French colonial Vietnam, and New World cuisine. The bread, although called a baguette, is not the traditional long French baguette, but a smaller ‘single-serving’ size. A combination of French and Asian styles of baking, the Vietnamese baguette is baked crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. To throw in a bit of Asian flair, it is made with half wheat and half rice flour, to give it a light and airy feel.

This baguette serves as the vessel that brings all the flavours of this sandwich together. Stuffed with ingredients such as pork rolls, grilled meats, fried eggs, pâté and seasoned stir-fried vegetables and packed with condiments such as pickles, chillies, cucumber and the must-have cilantro garnish, the Banh Mi is considered the iconic product of French colonialism in Indochina, combining ingredients from the French (baguettes, pâté and mayonnaise) with native Vietnamese ingredients, such as cilantro, chili peppers, and pickled carrots.

Kaya Toast (in pic on right), the classic breakfast dish that has reached ‘national’ proportions in Singapore consists of toasted bread filled with kaya (a jam or custard made from eggs, sugar and coconut milk) and is flavored with pandan (a sweet-tasting tropical green leafy plant used extensively in Southeast Asian cuisine). Butter or margarine may be spread at times, as well.

Served with soft boiled eggs, soy paste and pepper on the side with hot tea or black coffee (or ‘kopi’ as it is called here), the inception of the Kaya Toast can also be traced back to the colonisation of Asia. The Hainanese kitchen hands who worked on British ships were the culinary match-makers of this remarkably local-yet-borrowed breakfast delight. On settling down in the then British colonies of Singapore and Malaysia, they started selling ‘glocalised’ versions of the foods which they prepared for the British, including coffee, toast and French toast, to the local populations. The western jams and preserves favoured by the British were swapped with native coconut jams or butter flavoured with ‘pandan’, thus giving birth to a breakfast staple that has now blossomed into a communal must-do activity in Singapore.

Indian kitchens too have been gifted European culinary influences through their colonisers. One of the first European colonies in India, Goa, manifests the indelible mark that over 400 years of Portuguese reign left on its contemporary culture, clearly most evident on its cuisine. The most famous of Goa’s hybrid dishes, which became a staple of the country’s Anglo-Indian population is undoubtedly the ‘Vindaloo‘ (in pic on left), a spicy stew, usually of pork, that derives its name from the Portuguese vinho (wine) and ahlo (garlic). The Indo-Portuguese version of this dish was modified, by the substitution of vinegar for the red wine and the addition of red Kashmiri chillies with additional spices.

Many aspects of everyday staples from our ‘desi’ diets today are examples of fusion of food from our colonial past. Such as the ‘Vada Pao‘ – where the ubiquitous ‘pao’ is a legacy of the Portuguese, who brought their white bread of the same name to India years ago. Teamed with an authentically construed spicy Maharashtrian vada, it makes for the Mumbaikar’s favourite ‘wherever-and-whenever’ kind of go-to meal.

The British infected us with their taste for tea, making it the nation’s favourite pastime addiction. With our Indian spice box sprinkling its assortment of spices such as ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom and clove in it, we quickly turned the English ‘tea’ into a delectably soothing ‘Chai’; an inseparable element of everyday Indian life.

Clearly colonialism has had an immense effect on cross-cultural culinary match-making. Colonial cuisines such as the ones listed above and many more, have evolved gradually over time. They are an ever-lasting proof of the negotiations and collaborations that took place between the expatriate colonisers and the locals. They are representative of multiple diverse sub-cultures that ingrained themselves into each other, fusing cohesively to metamorphose into one unique greater global culture. This cuisine was not subject to a deliberate act of imposing imperialistic designs but in fact, involved a process of consuming local and foreign foods, usually through the efforts of smart and innovative indigenous staff members – all fusion chefs in their own right.

When food from the ‘outside’ was brought ‘in’, into any part of the world; it was welcomed, contextualised, glocalised and then served back in an incredibly blended yet transformative plate of World cooking. Palates were adapted and taste buds were honed to value and respect, savour and honour that which was served to us. Spice-loving gastronomers learnt to value the simplistic notion of what they thought all along was ‘bland’ while their foodie counterparts who had been unaccustomed to ‘spices’ began devouring masalas gradually, acclimatising their palates to this new sensation of heat and temperature.

Fusion food did not just bring together ingredients and techniques widely separated by geography and culture, but with the marriage or at least the romance between far-flung ethnic foods and their preparations, somewhere along the line, it also helped make the world what it is today – a much smaller, more savoury place to live in!

A Mumbaikar by birth and a New Yorker by choice, recently-turned global nomad Shweyta Mudgal is currently based out of Singapore. An airport designer by day, she moonlights as a writer. ‘Outside In’ is a weekly series of expat diaries, reflecting her perspective of life and travel, from the outside-in. She blogs at www.shweyta.blogspot.com and is a happy convert who no longer thinks of ‘Fusion food’ as ‘Confusion food’, thanks to some really memorable culinary experiences.

(Pictures courtesy belajarindonesia45.blogspot.com, www.thekitchn.com, totalveg.com, vindaloocuisine.co.uk, nor2ind.wordpress.com. Feature image is used for representation purpose only)

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Outside In

The unbearable loudness of chewing

Shweyta Mudgal hates the soundtrack that accompanies loud chewing and slurping at the table, but she’s learning to accept it.

There’s usually always one such person everyone knows. And if you’re unfortunate enough, there will be more than just one such person in your life. The kind of person that will give you an unrequired demonstration of the actual process of ingestion of food. Or as it is simply known to all of us – the act of eating.

