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Anywhere in Taiwan is always a favorite destination for my family. My parents’ both consider Hokkien their native language (more than even Mandarin) and the south of Taiwan is one of the few places where they both speak like locals and love the food and environment and activities. I don’t speak Hokkien as well as they do but I understand everything and everyone, and places like Tainan also gives me an insight into some of the traditional foods and language quirks that my parents associate with their childhood.

There’s a term in Hokkien 古早味 (gor zha bee) which refers to nostalgia and the past. Things that no longer are. Much of that is manufactured, but they often compare Tainan to how the 70s felt like for them in Singapore, in terms of the food they ate and linguistic terms they used, which they find have disappeared in modern Singapore (which has lost a lot of its Hokkien).