How a Malaysian immigrant far from home uses food to keep in touch with his culture.
Dr. Robert Chan smiles as he hands out beef rendang, vacuum-sealed and marked with a yellow sticker, reading “Dr Chan’s Culinary Delights”. In the 42 years since he left Malaysia to begin his secondary education in Ireland, he started a family and settled down in the outskirts of London.
It has been 42 years since he first left Malaysia to start his secondary education in Ireland. In that time he has started a career, family and life in the outskirts of London.
To him, cooking south-east Asian food, like beef rendang, has been an activity to celebrate his Malaysian heritage and make friends in the UK. He says, “It [put me] in a unique position, especially two or three decades ago when the English normally went to Thailand and not to Malaysia.”
A student far from home
When he first arrived in Ireland in 1979, he found himself in a foreign land far different from ulu (a bahasa word used to describe remote places) Malaysia. Everything from the way that people expressed themselves, to the way they socialised was different. “I only had a superficial understanding of the cultures and values of western people,” he says, referring to what he learned from the books and TV shows he grew up with.
Reflecting on his first years away from home, he says, “obviously you miss the comfort of home, but you get the excitement of a new adventure and the novelty of something new.” Dealing with colder temperatures and homesickness, he never expected to permanently stay.
Obviously you miss the comfort of home, but you get the excitement of a new adventure and the novelty of something new.
“I suppose that having met my wife Angela, falling in love and getting married made me decide to live here,” he says. At the same time, there was a lack of equal opportunity with the Malaysian New Economic Policy, making it harder for non-ethnic Malay citizens, like Dr. Chan, to succeed there.
Settling in for the long term
Dr. Chan learned to cook Malaysian food early on to help with his homesickness, relying on cookbooks, hearsay and the rare recipe shown on the BBC to learn new dishes. “You learn the special tricks and recipes that bring you closer to home or things that you remember,” he says.
However, cooking south-east Asian dishes was difficult back then. When he was in Ireland, the single asian store near him didn’t stock ingredients specific to Malaysian cuisine. He had to travel to Chinatown every six months to find rare plants and spices such as pandan leaves and galangal, a type of ginger that grows only in south-east Asia.
In the years since, Dr. Chan’s passion for food has become a big part of his life. “People know that I’m passionate about food at work and in my social circles,” he says, laughing. He hands out so much food that one of his wife’s friends bought him a set of personalised stickers to use whenever he gives food as a gift, something that he does almost weekly.
The hours he spends cooking are a way for him to be generous. As he breaks down the blend of spices and powder that goes into his curry, he adds that it’s all about friends enjoying his food. “It’s one of the rewarding things about cooking.”
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