They will do this with their mouths wide open while chewing their food, breaking it down into tiny miniscule molecules to be gulped into their oesophagus, once successfully swallowed. Often, the act is accompanied by a soundtrack to go with it. Depending on what is being eaten, the soundtrack may vary – ‘crunchy’ (cereal, cornflakes), slurpy (noodles, soup, hot drinks), gnawy (meat, thick bread or naan/ rotis), ‘smacky’ (usually while chewing gum) etc.

Irrespective of the content of the meal, almost always it will be ‘chompy’ (the prevalent, omnipresent, most certainly assured background score while eating any kind of food open-mouthed).

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate people. I quite like them actually. Most of my friends are people, as is my family. My problem starts when some of these people start to eat, and when I get subjected to watching a food show that I don’t really want to see. Perhaps these are the only kind of people I’d happily give a miss, considering my self-professed love for food shows otherwise. I do not particularly enjoy seeing or hearing food slosh around a gob, thanks very much! Yet try as I might, I always seem to end up in the near vicinity of some such exhibitive and noisy eaters sitting next to me.

Great mastication company has found me practically anywhere I’ve been in the world – in the offices I’ve worked at, at business meetings or social gatherings, in an airplane, in cafes, restaurants, bars, movie halls, trains, buses, just about everywhere. The annoying noisy eater is a sect, one that can be encountered anywhere on the map, wherever you go. Broadly speaking, this sect can be sub-divided into five main types of serial offenders.

1. The Slurpers. They can be found abusing liquids such as drinks, soups and other sloppy substances. They are guilty of wanting to savour the last drop of their juices, causing the much-disturbing, air-bubble-swallowing-kind of sucking sound that emerges desperately from a straw, long after the drink is devoured.

Our very own desi chai drinkers also fall under this category, as they sip relentlessly at the last drops of chai either from their cups or from the saucers they’ve been poured onto. This last drop is an opportunity not to be missed for them – a meal-time policy that probably arises from the fact that as Indians we do not believe in wasting food. Yet, when someone chooses to make this ‘no-wastage’ mantra apparent by slurping the last drop out of his tea cup or bowl of soup, he emanates a not-so-agreeable background score that sadly does not go down well in my music books. It makes me wonder if perhaps this can be done soundlessly as well – in a more publicly non-perturbing kind of way?

2. The Chompers. These people chew their food loudly, like cows or goats. At times, they can be heard from rooms away, which might be a good thing for some, as it tells you which room to avoid for a stipulated span of time in the near future.

3. The Smackers. They are most often found chewing gum with their mouth open. Every few minutes, on impromptu urges or on a more controlled rhythm you can find them blowing bubbles that go ‘smack’ in a few seconds, after which they go back to the ruminating process of chewing.

4. The Cracklers. They are usually found in movie halls where there is pin drop silence. Until of course, someone decides to shatter the silence with the loud crackling of a bag of chips or a handful of nachos, accompanied by the desperate sucking of sodas through straws (refer to no. 1 above). I wonder why there isn’t any pre-movie warning issued for that sound, as is done for the disturbance emerging from cell-phone usage and crying babies?

5. The Belchers. They feel the need to make a loud, hollow, unpleasant noise through the mouth after eating, by releasing gas from their digestive tracts, usually accompanied with a reckless odour, in an effort to let you know how much they have really enjoyed their meal. Wouldn’t a “Wow, that was a good meal” do the job just as well?

The irony here is that what is a killjoy to some, may not seem to bother others. In China for example, it is offensive to eat a meal noiselessly, since eating loudly indicates an appreciation of the food. In order to cool the soup a bit and to better diffuse the flavour in the mouth, soup is eaten by sipping from the spoon while breathing in. This method produces the slurping noise that is taboo to some.

A Korean co-worker may have seen through my futile attempts at hiding my disgust at his loud slurps and repetitive smacking, when we would go out to lunch together. He patiently explained that in Korea the norm was to eat with the mouth open. “The louder you chew, the more you compliment the chef,” he said, displaying to me his remarkable skill of simultaneously talking with his mouth wide open while busily chewing away at his kimchi.

A Japanese classmate was the most convincing when he gave me a personal demo in the art of ‘noodle slurping’ over a bowl of ramen. His reasons were two-fold; the first one being the “deliciousness” of the ramen soup – which he said is conveyed by the sound of slurping. And the second being, that slurping does in fact make the noodle taste better. When I counter-argued, he decided it was better explained to me in a language I understood best – that of wine tasting. Funnily enough, he mimicked me, taking a sip of wine, sucking air through the mouth to force air into the nasal passage, allowing the flavors to spread. It was the exact same logic with slurping noodles, he said. The flavors of the noodles and soup are multiplied when slurping. Needless to say, he did have a point.

Who knew that ten years later I’d find myself living in Asia, gradually getting more tolerant at the table with them slurpers! While the foodie in me appreciates the access to every possible kind of Asian food here, I do pay for this culinary exotica by sitting through the mandatory audio-visual presentation that goes along with it. I didn’t much notice it when I ate at the various ‘Chinatowns’ or ‘Little Tokyos’ of America. Here in Asia, this ‘slurp-phenomenon’ is an integral part of my daily life.

With a little self-conditioning (and a lot of self-motivation), I have managed to cross over to the other side at times – slurping my noodles out loud, especially when eating at local establishments where sucky, slurpy, sloppy sounds are the prevalent lunch chorus, convincing myself that my slurps add an element of authenticity to the ambience. And possibly the much-needed dampener that helps mute out the other slurpy sounds in the background, that my poor ear is still getting used to.

