Singaporean students preserve heritage through children’s books

In Singapore, three students working as The Hainanese Cooked team created the picture book Bo’ Hou And The Grand Feast to educate children about Hainanese culture and food.

The book follows animal characters and introduces readers to Hainanese phrases and dishes like ge bia, a mooncake with orange peel and pepper. To accompany the book, the team built an online map showing heritage sites and restaurants serving traditional foods. The project received support from the Temasek Foundation.

NUS Heritage Champions programme, which funded student-led efforts to preserve Singapore’s heritage. As part of the programme, another team, Scoops of Memory, developed My Ice Cream Uncle, a book and documentary about Singapore’s traditional ice cream hawkers. Scoops of Memory noted that ice cream hawkers are becoming less common in Singapore, and they aimed to document the stories of these vendors and their connection to the community.

Both teams plan to make their books available in public libraries, and Scoops of Memory will release an e-book by the end of the year.