How well do we ever really know our parents? For the children of immigrants especially, there can be lots of gaps.
This week, over at our neighbours Noor Halal, the kids heard Yeshi speaking fluent Hindi for the first time. It was a shock – they had no idea he had such mastery of the language.
Tibetan people have been living in refugee settlements in India for more than 60 years now. Yeshi crossed the Himalayas by foot when he was nineteen and spent over a decade here. Learning Hindi happened on the fly, as it does for most Tibetans who flee their homeland for India.
We’ve taken the children back to Yeshi’s village in Tibet, but they haven’t yet seen their dad in his second home on the subcontinent, so this part of his life remains something of a mystery so far.
Parents often keep stuff back. Sometimes it’s deliberate. Often it’s just circumstance. In Yeshi’s case there’s a lot of complex ground to cover, and language, logistical and cultural barriers present a particular challenge.
He doesn’t mean to withhold things from the kids, but it can be difficult or tiring to have to explain. Without context, there are inevitably elements of his story that the children cannot access or understand.
Mealtimes, however, always present an opportunity. In our home, as at the restaurant, Yeshi cooks the dishes that he learned to make as a child in Tibet, as well as those he added to his repertoire in India.
Resisting the call of the supermarket baby isle, he always prepared food for our children from scratch, and even today he often has a story to tell about this dish or the other, about a particular ingredient or style of cooking.
In this way, the different parts of his life start to come together. Conversations at the dinner table and mouth feel are powerful tools of communication.
Respect to every parent navigating family life in a new country, especially those who are forcibly displaced. Adapting to different cultures and learning all those languages is not easy, but raising children thousands of miles away from your own birthplace and people may be toughest of all.
We prescribe a diet of dishes from home, as well as daily dinnertime discussion. Either that or opening a restaurant. This could be seen as an extreme measure, but the four walls of Taste Tibet have definitely grounded Yeshi, and they have also given our kids pride in their Tibetan identity, something that the children of immigrants can struggle to find.
The restaurant is open all the usual hours this week, as follows:
Weds – Fri: 5-9.30pm (dinner only)
Saturday: 12-3/ 5-9.30pm
Sunday: 12-3 / 5-9pm
This week’s menu is up on the website – check it. Come for dine in, take away and a restock of your freezer. We also have plenty of chilli oil and cookbooks.
A heads up that Taste Tibet will be closing on Sunday 10th May until Friday 5th June, so if you’re in the habit of keeping the freezer nice and full with our take-home meals, you might like to stock up now before your favourite dishes are gone for the month. We have something of everything in there at the moment, including family-sized boxes of Yeshi’s dal. Come forage.
And if you want to keep track of our movements during the nomadic summer months, make sure you’re signed up to our weekly newsletter! We also offer discounts and freebies with every Postcard From Tibet.
Looking forward to seeing you soon,
Julie and Yeshi
Opening hours this week:
Weds – Fri: 5-9.30pm
Saturday: 12-3pm 🥢 5-9.30pm
Sunday: 12-3pm 🥢 5-9pm
☏ 01865 499318
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