Because a part of me believes that one needs to be culturally tolerant with the way the world eats. And what better medium than food to assimilate oneself completely in a new terrain; to make the most of it? But it is this occassional slurping, that is the farthest I’ll go on this one, I think.

Eating with the mouth open still remains one of my top pet peeves. The solution is pretty simple. That of closing one’s mouth while eating. It not only spares those around you a view they’d rather not look at (especially while they’re eating as well), but also liberates them of the rather unappealing, cement-mixer kind of grinding soundtrack, courtesy your jaw-n-teeth productions. Perhaps I’d willingly make an exception for some cases, where the ability to eat with the mouth entirely closed is hindered due to one’s oral or dental composition, jaw structure, shape of teeth etc.

But, as for the rest of you, my dear open mouth chewers: We need to talk. Just not while you’re eating, that’s all!

*Goes back to slurping her ramen, lifts the bowl up to her mouth to drink the last drop of soup, lets out a loud happy ‘smack’ at the end and winks in appreciation at the hawker/chef in the distance* 

A Mumbaikar by birth and a New Yorker by choice, recently-turned global nomad Shweyta Mudgal is currently based out of Singapore. An airport designer by day, she moonlights as a writer. ‘Outside In’ is a weekly series of expat diaries, reflecting her perspective of life and travel, from the outside-in. She blogs at www.shweyta.blogspot.com and is soon beginning to realise that no amount of staring in disgust can make habitual, loud, open-mouthed eaters, conscious enough to stop. *Sigh*

(Pictures courtesy stevieblunder.blogspot.com, Shane Bauer, froogalism.com, mswitten.wikispaces.com)

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Window seat, please…

Always ask for the window seat in a plane. How else will you learn about geography, perspective, and the lightness of being?
by Shweyta Mudgal

Inspected closely enough, you will see that the simple question, “How was your flight?” is actually a loaded one.

When someone asks you this question, they are really asking you about the smoothness of your flight, hoping for your sake it wasn’t turbulent, bumpy or rough. They hope to hear about its ‘on time-ness’ – whether you took off and landed as per schedule. They look forward to hearing that your landing wasn’t a shaky one. They hope that you were looked after well while on board. They want to enquire of your comfort or discomfort of being squashed in a tiny seat for an extended period of time and if the meals, if served at all, were tolerable.

This simple question – “How was your flight?” has additional connotations post 9-11. Such as, “Were the security lines too long? Did your razors get confiscated? Did you have to go through the X-Ray body scan and get swabbed all over? And did all of the above, help in scaring you enough, to get on a plane?”

What no one really means when they are asking you the question, “How was your flight?” is, how was the view from up there? Did you take some time out, to look outside the window and peer down on the earth below? Did you de-stress and distance yourself from all your troubles by gazing out of your window and try to lose yourself amidst the clouds enveloping you? Did you feel a sense of adventure in soaring high up in the atmosphere, 36,000 feet above Earth? What did it really feel like, to travel at more than half the speed of sound? To launch yourself with so many others into the air and glide up there, chasing or escaping the sun? Did you feel a sense of wonder, that you were flying?

Flying has become routine for a lot of us; a mandatory aspect of work-life for some, a preferred mode of speedy travel to save time for others. To a majority of people, there exists no flair in flying anymore. Its novelty has ceased. Except for a select few – for whom every flight still brings much excitement and quite literally is ‘a lot to look forward to’. These are the window-fliers – people who enjoy seating themselves next to airplane windows, by choice, every single time.

I am a window-flier. I’ve been one all my life. The kinds that go – “Window seat, please,” when faced with the “Window or aisle?” question at an airline check-in counter. Because the airplane window seat is a very powerful thing!

It is my perch, my happy place, my zen spot when on a plane. It’s where I like to go and settle down once I am on board. To see the rest of the world go about its business, while I am comfortably strapped in. It is my ideal vantage point which lets me pick my preferred state of being – actively participative or passively reflective. It is the moment that keeps me honest, helping to reduce myself into being entirely insignificant, gaining a new perspective on the larger scheme of things. Where my chain of thought that starts with an ephemeral, “Did I remember to pack those shoes?” quickly transcends into, “Wow! Look at how beautiful our planet looks from here.” Does anything else then really matter?

Cloud and smoke formations form a constant foreground against an ever-changing backdrop of massive majestic mountain ranges, furry green forests, vast expanses of farmlands, the deep blue ocean and figure-grounds of captivating cityscapes to name a few. One experiences a virtual illusion – that of the lightness of being, only comparable to when one is submerged in water. Depending on the time of travel and the subsequent pattern and provision of light, one sees cities in a new light. On account of their lit-up glow, cities trump over nature when it comes to offering nighttime views. The true potential of flying over landscapes and cityscapes is achieved when one still goes to a place without actually going to it; by merely transporting oneself into it quite easily by virtue of purely flying over it.

Window seats also offer free lessons in geography. To experience the unfolding of what are otherwise 2-D and/or interactive images and maps below you in realtime, is a practical feeling like none other. Why else do you find kids with noses pressed against the aircraft windows?

The window seat is to many like me, the best part of flying. Over the years, I have been learning a lot sitting on it. My only qualms about it are its inability to provide me with an overall sensory experience; since it is sight-exclusive and devoid of sounds and/or smells. Its largely monotonous views stretched over relatively longer periods of time create a classic case of contradiction – making the window flier who is physically looking out, to introspectively look in.

