Cindy Toh Mei Li,10
About Cindy Toh
Cindy Toh Mei Li is a 9-year-old who frequents Tak Takut Kids Club daily. Despite the challenges of growing up in a single-parent household where her Vietnamese mother understands very little English and shuttles between two jobs, Cindy finds her way to remain an articulate and imaginative child.
Featured Caregiver:
Mother, Nguyen Ngoc Thi Hien
Dish of Choice:
Fish sauce chicken wing
Have a listen to Cindy's reflection in this journey of documenting her mother cooking chicken wings or read on in the transcript below.
Shiyun: Is there something you would like to tell our listeners?
Cindy: Like… What kind?
Shiyun: Maybe you can share your experiences doing this project
Cindy: My kitchen is kinda squeezy, so I kinda had to like… squeeze everywhere (laughs)
Shiyun: You mentioned something during the process that I remember very clearly. You said that your mom is so fast in doing everything
Cindy: Yes. When I’m hungry, she cooks very fast like chicken and rice. When I told her when I’m hungry and I want ramen, she made the ramen in like 5 seconds and I was like “heh”
Shiyun: Do you feel like you always have to catch up with her?
Cindy: Sometimes
Shiyun: But you’re like the opposite- Yeah I think you tend to do things fast
Cindy: Even if I have a family in the future, I think I will be a slow mother (Shiyun laughs) because I have so many chores to do for my kids
Shiyun: Yeah you might probably ask them to do everything
Cindy: Well I might not have a family, I might have a youtube channel
Shiyun: So the youtube channel is your family
Cindy: For my subscribers right (laughs)
Shiyun: Have you taken photographs of your mom?
Cindy: When I’m young
Shiyun: When you were younger? Not now anymore?
Cindy: I think I was around 3 or 4
Shiyun: Do you think about having photo albums?
Cindy: My mom… I don’t know. To me, is no.
Shiyun: To you, is no? So photo albums are not very important to you
Cindy: Well I think my mom is… I’m not sure yet. I don’t know her very well
Shiyun: You don’t know your mom very well
Cindy: Me and my mom don’t know each other very well, because I speak a lot of english and she gets confused by most of ‘em
Shiyun: Oh okay… confused with most of what you are saying?
Cindy: Because when she goes somewhere and meets people who speaks english to her, she’s like - this is why when she goes around, she always brings me around, just in case someone needed to speak english to her
Shiyun: Can you tell us a bit more about your mother?
Cindy: She has 2 jobs, one early in the morning, and another in the middle PM. Yesterday, I waited so long for my mom because she haven’t like, even come home, so me and my dad waited for her until the morning.
Shiyun: Was she working?
Cindy: Very late
Shiyun: So both of you couldn’t quite communicate that much, because she speaks vietnamese and chinese
Cindy: yeah, a little bit of chinese
Shiyun: A little bit of chinese, and you speak a little bit of vietnamese and english
Cindy: Yes
Shiyun: How do you think in the future, both of you can communicate? Do you think about such things?
Cindy: I tried learning more vietnamese, sometimes my mom and my grandma speak to me in vietnamese. Some of them I understand, some of them, I don’t know yet
Shiyun: How is it like growing up as a Chinese vietnamese?
Cindy: I don’t think I’m a chinese I feel more like a english child
Shiyun: You feel like you’re an english child
Cindy: Because I was born here, so I speak a lot of english, to english people
Shiyun: If there was one day you could spend with your family, where would you want to bring them to?
Cindy: A vacation, where they could stop working and rest
Shiyun: Where would that be?
Cindy: I think I will try to bring them to Hawaii, try to let them speak english a little bit more
Shiyun: Where would you want to bring them to again?
Cindy: Hawaii
Shiyun: Oh, wow. So that they can speak more english
Cindy: Well, try
