BORN AND RAISED: FOOD

EPISODE THREE: LOST IN TRANSLATION

ANGELYN​​: I’m Angelyn Francis.

AL​​: And I’m Al Donato.

ANGELYN​​: From HuffPost Canada, you’re listening to Born and Raised, a podcast about
second-generation Canadians.

CAROL​​: Okay. Well. The correct way to pronounce my last name is NGUYEN ​[ŋwǐˀən]​.
Whenever I introduce myself I’ll just say NGUYEN. ​[NOU-GEN]

AL​​: This is Carol, a filmmaker currently based in Quebec.

CAROL​​: 20 years I’ve been speaking this way, it’s just been a habit of pronouncing my name
NGUYEN ​[NOU-GEN]​ instead of NGUYEN ​[ŋwǐˀən]​ ​and PHO ​[FOE] ​instead of PHO ​[FUH]. ​The
two most common words in Vietnamese, Nguyen and pho, that everyone asks me to
pronounce, it’s just — you know, I’m a little tired of that question, “How do you pronounce this?”

So imagine being a 5-year-old entering kindergarten and everyone’s name is on the

attendance, and the way your teacher pronounces your name is the way it is: NGUYEN
[NOU-GEN].

And imagine that repeating for 12 years. Even more.

[SFX: ​NUH-GOO-YEN​ said repeatedly]

And so, I think it was just something I grew up with, and it was something that didn’t really
bother me until I got into high school where it wasn’t just my name, but it was people asking me,
“How do you pronounce pho?” and then asking me again and again and again.

[SFX: ​FOE​ said repeatedly]

And it felt kind of like a circus. It felt like I was putting on a show. And that’s when it started to
bother me.

[SFX fades out]

From that, I just didn’t really bother to give them that pronunciation anymore. I was just like, you
know what, “That’s close enough! That’s great.”
ANGELYN: ​Nowadays, people will correct you if you say PHO ​[FOE]​ instead of PHO ​[FUH]​.
That wasn’t the case back in the day for the popular noodle soup. Like it’s been PHO ​[FOE]​ for
so long without question.

AL: ​Yeah, I’ve seen my fair share of restaurant name puns playing off that, like “Phonomenom”
or “Good Pho You.”

ANGELYN: ​Which is interesting! Within the PHO ​[FOE] ​/ PHO ​[FUH] ​debate, it seems like the
annoyance over the right pronunciation is felt more strongly by the children of immigrants.

AL: ​Carol gave us her take on that divide.

CAROL​​: As a child of immigrants I’ve heard stories of parents coming to Canada and not
having any money in their pockets.

You know it’s really hard to say, I think that they cared less. And that’s not to say that they think
it’s any less important than we did. I think they just had a lot more on their plates than to worry
about pronunciation.

But I kind of also look at it as Canada is a very multicultural country. And it’s not only
Vietnamese that’s being mispronounced. It's many cultures, many languages, that
have to--many people that have to deal with this.

ANGELYN:​​ This episode of Born and Raised is about the ways food gets lost in translation and
why missing the full meaning of food names can be especially significant for the children of
immigrants.

AL: ​We’re exploring language and cuisine, two of the major things that connect
second-generation Canadians to their heritage. But when our links to language are less than
exact, how does this affect our understanding of food?

ANGELYN: ​Let’s dig in.

See, this topic is interesting for me because I’m Jamaican so most of our food is in English, like
it’s patois, it’s English, but more or less there’s no real language barrier or a lot of difficulty
pronouncing things. But for me, I know when try to go to like, another restaurant from a different
cuisine, I’ll want to order some food and try something new, I have no idea because it’s a whole
other language for me.

AL​​: OK, I really relate to that because for me, I understand Tagalog, which is a language in the
Philippines that my mom speaks. But I can’t really understand it when it’s written down. So
when I go to restaurants and I try to order hot plate, instead of being like, “this, this, and this,” I
just say, “That thing over there!” or “The noodle thingy!” And people are just staring at me like,
are you even Filipino? You know?