Unlike their counterparts in buses, trains, cars etc, airplane windows do not engage the outside in a more direct, tangible sort of a way. They limitedly bring the outside in, without giving up much of the inside out. Yet, they are moving windows of the highest order, perhaps the only ones with dynamic 3-D views, that vary from patchy collages to endless coastlines and from nature-made wonders to man-made marvels. And often, they present to us, newer perspectives with which to view our older associations – by taking us outside and atop our cities to show us how much we really love living in them (see aerial view of Manhattan on right). How else can one explain the warmth one feels on seeing the fuzzy faint lines of one’s city appear clearer and sharper from under the clouds? On knowing that after however long or short that separation may have been, one has finally come home?

No wonder then, that a few airlines have started charging extra for some window seats. After all, the view up for grabs is of the greatest show on Earth, of the Earth and by the Earth too! We are  just lucky viewers who get an encore performance each time we fly. So take my word and ask for that window seat the next time you fly. Then, pun-nily enough, I am sure you’ll agree with my ‘point of view’!

A Mumbaikar by birth and a New Yorker by choice, recently-turned global nomad Shweyta Mudgal is currently based out of Singapore. An airport designer by day, she moonlights as a writer. ‘Outside In’ is a weekly series of expat diaries, reflecting her perspective of life and travel, from the outside-in. She blogs at www.shweyta.blogspot.com and hopes she’s managed to convert at least a few of her present aisle-seater readers into window-fliers of the future.

(Pictures courtesy Khyati Dodhia (Mumbai aerial shot), Sergei Semonov (Manhattan aerial shot), greyhousereddog.blogspot.com)

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So how?

‘Language purist’ Shweyta Mudgal wants everybody to speak and write perfect English, and guess what? The Singapore Government agrees, too.

I cannot stand inaccuracy in language. I am a proponent of linguistic purity, grammar, punctuation and spelling. More often than not, I’ve been a flawless speller. In ‘Dictation’ class (when the teacher would dictate 20 random words in English that we would have to write down in our books), I recollect receiving an eternal 100 per cent score. Having been an extremely confident English linguist ever since I can remember; I rarely ever use the ‘spell-check’ mode when I type, easily switching between ‘American’ and ‘British’ spellings, as need be. Punctuations have always mattered to me. They are as important as the content of my writing. A well-written, correctly spelt and punctuated piece of prose or poetry gives me a high like none other.

Attending a Roman Catholic Convent School where English purism was held as high in priority as prayer may have had a lot to do with my proficiency and passion for languages in general. Here, English was our first language while Hindi and Marathi were the second and third languages respectively. Students were highly encouraged to use Hindi and Marathi only in those respective classes, while using English as the prime conversational medium at all other times, within the school premises.

At home, I was brought up by a Hindi teacher, who I called Mom. So fluency alone in that language would not help; proficiency had to be achieved. And growing up in a largely Marathi-speaking society assured that I was a good Maharashtrian as well – as far as reading, writing and speaking in Marathi was concerned. My linguistic regret manifests itself in my inexpertise in French – a language I studied for a couple of years only. On account of this short duration of study and limited verbal interaction with other French speakers, I did not go as far with it, as much as I would have loved to.

Being this particular about my language skills over the years, I have had to try and develop an increased sense of patience within myself – to resist the inherent urge to correct other people’s spelling, grammar and pronunciation, especially in English. The Urban Dictionary politely refers to people like me as ‘Language Purists’, while the Urban majority calls us ‘Language Nazis’. My Mom who keeps me honest at all times, simply prefers the term ‘Angrez ki aulaad’ (Child of an Englishman) adding the adage, “Angrez chaley gaye, inko chhod gaye” (The British left the country, but left this one behind).

Clearly, as you can already tell, she is the individual most often corrected by me.

So to say I was flabbergasted and completely taken by surprise when I landed here in Singapore to hear an entire nation speak wrong English, is not an exaggeration. It’s called Singlish, I am told. Put succinctly, it is a Singaporean brand of spoken English; basically English with Chinese grammar and spoken with a distinctive Singaporean and/or Malaysian accent.

According to a BBC news article, “Singlish is the product of Singapore’s history as a melting pot of cultures, combining the influence of an English-speaking colonial master and a firmly multiracial society. The result is an English-based vernacular, spiced up with terms from Hokkien, Malay, Tamil and whatever other language happens to come along.”

As though that is not mind-boggling enough, Singlish is spoken at supersonic speed, with words pronounced so abruptly and cut short at times, that one is usually left with a “Sorry?” and if exasperated like me, a rather impolite “What?” at the receiving end.

Don’t get me wrong. My problem is not that English takes on its own version here. I am all for that contextual adaptation, being a casual Hinglish (a portmanteau of Hindi and English) user myself from time to time. My problem arises when the grammar goes wrong. That is just, plainly put, blasphemy for my ears and eyes even. This sacrilege carries on in print as well, gradually making me reach my tipping point.

Yet having said that, I do see how the Singaporean strategy of shortening sentences into simple words does the job for them. Singapore’s premier foodie site is called http://www.hungrygowhere.com/. With a name like that, one clearly knows where to go, when hungry.

An eye surgery ad printed in local media reads as follows – “Advantage of EPI-Lasik: Preserve more cornea tissue; suitable for those involve in contact or aggressive media”. This ad is in Singlish, which horrifies a newbie like me, who wants to grab hold of the nearest pen and make prompt corrections. Singlish, in print, avoids complex phrases, verbs and definite articles, tenses, voices and even pluralities and gender in some cases. Yet albeit grammatically incorrect, it puts across the point.

Locals abbreviatedly reply to my queries in a “Can can” or a “Cannot”, saving their and my time in the process, by sparing the use of the entire sentence that goes along with that. Yet, they won’t forget to put an additional “Lah” to emphasise the point being made or an ‘already’ (pronounced as “oreddy”) at the end of a sentence, to indicate that the act should already have taken place.

