Two Desserts: Sweet Footnotes to Hard Times

Like countless Southeast-Asian immigrants who have put down roots in Taiwan, Sun Li’an and Li Ai­zhen, who came from Thailand and Indonesia as the brides of Taiwanese men, have had all kinds of trials in life. They have transitioned from suffering discrimination as “foreign brides” to regaining their status and identity, becoming “new residents” of Taiwan. Over time a strange land has become their own, and the flavors of their native regions, once viewed with suspicion, have become dishes on the family dinner table, some even being in high ­demand. Both adults and children love Southeast-Asian desserts, which are the best footnote to these women’s struggles after living in Taiwan for so many years.

It is nearing noon on a summer weekend, and Tao­yuan’s Tong An Elementary School is abuzz with activity. Gathered here are more than 40 children of “new residents,” who on this day are attending a Thai language experience camp. Sun Li’an and a group of women from Thailand and Taiwan are preparing snacks for the kids, making them a Thai-style dessert of pumpkin and tapioca pudding. Sun Li’an laughs as she says that tapioca pudding is just bur­bur­cha­cha, the easiest dessert to make, and “It’s the children’s favorite!”

Once looked down on, now teaching to cook

Sun Li’an comes from Thailand. At age 24, having graduated from a technical college, she came to Taiwan to stay with relatives. She originally intended to go to university here. “I even brought along a big English dictionary!” She assumed she could get by easily just with English, but things didn’t turn out that way. So Sun, who didn’t speak a word of Chinese, began working part-time as she studied Chinese in a supplementary school. How did she get together with her current husband? “He kept on pestering me!” With a smile, she explains that they were introduced by a friend, and after they knew each other for more than a year, she thought, “What the heck, anyway he loves me so much,” and she married him. They have two children, a boy and a girl.

In her first decade or so in Taiwan, Sun lived a very isolated life. She did whatever her family said, either staying at home to take care of family members or working in a factory to make money. Living her life between these two places, she had no personal life and very few friends. It was only nine years ago that things began to change, after she came into contact with Zhao ­Peiyu of the Li­xin Community Development Association in ­Zhongli, Tao­yuan, who had set up a support group for immigrant women named Hui Zhi Lan Xin. Sun started to take part in the group’s activities and to meet more people. She even won second place in a Chinese speech contest, greatly boosting her confidence. Sun says that Zhao taught her a great deal: “My life should not just be silently spent on my family so that I lose myself.”

She realized that she could look after her family and still do things that she liked. She began taking a lot of classes, and, with a strong interest in making people more attractive with cosmetics, she ignored the objections of her family and started selling cosmetics. She laughs, “My rebellious period didn’t start until I was 40!” She has a lot of positive things to say about the cosmetics company. “They give new people training, and I got a lot of awards and made a decent income. It was only then that my family sat up and took notice.”

With economic independence, she also won the right to have a say in her children’s education. Sun says that when they were small her children had no interest in her mother tongue, Thai, but they have had a change of heart in recent years. This is because the government has been promoting mother-tongue education in schools, and the kids realized that being able to speak another language was an advantage. He son studied tourism at university, gaining an even stronger sense of the importance of languages. Sun says with a laugh that her son is now very open: “He himself says he is a mixed-blood child!” Now her two kids clamor to study Thai, and take the initiative to speak Thai with her at home. In fact, both kids came to help out at the camp activity.

Sun Li’an states that in her life in Taiwan, she has gone from being discriminated against, to being ­grudgingly accepted, to now winning respect. She now considers herself a part of Taiwan, and feels very ­contented.

She makes Thai food at home, and says with a smile that her family love her Thai basil pork, her green curry, and tapioca pudding for dessert. Looking back over the past, she says: “I feel that now people no longer look at me differently. When I say I’m Thai, Taiwanese happily accept me. Sometimes they even ask me to teach them how to cook, which is a huge turnaround from the past!”

Indonesian spices come into their own

Forty-two-year old Li Ai­zhen, originally from Indonesia, is also a member of the Hui Zhi Lan Xin immigrant support group. She is Catholic, while her husband is a follower of the Yi­guan­dao religion, and it was purely by chance that she married and came to Taiwan 17 years ago. At that time she was renting a room in Jakarta, and through the introduction of a friend, met her husband, who was there to proselytize.

At the time she was doing counseling work in a middle school, and she wonders: “I’d graduated from university and had a stable job, so why did I marry someone from Taiwan?” Li is a Hakka ethnic Chinese, and at that time there was very strong anti-Chinese sentiment in Indonesia. Although her mother cried and was clearly unwilling to let her go, her father thought it was a good opportunity. He earnestly entreated his prospective son-in-law to take good care of her, and so it was that she married and came to Taiwan.

Indonesia is a spice empire, and spices are used in many dishes. Li loves to cook, so she brought a good many spices with her in her luggage when she first came to Taiwan, including lemon grass, turmeric, and pepper. She also brought along a heavy stone mortar to grind spices and dip ingredients in. She made an Indonesian meal, but the food wasn’t to the family’s taste. “Taiwanese food is very simple. You cut things up on the cutting board, and that’s it.” She decided to fit in with the local ways, so she joined the family in wrapping up dumplings, and making Hakka vegetarian zongzi (filled rice dumplings) and mochi (sticky rice balls). She says with a laugh: “Eventually I was cooking completely like a Taiwanese.” The flavors of her homeland were temporarily consigned to memory.

Longing to have more contacts outside her home, Li eventually came into contact with Hui Zhi Lan Xin. Seven years ago, Zhao ­Peiyu, the group’s director, asked her: “Do you want to learn Mandarin?” She started to join in many activities organized by Hui Zhi Lan Xin, including going to primary schools as a volunteer to teach Indonesian. (Although Li can speak Hakka, she was educated in Indonesian and considers it to be her mother tongue.) “I taught them Indonesian, and they acted as my little teachers and taught me Mandarin.” Returning to a school environment greatly boosted her confidence. She began teaching Indonesian at other venues too, and currently teaches it at ­Zhongli Community College. Her son, who hadn’t spoken the language in a long time, has begun to speak Indonesian with her.

Her active participation in Hui Zhi Lan Xin activities soon threw up opportunities for her to revive her skills in Indonesian cuisine. She began to teach Indonesian cooking in exchange activities, and her long-neglected stone mortar came back into service. Her family also gradually came to accept the tastes of her homeland, and they especially love to eat her Pa­dang beef and Indonesian curry. She says happily, “In the past I would eat these dishes all by myself, which made me feel very lonely. But now, strangely enough, everybody wants to dig in and eat! My husband’s stomach is like a garbage can—he’ll eat anything!”

In the summer she makes desserts for the family to eat. Cendol is a famous sweet treat from Indonesia, and is simple to make. She also makes cendol in Taiwan, laughing as she says: “Children all love it!”