ANGELYN​​: It’s like you need get a lesson from your mom beforehand.

AL​​: Exactly.

ANGELYN​​: Like, “How do you say this?”

AL​​: Yeah. ugh. You know, another thing she does is, when I was a kid she would make
dinuguan, which is like this blood stew. And instead of presenting it as a blood stew, she’d be
like, “This is chocolate stew because it’s a rich deep brown.” And this was a lie perpetuated by,
if not all, most of the Filipino people I knew growing up.

ANGELYN​​: Yeah, yeah, yeah! All my friends, said--oh my gosh, it must be like finding out about
Santa Claus when you realize.

AL​​: Exactly! It’s a lie, they’re deceiving us and they’re all in on it, they don’t even tell each other
but--it’s a conspiracy! I’m telling you!

ANGELYN​​: Yeah, all of my Filipino friends, to this day, they still say, “Oh yeah, that chocolate.
That chocolate thing.”

AL​​: The thing is, it works right? The literal translation is pig blood stew. A kid is not going to
slurp on pig blood stew if they grew up in Canada, but tell them it’s chocolate? They’re in.

ANGELYN​​: Okay, so I’ll try that one day, but I know that’s not on the menu for today. So, what
are we serving up right now?

AL: ​It’s a meaty one! Well actually, a fake meaty one. We’re going to talk to Adam Chen, a grad
student in journalism whose love for stinky ​— ​or rather, smelly tofu has brought him closer to
his father’s Taiwanese side of the family.

ADAM: ​When you smell it, it hits you. However, if you’ve never smelled it before, you’re
immediately going to be suspicious that there is a garbage dump that just landed on top of a
tofu stand.

I used to live in Taiwan for several years where I opened a chain of smoothie restaurants and
ate a lot of stinky tofu.

Growing up here it was a bit special for me because my dad was born and raised in Taiwan but
my mom was born and raised here. So my mom came from a fifth-generation Canadian family.
So for the most part, my mom would make something I’d say like 75 per cent Canadian-esque
food, 25 per cent more Chinese food.

For a lot of people on my dad's side of the family they weren't necessarily planning to come to
Canada and had been you know learning English for a long time, and like building up to it. It
was a situation that kind of happened and all of a sudden they were here and they had to try
and learn English but they were already like you know in their mid-30s, 40s, and it's hard to pick
up a language at that time, you know.

For me, growing up being born and raised here, it was always a little bit difficult to communicate
with them because I didn't speak Taiwanese, like my mom didn't teach me Taiwanese or
Chinese. So I had a hard time communicating with them in a way in which probably put them at
ease or that they felt comfortable.

AL: ​Aside from language, there was another aspect of his culture that Adam didn’t really
understand: stinky tofu. It's tofu that's brined until it ferments, and it has a distinct odour.

ADAM:​​ Ughhh, stinky tofu does not smell good. It smells. It has a strong smell, it will like seep
into your soul ​— ​or at least your clothes. Some sort of like rancid vinegar smoke.

As a vegetarian there’s not a lot you can eat in the night markets and I go to night markets a lot
because it’s a very convenient late-night food to have.

So, stinky tofu comes in a variety of different forms, but my favourite is in the deep fried form.
And it’s nice, it’s crunchy, when you eat into it has kind of a lightly sour, tart flavour but it’s not
offensive, it’s nothing close to what the smell indicates it might taste like.

AL:​​ A friend was the one who first introduced Adam to the dish in Taiwan. Adam realized two
things. One, he loved it. And two … stinky tofu was being misunderstood.

ADAM​​: You know, once I finally learned and understood Chinese a little bit better, I realized it’s
called ​chòudòufu.​ Like ​dòufu ​is tofu, right? And ​chòu​ means smelly, not stinky. ‘Cause if you
think about it in English, just because something has a smell doesn’t mean it smells bad. It just
means you can smell it.