The maid often asks, “So how?” in response to any instruction given to her. That’s when the epiphany of this intelligently-surmised question hit me! This two-worded question yields the power to get me rallying off, with all the details of the job, the what, when, where and how of it all. So yes, the cut-short strategy that Singlish applies works, as does its utilisation of an assemblage of words from various languages.

But it is its impurification of grammar that really drives me up the wall. And sitting atop that wall, to my utter amusement, whom do I find? None other but the Singaporean government – which, equally upset with this grammatical inappropriateness, launched a national movement – the ‘Speak Good English Movement’ (http://www.goodenglish.org.sg/) in April 2000. This campaign encourages Singaporeans to speak grammatically correct English that is universally understood, through a wide range of workshops, seminars, contests and programmes all year round.

Call me biased, but Hinglish does not feel as wrong somehow. At least we do not change the tense of English words. We may shorten them such as ‘vocab’ for vocabulary, ‘funda’ for fundamental and ‘fab’ for fabulous. Yet, most of the times, we just swap out an English word for its Hindi equivalent, thereby exporting new words in the existing lexicon of the English language – words such as ‘badmaash‘, ‘timepass’, ‘prepone’ and my personal favourite, ‘Bangalored’, among many others. At times we’ve even gone all out and taught the Brits their ubiquitous “innit” sounds better in the British Asian speech as “hai na” – a Hindi tag phrase, stuck on the ends of sentences and meaning “isn’t it?”

The ‘pick and mix’ approach that Hinglish and to a certain extent Singlish adapt, is worth embracing. Language has essentially evolved over the years and continues to do so. It is natural and inevitable that it will adapt and change to whatever is around. It often doubles up as not just a verbal means of communication, but as a representational tool of our identity as well. And just as all of us step in and out of multiple identities every day, so does our language and its vocabulary. It has facets of similarity that sometimes help us identify with the alien culture to feel at home with it, such as when my Singaporean Chinese taxi driver exclaims “Aiyyoh!” at missing a turn. Or when a little British boy runs off, offended, saying “Katti” to his other friends in the play area.

Imbibing the local language’s nuances and pronunciations within one’s vocabulary can help one immerse easily within an alien culture; to blend in, to understand and be understood. Doing all this without wrecking its grammatical, punctuation and spelling sanctity is perhaps difficult, even unrealistic at times, but still plausible. Because a Singapore Sling is not the same as a Singapore Slang.

And commas save lives; for instance – Let’s eat Baby. Let’s eat, Baby!

A Mumbaikar by birth and a New Yorker by choice, recently-turned global nomad Shweyta Mudgal is currently based out of Singapore. An airport designer by day, she moonlights as a writer. ‘Outside In’ is a weekly series of expat diaries, reflecting her perspective of life and travel, from the outside-in. She blogs at www.shweyta.blogspot.com and avoids Singaporean Slang. The Singaporean Sling though, is a different story altogether (hic)!

(Pictures courtesy photobucket.com, ideasevolved.com, indianfunnypicture.com, jainismus.hubpages.com)

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Where is Home?

Most children experience several cultures growing up in different countries. Mumbaikars, however, develop a culture that is uniquely their own.
by Shweyta Mudgal

I was born in Mumbai, where I was raised until my early 20s. At 23, I moved to Los Angeles and at 24 to New York City. Ten years later, I now live in Singapore and call three cities my home – Mumbai, New York and Singapore, all at the same time – in descending order of the time I’ve spent living there.

By Fall this year, I will have moved out of Singapore back to Mumbai for another year or so, after which it will be time to return to NYC once again. As I write today, this is what the nomadic pattern of my life in the near future looks like.

There are no guarantees, however. Having been bitten by this ‘multiple homes’ bug, there may just be some diversions en route, should other cities offer interesting work/ life opportunities midway through this globe-trot itinerary and lure us (daughter, husband and I) to their shores.

The above path of my life thus far has brought me in direct contact, on a day-to-day basis, with three different cultures –

  • The First Culture (The Indian Culture): the one that I was born and raised in and will permanently seek allegiance to.
  • The Second Culture (The American Culture): the one that I believe I really grew up and found my true self in. Also the one where my daughter will permanently seek her allegiance.
  • The Third Culture (The Asian Culture): the one where we (daughter, husband and I) presently live.

Yet, I am not who you would call a pure TCK – a Third Culture Kid. For, according to its formal, sociological and anthropological description, “A third culture kid is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside their parents’ culture.” Since I moved out of my so-called ‘parents culture’ only after I turned 18, I am just another adult who’s lived in a few countries. My toddler, on the other hand, in her small span of life (of 21 months), is considered a TCK, who embarked on the third culture bandwagon as soon as she turned one. By the time she turns three, she would have lived in at least three different countries. Born an American, to Indian parents, she currently lives in Singapore. Plainly put, she flew before she walked.

Sociologist Ruth Hill Useem coined the term ‘Third Culture Kids’ in the early fifties. And interestingly, as I found through my research, the term was coined in India! It was here, after spending a year on two separate occasions with her three children, that the term was born. Initially the term ‘third culture’ referred to the process of learning how to relate to another culture. In time though, it started referring to children who accompany their parents into a different culture as Third Culture Kids” or TCKs.  Useem used this term because TCKs integrate aspects of their birth culture (the first culture) and the host culture (the second culture), creating a unique ‘third culture’, i.e their own shared way of life with others also living outside their passport cultures (the land they hold passports of).

