- It's like, everyone know everyone here.

- Okay.

- It's like, you know, everyone is a neighbor.

Somehow they just talk, you know, in the grocery line, in like, - Yeah.

- in the McDonald's line.

Just like people just talking, oh, hey, how you doing?

And just start chatting up.

I'm not sure if it's a Tennessee thing or it's a southern thing, but people are very, very friendly here.

(gentle music) - Hi, I'm Meg, executive producer at Nashville Public Television, and on this series we talk about the little things that stood out to folks when they first moved to the region from another country.

Today I'm here with David Chak.

David moved to Nashville, Tennessee from Bukit Mertajam, Malaysia.

David is an educator and social entrepreneur who's passionate about making a change in the world.

- Future is here for all!

- [Meg] In his spare time, he enjoys documentaries and video games, sometimes both at the same time.

And you have prepared this amazing breakfast for us today.

I'm wanted to kick it off by asking you, what differences have you noticed between a traditional Malaysian breakfast and an American breakfast?

- So in Malaysia, usually breakfast is kind of a big deal.

So we eat very heavy food for breakfast.

Usually it comes in a form of rice, noodles, and things like that.

So what we have today, this is called nasi lemak.

It's coconut milk rice.

- [Meg] Okay.

- With fried anchovies, peanuts, eggs, cucumbers, and the gravy that comes with it.

So this is what we typically eat in Malaysia, like that every day in the morning you just go out your house and you see like roadside stores that sell this for like as little as like 40 cent USD so.

- Is it a little spicy?

Or no?

- Yeah, it's a little bit spicy.

- Okay.

I mean, I'm just gonna try it.

It's like, it's calling me.

It smells wonderful.

(gentle music) Mm.

- [David] So what do you think?

- This is amazing.

I love the sauce.

Yeah, I wouldn't have thought of this as a breakfast.

This would seem more like a lunch or dinner to me.

But this is, you're gonna get your protein right off the bat.

- Well, people eat this for lunch and dinner as well.

It's an all day meal, depending on how you make it.

- Mmm.

So David, is this anchovy here like a full fish I'm looking at?

- Yes, actually this is actually a full fish that is.

- Yeah.

- Tiny.

Without the head though.

- Without the head.

Okay, yeah, I didn't see any eyeballs.

This is, this'll be different for me.

(anchovy crunches) Better than I expected.

Crunchy, some saltiness to it, but it definitely tastes like a fish.

- Yeah, yep.

- Yeah.

- I'm sure that.

- This is unique for breakfast for me, but I like it.

This is wonderful.

We'll save the rest of it for later, but I also wanted to ask you, what about other cultural differences related to food or just kind of the food culture in Malaysia.

Tell us a little bit about that.

- So one of the very interesting thing in Malaysian culture is that food is very, very important.

Like I mentioned, it's also a way for people to show their affections and their love for other people.

Like there are times growing up, you know, being not so good teenagers myself.

I've had many times fought with my parents and all that, and usually we make up by my dad just knocking on my door and say, hey, you want to eat dinner?

Or like, they'll be like, they'll be knocking on my door and say, here's some fruits.

Take it.

And that's how we make up at the end.

You know, it's not really like, oh, I'm sorry and all this thing you just like, you know, here's food.

And even so much so that when you go to someone's house, one of the thing that we would greet each other with is like, have you eaten?

- Oh, really?

Okay, have you eaten?

- Here's my food.

You know, food is a way for us to show like friendship, love, you know, or like just that you care for other people.

- [Meg] What other little differences have you noticed between life in Nashville, Tennessee and back home?

- So, one thing I do notice here is that people are so surprised when I tell you I can speak multiple languages.

- [Meg] Yeah.

- [David] 'Cause back home being able to speak multiple languages is kind of like given.

- [Meg] A given?

- [David] Like everyone is able speak two languages.

- [Meg] How many do you speak?

- I speak officially, I speak four languages.

I speak Mandarin Chinese.

That's my first language.

- Okay.

