These aged care homes are doing things from lion dances to banh mi

November 28, 2024 6:15 PM

From lion dances to banh mi, these aged care homes are doing things differently. Demand for culturally appropriate aged care is booming as some migrant communities shake the taboo of placing elderly relatives in professional care. With more than a third of Australians over the age of 65 born overseas, demand for linguistically and culturally appropriate care is continuing to grow.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (5 comments total)

I don't know if it's still available post-covid, but at one time, one of the best restaurants in Vancouver for homestyle Japanese cooking was a nursing home for Japanese elders that opened to the public for dinner in the hours after the residents had finished their own meals. I am certain that it meant a lot to those residents to be able to eat culturally appropriate food -- that was, as it happens, also very, very good -- rather than having to leave their homes and switch to a generic western institutional diet.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:26 AM on November 29 [3 favorites]

"I don't know if it's still available"

Hi Genki unfortunately closed in 2022.
posted by porpoise at 1:31 PM on November 29

Man this is something I have wondered about for myself sometimes. It's a very, very long way away, but from seeing my great uncle in a memory care facility, I hope to god I don't spend my last years eating mashed potatoes and overcooked green beans. Even if I was a 100% white american I would want some cultural variety in my food.
posted by extramachine at 10:03 PM on November 29

> Even if I was a 100% white american I would want some cultural variety in my food

I recently was a houseguest in just such a retirement home in a very white area of the US and hoo boy, you do not want to see what they did to Thai food.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:35 AM on December 1

Is there a flag for =(
posted by porpoise at 12:01 AM on December 2