On a global note, TCKs naturally have plenty of positive attributes such as multilingualism and an objective outlook, and they are used to an intercultural lifestyle. Moving from country to country is routine for them and is usually accomplished with ease. They grow up within a globalised culture, marked by well-travelled parents and friends, international schools and vast future opportunities. They easily build relationships with all cultures, while not having full ownership of any. Elements from each culture they encounter get assimilated into their life experiences, making them well rounded, global citizens of the future.

There are flipsides to being a TCK, too. Sometimes, children that have lived in multiple countries through their growing years, lack a sense of home. While they absorb various cultures to make up their own ‘third culture’ they often miss an anchor-culture; something that they can root themselves to. Some kids that have been away from their ‘passport cultures’ for long, end up as cases where their passport belongs to a place that they can no longer relate or belong to. On repatriation, they suffer from a ‘reverse culture shock’ and/ or identity crisis and often pine to return to their adopted country.

Yet, the pros outnumber the cons in most cases. More often than not, TCKs have been found to be smarter, outspoken, more sociable, open, humorous, sensitive, non-discriminative and tolerant of other cultures, overall. They usually develop strong observation powers and cross cultural skills par excellence, due to constant immersion in newer surroundings that take them out of their comfort zones. They have been called ‘the prototype citizens of the future’, which directly translates to the thought that a childhood lived among many cultures would one day be the norm rather than the exception.

But so far, social scientists have conducted the TCK discussion only at a global level – in the macroscopic scheme of things. Try applying that theory on a microscopic level, to local cultures and our very own Mumbai, with its cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic, ‘melting pot’-like credentials, offers itself up as a perfect example, breeding millions of local TCKs within!

As is common knowledge, Mumbai is a city of migrants. Its original inhabitants are the Kolis – the fishing community. Post-independence, the Parsis, Bhatias, Pathare Prabhus, East Indians and Muslims moved in. Most of Mumbai’s local Marathi community was formed by migrant workers from within Maharashtra, who came here to work in the textile mills. South Indians with their professional educational qualifications, flocked to the city, during the 60s and 70s, in search of white-collared jobs as clerks and typists. Some South Indian hoteliers such as the Shettys set up their Udipi joints here. Migrants from North India moved to the city to work as dhobis, newspaper vendors, milk suppliers and carpenters, while construction workers and banias came from the nearby states of Gujarat and Rajasthan.

Naturally as a result of this intra-national influx, a lot of the city’s children can be considered as local TCKs, albeit only at a more geographical, contextual level that lies within the nation’s boundaries. Growing up in Mumbai, it is not uncommon to find kids of Tamilian parents speak better Marathi, Hindi and English than Tamil. Or families in which the grandparents hail from Pakistan, the parents grew up in Punjab and the kids are growing up in Mumbai.

With India’s intra-ethnic society increasingly opening up, one can find several inter-caste marriages that result in diversely brought up children, who are exposed to multiple cultures from various parts of the country, passed on to them by their parents, while subsconsciously already being immersed in the third culture – the inherent culture of the city.  In Mumbai, as is evident one need not hail from a ‘Gujju’ household to be a good garba dancer or a ‘Punju’ background to be excellent at bhangra. Communal celebrations of iconic festivals such as Ganesh Chaturthi, Navratri, Holi, Janmashtami and Christmas have shown over time the city’s cosmopolitan spirit in its inclusive participation; members of all religious faiths come together to celebrate these, irrespective of their individual cultures.

A child born in Mumbai, might start off being a member of a clique such as Hindi, Sindhi, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bihari, Tamil, Kannadiga, Malyali, Muslim, Parsi, Sikh, Christian, Jew and what not, based on their parents’ culture, yet by the time he/she has grown up, they would have had plenty of opportunity to modify and adapt this tag to create their own unique micro identity – of being a Mumbaikar. That identity, as one often finds these days, trumps over any specific regional affiliations, encompassing all diversity within its realm and instills a sense of belonging to the city/country as against a religion/faith. Sports such as cricket, with the introduction of the IPL, have helped segregate the large country on a geographic urban divide, fostering the emergence of newer identities that one seeks allegiance to – in this case, cities such as ‘Mumbai’ v/s ‘Delhi’.

When I was growing up in Mumbai, I was often asked the crude and grammatically confusing ‘What are you?’ question. No, not the kinds that would entail a pat ‘Umm…Can’t you see? I am a girl’ kind of an answer. But more like the kinds that warranted a ‘I am Gujarati/Marathi…’ type response. Being ‘Hindi-speaking’, that too from India’s centrally located state, Madhya Pradesh, didn’t help much. Adding to the confusion were my fluency in Marathi and looks that matched the Tamil best friend’s. Hence often my reply would be – “I am Hindi. My parents hail from MP but I am born and brought up in Mumbai.”

I went to a convent school and like many other kids growing up then, had Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, Sikh, Anglo-Indian and Jewish classmates. I had no idea then that I was developing my own sub-culture – each time I crossed my right hand over my head, chest and shoulders saying ‘In the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit…Amen’ while I stood in a Hindu temple before a Ganesh idol. Or the other time, when I decided to join my Muslim friend in fasting for a day, for a God who didn’t exist in my home. To me it was an innocent, fun way to join my friend in doing what he did. And of course there was the lure of the yummy goodies that would be served in the evening to break the fast with.

Both these ‘third culture’ acts were not of my parents’ culture – which was inherently ‘Hindu’. These were my own unique cultural adaptations, where I was integrating acts from my first culture (of being a Hindu) – of going to a temple or starving myself in the name of God and acts from my second culture (of the city) – of a Christian method of prayer or a Muslim religious Iftaar ceremony, to make my own unique third culture! It was a juxtaposition of cultures that I had happily accepted and made my own. In that sense, I and all those other kids who grew up like me, in multi-cultural Mumbai, are local Third Culture Kids.