AL:​​ Adam came home after living in Taiwan for several years. But now, he says he doesn’t get
to eat his favourite food as often. Convincing his Canadian friends to try stinky tofu is a hard
sell.

ADAM: ​It's unfortunate because every time I say I want to go for stinky tofu and I want to invite
friends to do it and I want to you know, I want to look forward to this treat I always had, you
know, it's not the same as being like, “Oh I miss French crepes,” or like, you know, “I miss
Texas barbecue.” No, like saying, “I miss stinky tofu.” You're not going to have a lot of people
going with you. And there's already like the sort of inherent eeeeeh. So that sucks and I wish
that people would be more open to trying it and getting over the fact that it just has kind of a bad
label.

AL:​​ I invited the self-proclaimed “stinky tofu ambassador” to join me at the Waterfront Night
Market in Toronto to see if the local fare lived up to his memories of Taiwan. We followed our
noses and met night market organizer Quan Nguyen at the entrance.

Oh, and a quick show note: Kwan shares the same last name as Carol, who you heard at the
beginning of this episode. He pronounces it: Nguyen ​[NOU-GEN].

Hi Quan, my name’s Al. Nice to meet you.

QUAN: ​You guys are from HuffPost?

We have three basically smelly tofu vendors.

[Adam off mic] ​Smelly tofu.

QUAN: ​Smelly, don’t say stinky.

ADAM:​​ YESSSSSSS!

QUAN:​​ Smelly sounds better.

AL:​​ So can you please explain to me why smelly?

QUAN:​​ I actually don’t know, but I think the vendors will be able to tell you a little bit better, OK?

ANGELYN: ​Was that Adam in the background?

AL:​​ [Laughs] Yeah.

ANGELYN: ​What was that “Yes!” for?

AL:​​ Well ‘til now, Adam’s theory that quote “stinky” tofu is in fact the wrong English translation
came from his own reasoning. Quan just confirmed that he’s not alone. And so did Morgan Ho
who owns the Hong Kong-style smelly tofu shop.

MORGAN:​​ Why smelly tofu is so smelly is because tofu is protein based. Once the protein gets
fermented, it's natural bacteria deteriorating the protein and make it puff. That’s why the smelly
tofu is really crispy and puffy, but no aftertaste.
People call “smelly,” “stinky,” it’s the same. Smelly, stinky, it’s the same way — depends on
people, how they call it.

ADAM: ​Yeah, I’d say like smelly is more accurate than stinky. In terms of the Chinese
translation ​chòu ​is like, much more smelly, right? Because something that smells isn’t
necessarily bad, it’s just, you can smell it. But then culturally we connotate smelly with bad, but
the literal meaning is just a strong smell.

MORGAN: ​Like smelly is mainly like a positive, but stinky is negative, right? Yeah.

AL:​​ Morgan’s tofu was good, but it didn’t remind Adam of his time abroad. We continued
through the crowded market in search of Taiwanese-style stinky tofu.

ADAM:​​ Here we go, here’s Wei’s . . .

WEI:​​ You want to try? You guys want to try? Stinky tofu?

AL:​​ Do you want to try?

​ (Is it Taiwanese?)
ADAM:​​ Is it Taiwan style? ​Taiwan-de?

WEI:​​ Yeah, OK. Try, OK? You can try.

​ (Really?)
ADAM:​​ ​Zhēn de ma?

WEI:​​ A couple minutes.

[indistinguishable] Yeah the smelly tofu is the first one in Toronto.

AL: ​So Wei’s Smelly Tofu has been in Toronto for 20 years?

WEI:​​ Yes.

AL: ​Are you Wei?

WEI:​​ Yeah. [laughs] If I ask somebody first time trying I say, “You like it.” So, “Why the smell is
bad but when I eat it, it’s so amazing?”

