Whenever people ask me why I am so deeply drawn to Southeast Asian cultures-and why I eventually devoted myself to cultural promotion-I rarely begin with my university major. Instead, I speak of an interdisciplinary elective course that quietly changed the direction of my learning. That course became the crucial starting point that led me into the world of Southeast Asian cultures.
During my university years, I enrolled in a Southeast Asian studies program. The instructor, originally from Malaysia, was a long-time researcher of spices and food culture. Beyond explaining cultural contexts, he shared memories of cuisine from his hometown and guided us in hands-on cooking, experimenting with various spice combinations. That class was my first profound connection with Southeast Asian cultures and taught me that culture can live within everyday life.
The instructor often reminded us that language is the most direct bridge to understanding culture. Encouraged by his words, I began learning Indonesian. Initially, it was simply to communicate with Indonesian classmates or prepare for future work. Unexpectedly, language learning became a key gateway into cultural education. Through language, I not only encountered words but also heard stories, felt emotions, and came to understand the wisdom of life embedded in each journey of migration.
The moment I truly realized that “Southeast Asian culture is all around us” came when I entered community college cooking classes taught by immigrant mothers. As they prepared dishes from their homelands, they shared how they found substitute ingredients in Taiwan, how they preserved culinary memories while balancing work and family, and how they coped with leaving home and settling in a new land. I came to understand that what these instructors shared was not merely cuisine, but wisdom born of constant negotiation, choice, and balance in real life-this, to me, is the most authentic form of culture.
After returning to my former high school as a club instructor, I brought the community college teaching model into the classroom, inviting immigrant mothers to share their cultures and lived experiences. Beginning with cooking, students engaged not only in hands-on practice but also in listening to life stories. Countries that once existed only in textbooks became tangible and familiar, and cultural dialogue emerged naturally through interaction.
As the curriculum expanded to include festivals, family life, and migration experiences, I witnessed another layer of meaning. Some second-generation children of immigrant families were willing, for the first time, to share their relationships with their mothers in class and began to recognize that their own backgrounds were also worthy of understanding. This further affirmed my belief that cultural education is not only about knowing others, but also about shaping how children see themselves.
Over time, I realized that such courses could not remain occasional, one-off activities. If cultural learning were limited to short-term experiences, true understanding and continuity would be impossible. I therefore began working with schools to transform this model into a regular part of the curriculum, allowing cultural education to take root in everyday learning.
At the same time, I connected with like-minded partners-immigrants from Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and China. We met regularly to design courses, prepare lessons together, organize teaching materials, and share instructional experiences. Through continuous experimentation and adjustment, we gradually formed a cultural promotion team, “Telling Southeast Asia,” centered on immigrant voices. This was not only an expansion of manpower, but also the realization of a shared belief: culture should not merely be observed from the outside, but spoken by those who live it, alive in every class and every interaction.
As school-based programs became more stable, we brought cultural education into museums, libraries, and community development organizations, designing family-oriented and intergenerational learning activities. We were later invited to participate in university general education courses, where immigrant instructors stood at the podium to engage young adults in discussions on mobility, identity, and cross-cultural living-lessons rooted in real society for both teachers and students alike.
These ongoing practices confirmed our need for a long-term platform to accumulate teaching materials, cultivate instructors, and deepen community connections. We therefore continued our work in the form of an association. By the end of 2025, we compiled immigrant instructors’ classroom experiences and cultural stories into manuals and teaching resources, transforming moments of learning into materials accessible to a wider range of educators and students.
For me, this is not merely the publication of teaching materials, but an act of accompaniment and transmission. Culture is not something distant, belonging to faraway countries-it is present in our daily lives, unfolding around us. Cultural promotion has no final destination, only ever-expanding dialogue. And every act of listening and understanding stands as proof that culture is taking root in everyday life.