That kind of upbringing perhaps created in me a fascination for the idea of living a multi-cultured life, not only on the microscopic but also the macroscopic level. And today, as things go, thanks to our current global mobility opportunity, I’ve been fortunate to pass it on, by raising a Third Culture Kid of my own.

I like the idea of having my toddler spend the early years of her life establishing and then breaking her own comfort zone while being a ‘cultural sponge’ and integrating elements of various cultures in her personality. I hope some day she counters the question, “Where are you from?” with yet another question, “Well, where should I start? I was born in…”

I’d like to see her growing up with the feeling that she belongs everywhere and yet nowhere in specific. That she is of the world and the world is her oyster. That she is able to experience it all and pick and choose what most resonates with her, to take that with her wherever she goes. That even though she will be raised a Third Culture Kid, she will have more than just three cultures to belong to. And hopefully soon, she will be joined my many more kids like her, who will know what it is like to have the best of both worlds…even if they don’t have just one that they can call their own, fully.

The adage ‘Home is where the heart is’ has never been truer and more literal than it is now. Today, it means that we carry our home(s) in our heart, wherever we go. And thankfully for multicultural/multi-home dwellers like us, there’s no baggage restriction on the number of homes that the heart can carry!

A Mumbaikar by birth and a New Yorker by choice, recently-turned global nomad Shweyta Mudgal is currently based out of Singapore. An airport designer by day, she moonlights as a writer. ‘Outside In’ is a weekly series of expat diaries, reflecting her perspective of life and travel, from the outside-in. She blogs at www.shweyta.blogspot.com and is happy that no one asks her “What are you?” in Mumbai anymore!

(Pictures courtesy Shweyta Mudgal, clastcloudchurch.org, gulfnews.com) 

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Outside In

Small talk, big deal

Small talk can help pass a minute of your time, or do something more momentous, like forge a lifelong friendship.
by Shweyta Mudgal

Previously, when someone would casually ask me, “Where are you from?” I would often be left puzzled or flattered.

Puzzled, because a certain part of me went, “Duh? Isn’t it obvious?” for it didn’t take rocket science to decipher my Indian features and skin colour. And flattered, because it was nice to know that for someone, I could pass off as a non-Indian as well.

To me, strangers that usually ask these questions fall under the following categories:

1. Those who are ignorant of India and hence do not know what Indians look like (yes, in spite of how famous we are, there are still some corners of the world where the desi tourist hasn’t ventured as yet, and people do not know what an average Indian looks like. Or even if they do, then thanks to Bollywood, they think all Indian women look like Aishwarya Rai or Kareena Kapoor; both representatives of a marginal population.)

2. Those who genuinely wonder, at my mixed-up accent, if I am an Indian who has lived in America for a few years or a pseudo-desi living in India, who’s merely hurling slang and rolling her R’s because she is trained like that at a desi call centre. (A friend’s father, who obviously did not know that I’d been living in NY and was only visiting Mumbai, once thought I was talking the way I did because I worked at a local call centre in Mumbai.)

Bringing me the utmost delight are instances when someone mistakes me to be Hispanic; a frequent misnomer that occurred with me often in the States. This assumption is largely based on the fact that when posed with any question in Spanish, I always confidently reply with a, “Yo no habla Espanol, (I do not speak Spanish)”, a habit the best friend, now a San Diegan for years, inculcated in me when I was fresh-off-the-boat in La La Land. The fact that I’ve answered in Spanish, convinces the asker of the question that I speak the language and am Hispanic myself, even though what I’ve really told them is I do not speak their language.

3. And lastly, there are those that use the question, “Where are you from?” as an ice-breaker, after the conventional, “Hi, how are you? What do you do?” etc for the lack of anything else to say or ask when introduced randomly at a party/gathering of any kind.

It is the last kind of “Where are you from?” that I am going to write about today. The non-loaded, innocently-asked question, generally asked of “newly-mets” that represents small talk!

Small Talk has been described as a brief conversation, usually made between strangers, regarding the most general and banal topics such as the weather, sports, TV/movies etc. More often than not, this serves as a conversation starter between two people co-habiting a space for a temporary period of time – such as when riding an elevator or while waiting for one’s car to be brought out by the valet.

The concept of small talk never really entered my life until I left Mumbai to move to the States, way back in 2002. I was in my early 20s then and always running late for everything. So naturally, any acquaintances that I ran into rarely got anything more than a rushed “Hello” from me. Besides, in Mumbai, one didn’t really talk to people one didn’t know, and so naturally there was no place for unnecessary chit-chat with strangers just because one was packed into an elevator with them.

America, on the other hand, is the mecca of small talk. One finds small talk everywhere you go in this nation – from a cab to a cube. Even the waitress at your table insists on first knowing how you are doing, when all your famished self would rather do is have her get you the usual No. 20 on the menu. Americans who you have just met and will probably never again cross paths with in your entire life, are always asking you, “How’s it going?” and “What’s up with this weather?”

No, they don’t really care to hear that it’s not going as well as it should, or what your take on this sudden snowstorm is. What they are really trying to do is, for the lack of a better word, ‘unawkwardify’ a moment, for the time in transition in which they are sharing space with you. Because to them, riding up 40 floors in an elevator in complete silence with another stranger might just seem uncomfortable and unbearable.

