This feels that it’s more of a follow up on the “Who is she” post than anything else. Probably because the most traffic I’m actually getting to my blog appears to be via “Who is she” post and the “Hakka are not Chinese?” post.

You see, I’m not sure what people expect when they come across this blog, because this blog is purely for myself, and I wasn’t exactly expecting anyone to come across this blog (Maybe I should re-adjust my privacy options?). But I’m always open to anything, critisms and questions (As I’ve already stated in the About Me page, the first post is open for a Q&A for me, critisms put in the right post.

I’m imagining that the people that stumble across this blog are actually looking for a wealth of information on the Hakkas, their culture, their lifestyles, their food, their traditions, their language etc. I can provide some information, but not as much as I’d possibly like to offer. The reason for this is because, as I’ve stated before, my parents are born in Mauritius, children of Hakka (Moiyen / Moiyan / Meixian) born parents. Some were born in Moiyen, some were born in Mauritius, but their parents were from Moiyen, but that’s a long complicated system that I might explain later. I was also born in the UK. And as you probably are well aware, some culture gets lost down the generations. As it stands, nobody on my generation can speak Hakka fluently, maybe a few phrases, some names of food. Our parents are about the same, expect my mum, who understands (95% by her estimate) Hakka, but when she comes to speak it, her mind goes blank.

But the way my life works is pretty much a Sino-Mauritian culture above all else. There are some British aspects, but they mostly take place when I’m in the big wide world of ours. At home, it’s a Sino-Mauritian culture. In the most case, the language is Mauritian with Hakka accents, traditions are still mostly Hakka, where food falls exactly between the two, we’ll eat rice and Chinese food, but we’ll also eat foods like dhall pouri, roti with ashard and others.

It’s quite confusing at times to explain. But it’s not different from how the Hakkas in Mauritius are.

Though, even I claim to be Chinese before Hakka, some things will always stay Hakka to me, mostly food and some phrases. It doesn’t matter I’m learning Mandarin, somethings will always stay in Hakka. Milk will always be “nen” to me, not “milk” or 奶 (PY: nai3).

For example, the picture to the right is niouk yen in Hakka (No idea what the characters for that is or what it literally means). In english, people call it dumplings or meatballs, but to me, it’s always going to be called niouk yen (It’s actually pretty simple to make, just gimme a shout and I’ll post a recipe). At a guess, I’d say niouk yen (those are homemade btw – very nice with some chili sauce, or a sauce of some sort if chili’s not your bag) is more Sino-Mauritian than Chinese, but I could be wrong.

Then again, I could be wrong about a lot of things, nobody comments to correct me at all.

But to reiterate, I’m not sure what anyone is expecting when they arrive here, especially when looking for hakka (considering my Sino-Mauritian culture-esce life), but feel free leave a comment, and I’ll answer what I can.