Wait... Hainanese Chicken Rice isn't Hainanese?

[yuejon]

Singapore already ahead in 'food fight' with Malaysia

I actually find it hilarious that it's only now that Malaysia has decided to stake a claim into what is our food - fueled by the whole, tit-for-tat fight on the pendet dance no doubt (which clearly isn't ours, and rightly Balinese Indonesian). Yes, it wasn't the fault of the Malaysian tourism ministry for that particular advert but that of the Discovery Channel's, but it does imply how poorly marketed Malaysia's heritage and culture is when the Discovery Channel can't tell what's Indonesian and Malaysian. Blame it on Discovery's lack of research, but the tourism ministry's poor marketing has a hand in this too, in my opinion.

But back to the article; as it aptly points out, all our neighbors have been quite efficient about marketing their own stake on their food. I'm not going to add on more to what's already there, but the one thing that I find rather peculiar is the stake on Hainanese Chicken Rice being Malaysian or Singaporean.

Hang on... so it's called Hainanese Chicken Rice right? So... where's Hainan island again? Right. China. Well correct me if I'm wrong, but if the dish was truly Malaysian (or Singaporean), it would be called Malaysian Chicken Rice or Singaporean Chicken Rice. Nope. It's Hainanese. I don't see how it can be associated with Malaysia or Singapore if it's still going to be called Hainanese.

On a personal note, my Grandparents were from Hainan, which makes my mom Hainanese and myself half Hainanese. My Grandmother taught my Mom how to cook chicken rice, and Mom makes a mean Hainanese Chicken Rice. Mom's chicken rice is one of my all time favourite dishes. Being only half-Hainanese myself, my attempts at chicken rice are always only half as good haha. But as far as I'm concerned, within my family, the Hainanese Chicken recipe was brought over by my Grandmother who has passed it down the family line.

This "food fight" is already lost in my opinion.
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