Zhi Ying JOINS!

Residing in the Western, often called “ulu” part of Singapore, Zhi Ying grew up enjoying her grandmothers’ food and nightly tze char meals. She wanted to be the Prime Minister of Singapore when she was 6 but very quickly moved past that, thankfully. Today she is an Anthropology major and is determined to be a life coach. 

Another deep passion in her life is slow eating and food. In her travels to different parts of the world however (mostly beyond SEA), she has noticed that food simply… isn’t as great. In her past 7 months in the United States (study abroad and summer), she was disappointed time and again by the standard of food she encountered. While in the San Francisco Chinatown however, she noticed that the neighborhood shops bore an uncanny resemblance to those she saw in her grandmother’s HDB - sparking the realization that what we often take for granted as “Singaporean” is actually a composite of many different immigrant cultures (duh I know). In deeper conversations with her suitemate, a History major, she learnt that Hainanese pork chop came about as a locally adapted version of what the British ate, and Hainanese because the British colonial masters mostly employed Hainanese as their domestic servants. That deeply inspired her to find out more about food and its broader connections to Singapore’s history and her hope is to lead a food tour in Singapore one day!