- I speak English as my second language.

I also speak Malay, which is the national language.

I speak French 'cause I used to study in Montreal.

But aside from that, I also speak two other Chinese dialect.

I speak Cantonese, and I speak Hakka.

- Oh, this is extremely impressive to me.

- Yeah, yeah.

But that is nothing though.

I'm sure you can find people who can speak on average about three to four languages back home.

- Wow.

- It's something that's very common to us.

- And so that's just like an integral part of the education system, I guess?

- Yes.

So in our education system, kids will learn the national language.

They also learn English.

So English is actually the, it's not the official language, but it's the business language.

It's the language that you can conduct, you know, your day to day actions in.

- [Meg] Yeah.

- So we learn English from young.

And on top of that, depending on your ethnic background, you learn your own mother tongue language as well.

- Like I learned Chinese.

- 'Cause your family is Chinese, okay.

- Mhm.

So interesting.

Well, what's one thing or multiple that really surprised you for the better when you came to Nashville?

Like you weren't expecting it, but now you're really enjoying it?

About the culture or people or food?

- One thing that I'm quite surprised is how friendly the people in the South is.

And I would say that if you are an introvert person in the South, - Yeah.

- it probably might not make you feel very comfortable because people will just strike up conversation with you.

- Yeah.

- And just like talking like, you know, it's like everyone know everyone here.

- [Meg] Okay.

- It's like, you know, everyone's a neighbor somehow.

They just talk, you know, in the grocery line, in like.

- [Meg] Yeah.

- In the McDonald's line.

Just like people just talking, oh, hey, how are you doing?

And just start chatting up, which I think it's quite amazing actually.

It just, it takes a bit of getting used to.

- In the grocery line you have people just start talking to you?

- Yeah, they'll start talking to you and like, you know, even like even getting in your car in the parking lot, you're just like, oh, hey, how are you doing?

Just start talking about stuff.

- Yeah.

Oh, and that doesn't, you haven't noticed that happen quite as much?

- No.

- People are more reserved?

- I have lived in Chicago before.

- Okay.

- I have lived in Canada before.

I don't see that happening anywhere else other than in the South.

- Oh, funny.

- I'm not sure if it's a Tennessee thing or it's a southern thing, - Okay.

- but people are very, very friendly here.

- I was like, I don't know if I've noticed it as much, but I may be the person in the parking lot striking up a conversation.

- Yeah, probably you are.

- That could be.

- Was there anything else you wanted to share with our viewers?

Just about differences you noticed or reflections from your time in Nashville?

- That every morning, and this is a very, very Malaysian thing, we do it across the different ethnic group in Malaysia, is that people will send good morning message.

- Okay.

- So like one thing I know my dad is up at like 5:00 AM is that he would send a message and say, hey, good morning.

It usually comes to a nice picture, like, good morning, may your day begin with like a sip of joy or something like that.

- [Meg] Uh-huh.

- And usually we do that.

We don't really use texting back home.

We use WhatsApp a lot.

- Oh, that's, it's common in a lot of countries, okay.

- It's common a lot of countries except in the US.

That's another thing that shocked me.

- Yeah, it is.

- We don't really text actually.

And I have this like large family group and in the morning just people saying good morning to each other.

- The WhatsApp groups just got a bunch of.

- Yeah.

- Now do they, people don't create these images themselves, right?

They just get forwarded around?

- We always joke around and say that there's a factory somewhere that produce all this image.

I think it just gets forwarded around, but we have no idea where those thing come from.

- [Meg] Yeah.

- Yeah.

- That's funny.

Well, thank you so much for inviting me into your home today, cooking this amazing meal.

I wanna give us time to actually dive in and enjoy it.

- Yes.

- Hope that you all enjoyed this video and getting to learn about David and Malaysia and cultural differences.

If you enjoyed it, please give us a thumbs up and subscribe to catch more videos in the series.

Until next time.

- Bye.

- [Narrator] "Next Door Neighbors" is made possible by the support of the Nissan Foundation.