Asian Mothers and Daughters, Part 2

(Part 2 is made necessary by Blogger's 200-character limit on each post)

Mrs. Kwong made the point that her mashed potatoes made use of a trusty old pot and a masher that cost only a few dollars, and involved a lot less washing up. Beat that, Kylie, she all but said.

In so many movies involving Asian families, scenes involving food are memorable, because that area really is where the raw elements in relationships are distilled. Often, Mother knows best, and there is simply no other way. Daughter may grudgingly go along with it as she struggles with her life lesson of the moment, at complete odds with what she has heard all her life from Mother.

As for my own Asian background, I’m Straits Chinese, also known as Perankan, Baba and Nonya, from Singapore. The short-form description of my culture: after the British established its three settlements in the Straits of Malacca, immigrants poured in to Penang, Malacca and Singapore. Some of the men from southern China married the local Malay women, and the resulting blend of cultures became separate and distinct. The language was a patois of Malay with Hokkien (Fujian) inflections, the women wore the sarong kebaya, which looks more Malay than Chinese.

As for Peranakan food, it's a fabulous blend of Chinese and Malay ingredients and techniques. It’s a very time-consuming to prepare this food, with a ridiculous amount of attention given to prep and mise-en-place. Back in the day, Nonya matchmakers would arrive at a prospective bride’s home in the mid-morning, when the girl would be preparing lunch; the matchmaker (and sometimes, the mother-in-law to be) would listen to the sound of the mortar and pestle (lesong) and were said to be able to tell from that alone if the young lady was a good cook. So, it boiled down to these factors – was she strong enough to wield a heavy granite pestle, could she cook well, and bear numerous sons?

Naturally, once the girl married into a family her actions were scrutinized, and many a conflict would play itself out in the kitchen.

I say, so long as the skills are passed on from one generation to another, c’est la vie, eh?


I plan to get Kylie's books soon.

From everything I've seen and read, her books are as beautiful as they are good. They are:

• Heart and Soul


• Kylie Kwong: Recipes and Stories


• Kylie Kwong: Simple Chinese Cooking

The War on Terror: How Long? Ted Koppel Investigates, and Tells Me About It.

Bring home the troops, say many Americans.

But when each and every one comes back home, does that mean the War on Terror is over?

U.S military officials say forget that.

Just look at what al Qaeda is doing: gearing up to take on the U.S for the next hundred years. That means generations to come will have to fight an unconventional war.

Outgoing Centcomm commander General John Abizaid coined the term The Long War to describe the coming struggle.

Ted Koppel examines this in his third special report for the Discovery Channel, airing this Sunday at 9PM.

I talked to Ted on Monday morning about the program, Our Children's Children's War.



Ted was anchor of ABC's Nightline for 25 years. He's now a senior news analyst for National Public Radio (here's his NPR bio) and managing editor for the Discovery Channel.

I admit to being nervous before speaking to him, but once the interview was in progress became so absorbed in what Ted had to say, and settled down. He made a point of asking how to pronounce my name, and addressed me a few times during out chat. In addition to the riveting subject, Ted's beautiful, clear and unhurried manner, plus that rich, sonorous old-style delivery, can really hold your attention. We only had 10 minutes. Each of his answers was substantial. There wasn't nearly enough time to ask everything I wanted.

A seven-minute edit aired on Northwest Public Radio Friday during Morning Edition.


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Here's the audio and transcript of the unedited interview.

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This is the third special report Ted's done for Discovery. The first one, aired five years after the September 11th attacks, was The Price of Security. In conjunction with that program, NPR jointly produced a town hall meeting with Discovery.

Above: Ted Koppel hosts the town hall meeting in Silver Spring, Md., Sept. 10, 2006.

NPR blogged about producing that event for TV and radio simultaneously.

Here are questions and answers from that town hall meeting.

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NPR's interview with Ted Koppel on the same subject aired on Morning Edition on Friday. Read or listen to it here.

Illiterate about "literal."

What has happened to the word literal?

For one thing, it’s become very popular. While flipping channels over a ten-minute period one afternoon, I heard it at least 6 times, incorrectly, in every instance. Literally! One example:

“My brain was literally on fire.”

I get irony, really. But it seems to me that more often than not, the word literal is used by people who think it means the exact opposite.

From the web site Common Errors in English by WSU's Paul Brians: “literally has been so overused as a sort of vague intensifier that it is in danger of losing its literal meaning. It should be used to distinguish between a figurative and a literal meaning of a phrase."

How did this happen, I wonder?

Something similar happened with déjà vu. It was funny when Yogi Berra used redundancy: “it was déjà vu all over again.” It caught on, but eventually most people who used that phrase had no clue of the joke - or if they did, gave no indication they were in on the irony. For years now, that phrase has irked me. It’s just not funny anymore.

So, back to literal.

“I was, like, literally heartbroken!” (The dead continue to speak!)

“My head like, literally exploded.” (And the mouth still can’t, like, shut up?)

“My skin was literally crawling.” (Where to? The flayed look is so last millennium.)

Oh, for goodness’ sake. Like and literal are not synonyms, not by a long shot! Using them together in sentences annoys me greatly! LITERALLY!!!!!! It grates on my nerves. Figuratively.

I have to wonder: is there a link between like and literal?

Given the gross overuse of like, in cases where one might have heard such as, compared to, as in, et cetera….can we detect a growing inability to use language accurately? Or perhaps, people speak with exaggeration and hyperbole as a matter of course, so much so they've found they need a way to say when they really mean something?

I still would love to know how this misuse began, so if anyone has answers, share and enlighten, please!

You know what prompted me to write this tirade?

Yesterday afternoon on the program The World,” the guest host said of the son of a late musician from Mali: “He’s literally following in his father’s footsteps.” (Read or listen to it here.) I waited to hear where exactly the son was trekking, retracing his father’s footsteps. I was disappointed. Of course, the son was following in the father’s figurative career footsteps.

And this on PUBLIC RADIO!! That, for me, was the last straw. (The last straw that literally broke the camel's back? I'm KNOW I read or heard that somewhere lately!)

Ye gods.

I really don’t know how literal came to be so abused. But apparently, I am far from alone in my irritation. After I started writing this, I Googled misuse word literal – and lo and behold, 380,000 results!

This one is fun: an “English language grammar blog tracking abuse of the word literally”: Literally, A Web Log. Some hysterical examples collected on this site, such as she literally jumped out of her skin. Worth a few good laughs!

A brief digression to the word like. I tried my best to reduce its egregious use by my children, a couple of summers ago. Each time they used the word meaninglessly, as a filler, the offending party would be fined a nickel. If I did it, the fine was a quarter. (We used the money for ice cream at the end of the summer.) The exercise didn't obliterate the word from our home, but my sons, at least, don't pepper their speech liberally with the word. With my daughter, corrections are still required on occasion.

Maybe my next goal should be to discourage the misuse of literal and literally. I want to encourage the use of the following in its place: practically, virtually, actually, really. Or use nothing at all, in sentences such as I [literally] couldn't wait for the show to start.

Rant over. I feel much better! Literally!