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Grandma's kitchen, Grandma's language
[1] Every Sunday afternoon, eighteen-year-old Tan Mei Ling takes the train from her family's flat in Tampines to her grandmother's home in Ang Mo Kio, carrying a notebook, a phone and an empty stomach. She is going to cook, but that is not the main reason she goes. She is there to learn Hokkien, the language her grandmother grew up speaking and the one Mei Ling's own parents never taught her.
[2] "At home we speak English, with a bit of Mandarin when my parents don't want me to understand," she laughs. "But Ah Ma's Mandarin is limited and my Hokkien was nonexistent. For years our conversations were just smiles and 'Have you eaten?'" When her grandfather passed away two years ago, Mei Ling realised how much family history she had never heard, simply because she lacked the words to ask.
[3] So she came up with a plan. Her grandmother, now eighty-one, is famous in the family for her cooking, but she has never written a recipe down. Mei Ling suggested they cook one dish together each week while she filmed. Her grandmother would explain each step in Hokkien, and Mei Ling would write down every new word, then check its meaning with an aunt during the week.
[4] Progress was slow at first. "I'd ask her how much salt, and she'd say 'enough'. That's not a measurement!" But after eight months, Mei Ling can follow most of what her grandmother says in the kitchen and hold a simple conversation outside it. More importantly, the stories have started to come out: how her grandmother sold cakes at a market stall as a girl, and how she met her husband at a wedding where neither of them knew the bride.
[5] Dr Farah Rahman, a linguist who studies family languages, says Mei Ling's experience is common. "Many young people feel a quiet sense of loss," she explains. "They are fluent in English and successful at school, yet something is missing in their relationship with the oldest generation. The kitchen works well because the vocabulary is concrete and it comes up again every week."
[6] Mei Ling has now shared some of the videos online, with subtitles in English, and has been surprised by the response. Strangers have written to say they have started similar projects with their own grandparents. "I thought I was saving recipes," she says. "Actually, I was saving her voice." She admits her accent still makes her grandmother giggle. "She corrects me constantly. I think she secretly enjoys it."