kok kok and nangka

The last time I went back home, my mum had packed loads of CNY gookies for me to bring back to Japan, since I wouldn't be able to celebrate CNY this year. There were few varieties of cookies, dried meat floss, the sweet pork jerky and my favourite fried prawn rolls.

I thought I'd share some with my colleagues, and the easiest to share were the almond cookies. It was nicely packaged in a tin, and I had left it at the department's "coffee corner", which is usually where we share omiyage* like these.

I realised awhile later, not many actually tried it. I then remembered that Japanese can be super hygienic. It was after some coaxing that they would take some, then only expressed how delicious it was.

This trip back in Malaysia, knowing how they prefer goodies to be individually wrapped, I looked high and low for something similar. I already knew it would be difficult, because these would mean additional unnecessary costs, and the quantity would be so little I can't really share with the whole department.

While running some errands in Mid Valley, I somehow found these Gula Tarik Kok-Kok! To be honest, I probably never really tasted these before, but would have seen these when I was a kid. I thought it was a great way to introduce traditional Malaysian candy to my Japanese colleagues.

See, they are individually wrapped, and quite nicely packaged. Each packet has the picture of the uncle selling the "sparkling candy", and a description at the back of what it is.

I think I should start packaging some of these Malaysian goodies to sell to Japanese with a penchant for individually packed candy! Well, kudos to this company for reviving traditional sweets.

Since there was probably around 15 packs of the "sparkling candy", I thought of getting this dried jackfruit chips too. It's also something I've never tried myself, so why not? But then again, why would I wanna buy nangka chips when there's plenty of fresh juicy ones sold easily everywhere?!

This was such an unusual fruit that my colleagues were quite hesitant to taste it at first. I was almost insulted when they smelt it first, then asked me how it tasted. I had to remind myself that, I could have done the same if I was given a foreign fruit that I've never seen nor taste before.

I tried to describe the real fruit with juiciness almost similar to a mango (it's not a good comparison but hey it's the same colour!), and showed them a picture of a real jackfruit from the Internet. It's a bit hard to describe the texture because I've never seen anything like this in Japan to help them imagine it.

It really felt like a "show and tell" session that day.


*  お土産(P); 御土産 【おみやげ】 (n) (pol) (See 土産・みやげ) present; souvenir;