The Flavours and Concept of Home

 

OK, it wasn’t my idea (since I had just flown in from Singapore) but since my American stepdad was hungry for Malaysian and Singaporean food, we decided to go grab a mean at the C&R Café and Restaurant, which is located in London’s Chinatown.

In the three years of being in university in London, I avoided going for Singapore food for a simple reason. I didn’t see a great need to pay several pounds for a dish that I could get back home for a third of the price (this being back when the exchange rate was three Singapore dollars to the pound and six Malaysian ringgit for the pound.)

However, my experience at C&R today got me questioning one of the issues that many of us face today, which is the issue of moving to different places. Like it or not, we live in a world where many of the opportunities that are available to us, are quite often in different parts of the world. Staying in the home market is more often than not a limiting factor to career growth, especially if you work for a multinational. Key buzzwords for career building are “multinational,” and “multicultural.”

However, despite all the chatter about the need to be “multi” this and that, many people, particularly in Asia, are hesitant to move abroad, even if its for a few years. One of my father’s friends who was a Vice-President at Citibank in the 1990s made the point that although he probably could get a “multinational” job, he wasn’t going to do it because he’d have no idea when he would get to come home.

So, here’s the question – what defines home? Governments around the world love telling you that the country you were born in is your home. To an extent they are not wrong. Chances are, the place where you were born is the place where you’ve lived in the longest. It’s the place where your family and school friends happen to be. It’s the place where the sights, sounds and smells are familiar to you and therefore comfortable.

The question that is put to many people when they think of locating elsewhere is why do you want to leave a place which is so familiar and comfortable. In culinary terms for Malaysians and Singaporeans is “Why do you want to go to a place where you can’t get your laksa?”

The experience at C&R today, however, showed that many of the experiences of “home” can, in fact be replicated elsewhere. C&R’s story is about that. The place was started by someone from Johor who got homesick for home food. So, the restaurant was formed to create the flavours of home for Malaysians and Singaporean living in London.

Sure, prices are not what they are in Malaysia or Singapore. However, you can’t expect someone operating in London to sell at Malaysian and Singaporean prices when they’re operating in London.

However, what you can get is that little flavour of home and if you look at the what C&R is offering, you’ll notice that its fairly extensive (my stepsister made the point that she had never seen a menu with so many pages).

 

 While the prices may be significantly more than in Malaysia or Singapore, they also offer pretty generous portions and their flavours are “authentic.” One of the surprisingly good dishes was the rotti cannai/prata (given that the place is operated by Malaysian Chinese). It was crispy and the curry was decent.

 

 How did they get the right ingredients? The answer is simple. Across the road from them is stall that specially imports stuff from Malaysia into London – including stuff with musang durian (which given the aversion that most Caucasians have to durian, means the shop is expecting Malaysians and Singaporeans to be their main customers).

Moving to another place does require compromise. I lived in the UK for seven-years at a boarding school. At no time, did I ever insist on getting Chinese New Year as an official Public Holiday. My right to celebrate privately was respected (which involved enough time to go to a public phone to call relatives) but the compromise was that I could not even think of imposing a public holiday on the majority.

However, as long as you are willing to compromise on certain things in the public sphere, you can always recreate many of the elements of “home” elsewhere. Food is one of the best examples. We can enjoy the flavours of home wherever we are and we can share the beauty of our culture with other people.

The Westerners have done it for years. They have travelled overseas and brought their flavours of home with them. The Westerners have brought “flavours of home” with them rather than allowing the “concept of home” from stopping them from chasing opportunities beyond their shores – so why can’t we do the same?