About
One stall, 21 lessons, no jargon
What Has Hokkien Mee Got to Do With AI? is a free course that explains artificial intelligence through one hawker stall, for anyone from 8 to 80.
The idea
A hawker who has fried the same noodles for decades predicts the Friday crowd, sorts the morning catch, and learns from every plate he sends out. He is already doing, in small and human ways, the things machines now do at scale. That is the whole course: the stall explains the machine.
Your host is AI Sing, a cheerful plate of Hokkien Mee who has run his own stall since 1968. He tells you the whole course himself, in his own words, from counter to stool. He is a hawker character who teaches AI. He is not an AI, and the course is careful to say where the analogy ends: where the noodle story stops, the lesson says so.
Where it comes from
The syllabus grew out of AI For Everyone, the AI literacy course Laurence Liew built at AI Singapore. This version is re-taught for the whole family: everyday scenes instead of workplace ones, one idea per lesson, and not a single line of code.
Why the lessons are shaped this way
The format follows research on how people actually learn, for ages 8 to 80:
- Short bites: Each lesson is one idea in about 3 minutes, so attention never runs out before the idea lands.
- Answer before you peek: Most lessons pause and ask you to predict first. Retrieval practice: saying an answer out loud beats reading it twice.
- Scenes you can picture: Some lessons ask you to run the scene in your head, which is how understanding moves from words to pictures.
- One small act: Some lessons send you out with one thing to notice or do that week, because using an idea is how it becomes yours.
- One new word at a time: Every AI term is explained in the same breath it appears, and collected in the glossary.
- You set the pace: Nothing autoplays, nothing counts down, and every lesson is fully readable as text. Rewind and re-read are learning moves here, not failures.
Your teacher
Laurence Liew built AI For Everyone at AI Singapore and wrote the book AI-First Nation. hokkien.me is his personal initiative: the same plain truths about AI, handed to a hawker who can explain them to anyone at the counter.
Accessibility statement
This site is built to be readable by everyone, including older readers and children:
- An A- / A / A+ text-size control in the header, alongside native zoom, and large body text by default.
- Tap targets of at least 48 pixels, a visible red focus ring on everything interactive, and no pop-ups, carousels, or autoplay anywhere.
- A full transcript for every lesson, so the course never depends on sound.
- Plain English, short sentences, and underlined links in a red that passes contrast checks on every background.
If something on this site is hard to use, tell us through the contact page.
Where the course stands today
All 21 lessons are complete and readable now, and each one carries spoken narration you can play right on its page. Every word of the narration is written on the page as well, so you can read, listen, or do both. Your reading progress and your text-size choice are kept in your own browser, in its local storage, and they never leave this device. The site collects nothing and asks for no sign-up.
The AIFN Community
Learning AI is better with company.
Ask questions, share what worked, and keep pace with fellow learners.
© 2026 hokkien.me · A personal initiative of Laurence Liew · Author of AI-First Nation.