Usually a pet or a baby with their growl or gurgle respectively work wonderfully as instant catalysts for meaningless chatter, meant to serve only as an accompaniment to the long wait of reaching one’s destination. When one doesn’t have either, usually the weather can help – although that is only relevant in countries where the weather is something to talk about on account of its daily dynamism, always making it the opening conversational gambit. In the Northeast United States, one can at least say, “Wow, it’s freezing out there!” or “Whoa! That rain came down from nowhere.” In Singapore, what would one say? “Wow, look at the rain,” every single afternoon? Or “Hmm…it’s so hot!” for all 365 days of the year?

When people are acquaintances, co-workers or even ‘random-meeters’ who bump into each other all the time, the reference frame for small talk broadens. Now, one can advance from the mundane topics of weather and meaningless chatter on to more meaningful talk or gossip, even things like, “That’s a lovely dress,” or “What’s wrong with the Boss these days?” Familiarity provides one with a wider context thus helping breed slightly more meaningful and relevant conversations.

Small talk at the office, however, could be dangerous as well, especially between workers at different levels, say a boss and his staff, for example. While at times it can help ease working relationships between them, it can also occasionally masquerade itself as a motivational tool used by ‘friendly’ managers to leverage a working weekend, from say, staff that reports to them. Because after all, it is the superior who has the power to close the small talk and “get down to business”. (“Yeah, it’s good to know you’re not doing much this weekend. Maybe you can come in for a few hours and wrap up that report?”)

In social situations such as parties or informal gatherings where people who you’ve never met before come together, small talk can help create networks, forge alliances and foster long-lasting friendships. Whether you want to use it to make your way through the next three hours of the party or the next three decades of your life, is then is entirely up to your discretion.

Most friends you’ve made as yet, other than those that fall in the ‘childhood BFF’ category, are strangers you small-talked with the first time you met them. At school or at work, in a class or a cafe, in a train or a bus or wherever else it is that you meet people, it is through small talk that most of our non-familial relationships have walked into our lives.

Small talk naturally varies across cultures, with different mores and taboos. Americans use it as a mechanism for opening channels of communication by talking about the weather, how you’ve been, the economy and politics – but stay away from salaries or how much your house cost. Indians, on the other hand, can use it as a Q&A session to get to know the person they are dealing with (and his past few generations, if you let them). For example, in the scenario of a professional partnership between an American and an Indian firm, it is not uncommon to find the American employee partly startled-partly amused at being posed with personal questions about his/her family, usually asked by the Indian business partners to forge good personal relationships that, to them, are important precursors to good professional relations.

Yet, it is in the Asian workplace – which has more formal rules for communication and lays a strong emphasis on social hierarchy – that it is considered inappropriate to engage in casual conversation with one’s superiors. In addition, freely expressing one’s opinion during small talk, especially if it could potentially conflict with that of their colleague’s or boss’s, might also come across as impolite conduct. Expressing one’s allegiance towards a particular team or a differing point of view about any other topic might put one in the uncomfortable position of having to suppress their own preference, just to avoid serious conflict.

In some Asian cultures, small talk may come across as intrusive; bordering on nosey and downright rude even. In vain Vietnam, a random shopowner unknowingly threw salt on my wounds, when she harmlessly wondered out loud, in the middle of a market place, if I’d had a C-Section baby, on account of the slight ‘pouch-like’ appearance of my lower abdomen? My aghast yet truthful response to her was a quick nod of the head in the affirmative, as I sucked my tummy in while holding my breath and walking away, vowing to double-up on the number of daily abdominal crunches at the gym then on.

In Thailand, one may perhaps be taken aback at the directness of some questions asked by the locals to tourists. What may be considered impolite in another country is often perfectly normal here. Food, family and social hierarchy are very important, consequentially making small talk around these themes perfectly acceptable. Often, conversations will consist of many questions that enable social categorisations of each other. I personally have smilingly answered queries regarding our family income, what my iPhone cost and when (not ‘if’) I am having Baby no. 2.

Small talk – whether you love it or hate it – is an essential part of meeting, conversing and getting to know people. Any intrepid vagabond can tell you that while travelling, it is the easiest way to understand a new culture through assimilation into the daily life of a foreign land and overcoming our inbred distrust of anyone outside the tribe. In the workplace, interpersonal impressions often created through small talk matter a great deal along the way, and can even shape how people judge each other. In social life, it can escalate random chance meetings into greater associations, such as business partnerships, life-long friendships and perhaps even temporary or permanent romantic alliances. And in the elevator or a building lobby, if nothing else, it can help set the tone for a great start or end to your work day.

In today’s age, when phones, iPads, headphones and other self-encapsulating mechanisms have alienated us from our travel surroundings, go ahead and take a few minutes out of your daily commute to talk to others. Chat up the person next to you on the bus, in the train or in the elevator, even. Ask them how things are going. If in Mumbai, offer them a sounding board to voice their traffic troubles. You might just pick up a carpool ride back home in the process. If in New York City, let them warn you of the impending snowstorm that you weren’t aware of, so you’ll be ready for it when it comes. If in Singapore, be thankful and nod each time your doorman and taxi driver remind you to check if you’ve taken your passport along as you walk out with a suitcase. And if in Thailand, just smile at what might seem like a volley of the third degree coming your way. After all, if you’re ok with virtual small talk – answering Twitter’s “What’s happening?” and Facebook’s “What’s on your mind?” so many times in a day, what harm can striking up a round of deep-and-meaningless with the people you meet along the way, do?

A Mumbaikar by birth and a New Yorker by choice, recently-turned global nomad Shweyta Mudgal is currently based out of Singapore. An airport designer by day, she moonlights as a writer. ‘Outside In’ is a weekly series of expat diaries, reflecting her perspective of life and travel, from the outside-in. She blogs at www.shweyta.blogspot.com and as is obvious, always has a lot to talk about!

 

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