ADAM: ​This is like the traditional way to have stinky tofu because it’s like they clipped open the
centre, like they stuck tongs in it to make space for the garlicky sauce, so it has like, they just
squirted the sauce inside of the tofu. And then on the side, they have the pickled cabbage and
the carrots which they call ​pao cai​ so now you can have a mix of like spicy garlic and like the
pungent flavour of the tofu itself mixed with like, the acidic, kind of fermented flavour of the
cabbage. And it’s just like a giant mixture of pleasure in my mouth. So I’m excited to give it a go.
And obviously it’s very crispy too, so you can tell it’s pretty legit. Hold on — it’s pretty hot, going
to need a second with this. [eating sounds] Mmmmmm . . . yup, OK. That is like, that tastes like,
legit, traditional stinky tofu.

Yeah, it’s good. Yeah, I’m happy with this. And I will finish this up and you can’t have any.

[Al laughs off mic, market sounds fade out]

ADAM​​: So moving to Taiwan and getting a chance to learn Chinese not only just learn Chinese
but understand how interactions work, understanding how reciprocity works — after several
years of that coming back home I felt like I just understood my relatives more as people.

I remember the first time coming back and then being like I remember the first time coming back
and then being like “​Hey - Nǐ zhīdào wǒ huì jiǎng zhōngwén”​ (Did you know I can speak Chinese
now?) and they were like “​Zhende!? Oh - Nǐ de zhōngwén jìnbù hún duó!”​

They were just like, “Well, your Chinese has gotten better,” and I'm like, "Oh, thank you.” Like
they're really really surprised that my Chinese is good. So then they're like,"Oh, what do you like
about Taiwan?" “What's your favorite thing there?”

I’d be like, “​Wǒ Àixǐhuān chī chòu dòufu.”​ So I just tell them, “I love eating stinky tofu.” And then
their faces just be like, “What?! Are you serious?”

Because I don't think a lot of young people especially like super Canadianized, like relatives like
my brother and I, would come back and be like, hey I love this food that obviously no one here
seems to like, you know. So that was a nice sort of moment to bond with my aunts and uncles
and feel like we could connect on the same plain for once. Yeah that was really cool.

You reach a certain age and then it's not up to your family anymore. Like you … you create the
dynamic. You create the relationship with your parents and your relatives. It's like, they're not, if
they haven’t done to this point they're not going to do it. So if you want it, you make that happen,
or be OK with it not being like that.

AL: ​Smelly tofu’s done a lot for Adam. It’s helped him communicate with his family in a way he
never expected. But if you’re still on the fence about trying the dish, he has some advice.

ADAM:​​ Try it with an open mind and a closed nose. [Laughs]

ANGELYN:​​ So you all tried stinky tofu too then?

AL​​: Yeah we did. It actually had some dire consequences, so afterwards, Adam, our producer
Stephanie, and I, we all piled into a taxi. And then the taxi driver, like, he greeted us, we go in it,
and as soon as he got a whiff of us, he rolled al the windows down. [Laughter] Didn't say a
word. Was just like, pfhjjjjt.

ANGELYN:​​ But he was subtle.

AL​​: He was subtle! And we left him a big tip afterwards, which you know, kinda made up for it.

ANGELYN:​​ Ah, that's the best. And that's all for Born and Raised! I’m Angelyn Francis.

AL​​: And I’m Al Donato. If you’ve got room for seconds, Lost In Translation has more for you to
decipher. To see photos of our guests, read show notes and the episode’s transcript, you can
visit huffpost.ca

ANGELYN:​​ Born and Raised is produced by Al Donato and Stephanie Werner for HuffPost
Canada. Executive producers Andree Lau and Lisa Yeung. Stay tuned for our next episode,
where we talk about our mommas.

TASHA​​: My mom came downstairs, and she was like, “I noticed you haven’t really been drinking
milk recently.” I was kind of like, “Oh god, busted! I’ve been vegan for like, four minutes and my
mom’s already caught me.”

ANGELYN: ​Until our next episode,​ ​thanks for listening. Stay hungry.