Hawker Centres – Food, eating, self-determination Colonizing Bullies.

(Written in October 2022, after several introductory Postcards, I had finally started my Singapore adventure)

Finally, after much talk, I am on the ground in Singapore! It seems fitting to start where modern Singapore started, the Site where Stamford Raffles rowed ashore in 1819. So, as my old corpse is obscuring the most important part of this photograph.

Singapore let’s eat.

When I started this Postcard series, I had intended some serious ponderings, but the last two days, exhausted from travelling, I’m just eating, eating, and getting my bearings. So, food:

Food in Singapore means the ‘Hawker Centre’. Ok, what is that?

Think local takeaway or cafe, kind off. Similarity suddenly stops. Hawker Centres are communal buildings, providing accommodation to small family run businesses: Malay, Chinese, and Indian traditional fare. Food is cheap, meals are large, crowded, noisy, aromatic, fresh ingredients – Hard to describe, but US chef, author, and TV personality, Anthony Bourdain does it best:

“So, it was another day in foodie paradise. And that is Singapore’s singular danger. It is easy to get sucked in, to get used to the trivial things on your daily table — the tiny dishes of sambal or chopped red chili peppers, the soy sauce, even the moist towelettes. And once you get used to the sights, sounds, smells and tastes, there is no going back. Western food becomes eerily bland and flat. You find your soul kidnapped by the memory of condiments. If you like the idea of getting lost in Asia, Singapore is the perfect place to start“

Anthony Bourdain.

Hawker Centre History.

Where did this all start? The success of Raffle’s ‘Asian Pub‘, oh he also built a Trading Port: Well, it attracted workers from all over, and workers need to be fed and these workers, well let’s say Raffles and Co, were here to make money, worker’s welfare was not a huge priority. Up stepped the Hawker:

Hawkers, rode and strode Singapore’s Streets, feeding this new workforce, with the only food they knew, the traditional cuisine of their home Countries. This started, well pretty much immediately that Raffles opened shop. By the start of World War 2, Hawking was feeding most of Singapore, but that came at a price: Street congestion, no sanitation, gangs fighting for territory, rampant serious disease. The English Colonial Government tried what colonizers often do: Stamp out the problem but give scant attention to an alternative – How to feed the working population, the engine room of Singapore’s wealth.

Fascists come and go, Colonizers return.

The Japanese Invasion of 1942 stopped the Hawkers in their tracks: There simply was no food! Besides, the Japanese also wanted plenty of not just cheap labour, free forced labour.

1946, Britain, Holland, and France – having recently crushed Italy, Japan, and Germany, for their sheer audacity in trying to take over someone else’s Countries, well these European powers have returned to business as usual: Running someone else’s Country! Britain – Singapore, Holland – Indonesia, and France – Vietnam.

It was back to business for the Singapore Hawkers as well, but the same chaos, hygiene, health issues remained despite another 19 years of authorities trying to eliminate the Hawkers.

Food becomes a resistance movement.

The crack down on Hawker Centres post WW2 came to symbolize National Identity, IE: Singapore’s struggle for self-destiny, free of European or Asian empire building. During the 1950’s Hawker Centres frequently were the subject of ‘resistance’ art:

Hawker’s scrambling in response to ‘cockatoos’ warning of an authority raid. Having now walked the Singapore’s remaining back blocks, I cannot imagine apprehending such ‘villains’ was an easy business.

Singapore commences time travel into the future.

1965, Singapore has received the property deeds back from Britain and settled an ugly messy divorce with Malaysia. Lee Quan Yu’s new Government takes a different approach to the Hawkers. Lee considers the continuation of traditional regional food critical to building the multicultural society he has in mind, but he is ever pragmatic. Street Hawking is banned full stop, but not before the creation of the ‘Hawker Centre’ in which the same Hawkers can continue business. The new Hawker Centres are structurally sound, hygienic, and well maintained. Rents are controlled, the traditional Hawkers are never pushed into profit deficit by a greedy landlord. The same policy has continued down to today. But does it work?

Well US President Joe Biden thinks so:

Anthony Bourdain also thinks so:

“I come here mostly to eat because that’s what Singaporeans do here. And they arguably do it better—with more diverse, affordable food options per square foot than just about anywhere on Earth”.

Anthony Bourdain

UNESCO also thinks they work pretty well, in 2020 Hawker Culture was added to UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Seriously, I have no idea what that means, but I do know, UNESCO has not recently added my local Fish and Chip Shop or Macca’s to that list!

Intangible Singapore.

Three days in, I get the intangibility of Singapore, as Anthony said, it’s something to do with:

“Jam-packed in between the carefully feng shui-ed architecture, the skyscrapers, and office blocks are rich, deep, very old, and deliciously funky remnants of the Old World – Chinese, Indian, Malay – and a culture that still cherishes the joys of a simple, good thing.”

Anthony Bourdain

I can’t help pondering, that for a government, often accused of totalitarianism or at best a benevolent dictatorship, well the Lee Government handled the Hawker issue with sensitivity, taking something flawed, something that others had tried to destroy and made it endure – There is great Leadership on display here. Or,

Perhaps the Hawker Centre is simply an excellent place to eat?

(I explore Singapore’s success in my Postcard ‘Eating, extreme excess, and Crazy Rich Asians’, you can read it by following this link.)