Culture Chronicles #4

Where I share five fun cultural delights from China and Malaysia every month.

Every Saturday or Sunday, I’d walk to the nearby open market to just look. Yeah, who am I kidding? I always end up buying too much food. Guilty, absolutely guilty.

I know, for godness sakes, that I really need to lose weight, but one doesn’t leave a Malaysian market with just one type of food.

This week, I bought some chang or rice dumplings. I am not a huge fan of bak chang which is more common. This is going to offend many Chinese people, but I’m pretty grossed out by pork belly and bak chang has a lot of pork belly.

I prefer Nyonya chang, not because erhm, I’m Nyonya, but because I prefer its sweeter, less chunky fillings. (It has a waterchestnut filling.)

Alas, due to miscommunication, the lady selling the chang gave me only one Nyonya chang and two bak chang.

Yes, it is literally a pyarmid-shaped block of rice. This is Nyonya chang.

Chinese rice dumplings

You’re probably wondering, what’s the difference between bak chang, Nyonya chang etc?

Here’s the article to educate you about the many types of chang: Bak chang 101

* “Bak” is Hokkien for “meat”

Learn Penang Hokkien

In my post about learning Mandarin, somebody mentioned whether there are places to learn Hokkien. For those who want to learn a rare form of Hokkien - Penang Hokkien, this channel will teach you:

PS: I speak this version of Hokkien.

“The Drunken Poets”

I confess to you, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what’s a good poem, whether in English or Chinese. It’s an art that has eluded me, despite being force-fed poetry in A-Level English literature. (Ironically, one of the poems I wrote for Creative Writing class was praised, but I wrote said poem hastily 30 minutes before class because I forgot about the homework!)

Not understanding nor being able to appreciate Chinese poetry, however, is a sore point for me. It’s a big reason why I’m trying to learn how to read Chinese, so that I can finally connect with a massive part of my culture.

In this video, we are introduced to one of China’s greatest poets, Li Bai, who lived during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 B.C.).

In this “dance drama”, Li Bai meets another famous poet, Du Fu, in a busy restaurant in Luoyang (in today's Henan province).

Tang dynasty music

Speaking of the Tang dynasty, I really love this Tang dynasty musical ensemble. The musicians are dressed in Tang clothes, and play traditional Chinese instruments such as pipa, guzhen, guqin, flute and drums.

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