Review of Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan's 'A Tiger in the Kitchen'
When I was younger, my mother used to make a very simple dish when she was too tired to cook: stir-fried tomatoes with eggs, sometimes served with thick, starchy noodles, sometimes with plain white rice. Even though it was a quick and easy dish, to me it was a delicacy. Mildly acidic, just a little bit sweet, with a hearty amount of scrambled eggs, it exemplified comfort food at my Chinese American dinner table. It was more than just a meal: it was the warmth of home.
In A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family , Singaporean expat Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan similarly uses food as a vehicle to navigate the often complicated relationships that Asian Americans and Asian immigrants often form with regard to broader ideas of family and home. Despite her complete lack of knowledge of the kitchen, Tan sets out on a mission to master the beloved Singaporean dishes of her late paternal grandmother, who was nicknamed "Tanglin Ah-Ma" after the Singapore neighborhood she lived in. Along the way, Tan unravels her family’s forgotten histories and the complexities of her own identity.
As the firstborn child, Tan was raised to strive for opportunities outside the domestic confines traditionally expected of women. Placing her education and, later, her career at the top of her priorities, Tan never considered learning to cook to be an important responsibility. Nor was it a major concern for her family: “Mum and her two sisters were a rambunctious lot for whom learning skills that would make them more marriageable (like cooking) was low on the list of priorities. […] Their independent streaks would eventually land them successful husbands who could afford maids to do the bulk of the cooking.”
When unexpected events in Tan’s life -- the loss of her job, her father’s minor stroke -- led her to reconsider the significance of home and family, she reached out to her aunties Khar Imm, Leng Eng, Khar Moi, and Alice, her maternal Ah-Ma, and a bevy of other friends and relatives in a quest to dominate the stovetop. Her journey takes her from her tiny New York kitchen to Singapore, her childhood home, through Shantou, China, the land of her ancestors, and even to a pit stop in Hawaii, the home of her Korean mother-in-law.
The heart of the story lies in Singapore. In the context of Tan’s quest to explore food and the domesticity of the kitchen, the city itself and its colonial history add a complex layer to the idea of ethnic identity. For example, Tan’s sprinkling of Mandarin, Hokkien, Teochew, and Malay words and phrases throughout the narrative suggests a mixing of diverse communities and adds a certain cultural tension. “My inability to speak any Teochew, the Chinese dialect that [Tanglin Ah-Ma] spoke, meant we mostly sat around with me feeling her eyes scan over me, inspecting this alien, Westernized granddaughter she had somehow ended up with,” Tan recalls.
Korean Immigrants To Hawaii - News
Her journey takes her from her tiny New York kitchen to Singapore, her childhood home, through Shantou, China, the land of her ancestors, and even to a pit stop in Hawaii, the home of her Korean mother-in-law. The heart of the story lies in Singapore.
“Due to their long entangled history with the US military, these two places [South Korea and Hawaii] along with Guam lead the world in per capita consumption of the pink gelatinous pork. Immediately following World War II, the American GIs stationed in
7/5 RASKB Lecture: Diaspora, Plantation and ... - 10 Magazine Korea
On Tuesday, July 5th, the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch will be hosting a lecture by Professor Gary Park entitled “Diaspora, Plantation and Independence: A Pictorial and Literary Journey of Early Koreans in Hawai’i” at 7:30 pm in the 2nd floor Residents’ Lounge of the Somerset Palace Hotel near Anguk Station. Admission is free to members of the society, and 5,000 won for non-members.
The first Koreans immigrants to Hawai’i arrived in the island archipelago in January 1903; and the last boatloads came in 1905 when the Japanese government restricted Koreans from leaving their homeland. A few other Koreans were permitted to immigrate later, mainly they were “picture brides” for the workers on the Hawaiian sugar and pineapple plantations. Using family photo archives and drawing from research on 2nd-generation Koreans in Hawai’i, this lecture will construct a brief pictorial history of these first Koreans in Hawai’i and their descendants.
Gary Pak is a Professor of English and a member of the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. He is the author of two novels, A Ricepaper Airplane and Children of a Fireland; and two collection of short stories, The Watcher of Waipuna and Language of the Geckos. He is also the co-editor of Yobo: Korean American Writing in Hawai’i. Forthcoming from the University of Hawai’i Press is a novel set during the Korean War, Brothers Under a Same Sky. He has taught at Ewha, Yonsei and Korea Universities.
The Ilse: 1st Generation Korean Immigrants in Hawaii, 1903-1973 (Hawaii Studies on Korea): 
The Ilse: 1st Generation Korean Immigrants in Hawaii, 1903-1973 (Hawaii Studies on Korea): Korean Immigrants To Hawaii - Bookshelf
The Ilse, first-generation Korean immigrants in Hawaiʻi, 1903-1973
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It is therefore not surprising that the same motivation was present among some of the Korean immigrants to Hawaii. As we have already seen, Deshler's agents ...Korean immigrants in Hawaii, a symposium on their background history, acculturation and public policy issues
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Since Hawaii was the area of first settlement for the earliest immigrants from Korea, Myongsup Shin and Daniel B. Lee, eds., Korean immigrants in Hawaii: A ...Asian Americans, contemporary trends and issues
About 40% of the pioneer Korean immigrants were converts to Christianity, and they chose to come to Hawaii for religious freedom as well as for a better ...Perfect Information Directory
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Korean Culture in Hawaii
An introduction to Korean culture in Hawaii and Korea related events and organizations in Hawaii.
Korean immigration to Hawaii - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Two distinct waves of Korean immigration to Hawaii have occurred in the last century. ... His grandparents were among the first Korean immigrants to Hawaii. ...
Korean American: Information from Answers.com
Korean Americans The first Korean immigrants came to the United States in the last years of the nineteenth century as Hawaiian sugar plantation
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The year 2003 marked 100th anniversary of Korean immigrant to Hawaii. ... On January 13, 1903, 102 Korean immigrants arrived in Hawaii on the SS Gaelic. ...