Fill our bellies, feel our identity

Singaporeans have an insatiable hunger when it comes to local food, but what should we be doing to preserve our hawker culture?

Of all the unique aspects of our little red dot, Singaporeans seem to hold food closest to our hearts. We read and talk all about it and we are not afraid to defend our local cuisine. Hawker culture is perhaps the most important aspect of Singaporean food – the cheap yet delicious dishes are a staple and part of everyday life.

In August 2018, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that our Singaporean hawker culture will be nominated for inscription into UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (ICH). Two months later, it was revealed that hawkers at Jurong West Hawker Centre are forced to pay 20 cents for every tray returned to their stall, sparking the revelation of a string of social enterprise hawker centre-related controversies.

Life is not the easiest today for hawkers all over our sunny island. Mdm Wendy Sim, has been running her kopi stall, Xin Kee Hainan Hot & Cold Drink, at Old Airport Road Food Centre for over 20 years and she lamented over rising rental and maintenance costs and a lack of pest control in the complex. According to Mdm Sim and other hawkers in the same complex who did not wish to be named, cleaning costs alone have gone up by $200 within the last year but hawkers still have to wash their own crockery.

Similar sentiments were share by Mdm Er Beng Yeo, 69, a kway chup hawker at 496 Jurong West Street 41, whose store rental has increased by 40 per cent within the last five years, while the price of her kway chup has only gone up by about 15 per cent. However Mdm Er feels that the increase in fees is necessary and she is able to cope thanks to good day-to-day business.

In light of all of this, the situation begs the question of what hawker culture really is. What does hawker culture mean to Singaporeans? Why does it seem to matter so much to us and our identity? And if we want to preserve it, which aspects of it should we be focusing on retaining?

A 2016 survey by the National Environment Agency (NEA) showed that 9 in 10 Singaporeans agree that hawker centres are an integral part of our identity. “It’s like a place to gather and it’s a place for nourishment and it’s a place for families to go to,” says Mr Yeoh Wee Teck, 50, food columnist for The New Paper. “[Food] is also one thing that binds a lot of us together. I think it’s a very Asian thing, our conversations all begin with food.”

The future of hawker centres and hawker culture may seem uncertain at this current point – the median age of hawkers is 59, according to Straits Times food editor Ms Tan Hsueh Yun, which means hawkers may be aging faster than young ones are stepping up to replace them – but there is still hope. “The trend I see is that younger people are trying to reinvent it,” Mr Yeoh feels, “There is a place and time for everything. Everything has its charm.” If there is one thing we know for sure, it is that Singaporeans’ love for hawker food is not dying out any time soon and we will continue to defend it with our voices.