Singapore Hawker Heritage: Continuity in Change

The food of a country is the cultural vein of a society and provides a fascinating insight into the very soul of its people. It sustains, nourishes and inspires. The understanding of a culture is gained through developing a deeper appreciation of its food. Tracing back to her beginnings, Singapore was a popular destination for diverse ethnic groups that left their homelands in search for better prospects. Among others, traders and labourers would come from different parts of China, India, the Malay Archipelago and even the western world, bringing with them their food cultures. Singapore’s gastronomical uniqueness is thus a intermingling of these cultures, which have influenced each other resulting in the wide variety of food and cuisines available today. Whether it is the creamy coconut gravy of Laksa, or the fragrant and tender bites of Hainanese Chicken Rice, it is over the comfort food of a local dish where people of different walks of life share a meal with family or friends. Food is a large part of Singaporean culture and identity; food can be said to be a rallying point around which Singaporeans picket. A case in point is the tussle between Singapore and Malaysia about the originator of the famous Chilli Crab that fronted the news and social media in 2009. As Singaporeans, we take pride in the large variety of diverse and colourful cuisines that we have developed and established over the years. At the heart of all these, something that many local Singaporeans can identify with is the Hawker Centre. It is a place of unique sensory experiences, where the sights, smells, sounds and tastes are truly Singaporean. The hawker centre represents itself as a unique cultural icon in Singapore. It is a way of life for many Singaporeans; not only for those who work at these hawker centres but also for those who come to these hawker centres to enjoy the delicacies available as well as to bond with friends and family. In the early days, food was sold on the streets in mobile hawker stalls until they were relocated to hawker centres, which houses indoor and outdoor stalls. However, the Food Heritage that we pride ourselves is coming under threat with the inflation of rent and succession concerns. This is the impetus for our effort to give voice to this aspect of our heritage through story-telling and documentation of some hawkers. Turning our attention on two of Singapore’s well-loved food centres – Maxwell Food Center and Ghim Moh Food Centre – we sharpen our focus on these centres of gustatory excellence. At these places, we collected stories of the various hawkers through conversations and interviews which were then transposed in this write-up. Ghim Moh Food Centre, built in 1977 is located in the heart of the Ghim Moh estate in Buona Vista. Ghim Moh is also a district in Singapore that has a national reputation for hawker food. The word ‘Ghim Moh’ means ‘Golden Hair’ in Hokkien and is perhaps a reference to the British soldiers who resided in the nearby Holland Village during colonial times. Ghim Moh is famed for its Lian He Carrot Cake, Heaven’s Indian Curry and Jiu Jian Shao La, just to name a few. Although Ghim Moh Food Centre now has 72 cooked food stalls, the succession of the business is uncertain after the completion of renovations slated to start on 31 May 2014. The improvement works will last up to 18 months or more. Coinciding with these renovations is the expiration of many of the stallholders’ 20-year lease that began 1994. It is therefore unclear if the stall owners will return after the renovations should the rent increase beyond the degree of sustainability. As such, the identity and heritage of Ghim Moh Food Centre is at stake. In our quest to interview some stall owners, we were pleasantly surprised that despite the intrusion into their busy schedule, the hawkers at Ghim Moh made time for us to interview them. Most of them were very responsive to our questions and gave insightful perspectives. The common feature among the hawkers is that their working hours are at minimum ten hours a day, starting from four to five in the morning till about three in the afternoon, though most choose to stay on till the evenings after dinnertime. When asked about how the taste of hawker food has changed over time, all hawkers concur that the hawker food sold today “is very different”. “Most people today only care about making fast money. They use machines to speed up the process, and so [food] is no longer as fragrant,” Mr Lee, a chwee kueh seller commented. Mr Lee has been in the trade since 1959 and has seen many changes in hawker practices. He laments that in order to continue making a living in changing times, many traditional food items besides chwee kueh have been eschewed due to the tension between the pressure to be efficient on the one hand, and the attendant