Cai Png

Cai Png

Smart alec ang moh gui or boring textbook answers will say Singapore is like rojak liddat. But I tell you hor, honestly, I think that's a load of bullshit.

Rojak just because got salad and different kind of 菜 got multiculturalism? Some more you pour sauce over it everything taste the bloody same right? No lah I say, Singapore more like cai png like that. 

Economical. Straight-forward. Using just enough broken, battered mother tongue to get by. 这个，那个。And point– this one, makcik. This one oso can. Chinese, Malay, Indian, even ang moh food I got see before tempting at economy rice stalls. Aiyah, then this one lagi multiculturalism…

We quick with our words. Faster with our tongue. Why utilise the fullest extent of our vocabulary... When say liddat work better? Drop the little facade and sprinkle the curry over. Oi, a bit more lah. Wah piang. Please lah I know inflation is bad but need to play ball with me a bit right? Gahmen got huge voucher what. Oi.

Still, not to say we all sound like uneducated orang laut lah. We can still throw up the academics and necessities upon notice, correct or corwrong? But this holds a sense of still-water，不会变的 culture. You can add a thousand and one more sparkly things to this long trusted system. Maybe some people don’t like the taste, but eventually we will come around to it. And say; actually, don’t taste that bad ah. Actually quite a nice change. And more veggie please. 

And in this exorbitant system, do we all still wish for tomorrow here today. That there's no place we'd rather be–  although maybe occasionally I wish it were a bit colder. But when I hear a "wah lau eh!" ring out from the crowd of a homogenous foreign blob; in a foreigner land, 

I know I'm somehow still home.

8 April 2024