labour intensiveness on the other. He comments that Singaporeans have gotten “lazier” while reminiscing the hard work his family went through in the past just to produce a single piece of quality kueh. Mr. Lee shared his conflict of having to choose between preserving an authentic taste and keeping up with the high level of competition. He yielded to the former. Fortunately, he has earned local repute for being one of Singapore’s few hawker stalls that still continues to carefully preserve and follow as closely as possible traditional food practices that started decades ago. Like Mr Lee, many others at Ghim Moh shared that they were in this profession largely also because they were not academically skilled. However, most admitted that being in the business for decades has made them grow attached to the vocation because it was something they could count on to make a living. Many even stated that after the renovations at Ghim Moh, they would like to continue doing what they do best. As bastions of Singapore’s food culture and as an extension, our collective heritage, we too do hope for this continuity. Maxwell Food Centre, originally known as Maxwell Market found its beginnings in 1935 as a wet market to cater to the Chinatown precinct. In 1986, the site was converted into a temporary hawker centre to house the hawkers from China Square along the famed food street, China Street. The structure remained for more than a decade until it was renovated in 2001. Today Maxwell Food Centre is a popular hawker centre located within the Central Business District. It has become even more vibrant since Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay pulled Maxwell Food Centre into the media spotlight with the cook-off with Foo Kui Lian from Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice. Further publicised by news agencies such as Wall Street Journal, this news coverage sent ripples through the Singapore food scene. As such, Maxwell Food Centre continues to enjoy an unceasingly stream of both the curious and coveting locals and tourists. The longevity of such fame however remains to be seen as we have been told in our interviews that some hawkers are not optimistic for the continuity of their trade, or for their trade to remain at a consistent quality. Two mains reasons have been observed. Firstly, hawkers are reluctant for their children to continue with this line of work. For instance, one hawker selling oyster cakes tells us that he did not study hard when he was younger, so he was left with no choice but to become a hawker. When asked if he would pass this trade onto his children, he said he would rather them “study hard” and get a better job. “With an opportunity of good education and a chance at a better career, I’d rather that he studies hard than be a hawker”. Secondly, a Yong Tau Fu hawker from Maxwell Market expressed that “everything in the hawker centres (have become) really expensive”. Now workers hired locally or from China, man many of the hawker stalls. The original owners who set up the business do not remain on location. Some of the hawkers we spoke to said that they are in the business for money not for the passion. “Now people can just rent out the stalls to workers”, says the same Yong Tau Fu hawker, “the food loses its taste, people do not think about this part (when renting out their business).” Over the years, the hawker culture of Singapore has slowly changed along with the pressures of modernity. The hawkers who we interviewed share the similar view that fewer Singaporeans are willing to follow in their footsteps because the job is deemed to be too laborious and offers little prospect of advancement in the fast-paced lives of Singaporeans. While the challenge of increasing rent and scarcity of manpower for succession might not be easily solved, initiatives have been implemented to help inject new vibrance into the Singapore hawker scene. For example, the Hawker Master programme jointly launched by the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) and the National Environment Agency (NEA) in 2013 that seeks to “encourage Hawker-Entrepreneurship And Preserve Hawker Heritage” saw the appointment of 50 aspiring hawkers to be apprenticed by veteran hawkers in Singapore. It remains to be seen if more of such aspiring hawkers, now coined as “Hawkerpreneurs”, will consequently emerge but at least the seeds are now being sowed. We have been touched by the sincerity and candidness of the hawkers who have kindly spent time to speak to us. In their own right, they are weavers of the Singapore story. As the Singapore story continues to unfold, and would like to encourage all to support their enterprise and livelihood, and in turn, strengthen Singapore’s hawker heritage. (Written by Shruti Shah, Kwok Min Min, Goh Shi Ya Sarah, Tsui Yen Ling Elaine & Danielle Ong Dan Ning from School of the Arts)