Unpacking Recent Hawker Controversies & How We Can Save the Culture Goh Hanyan

Many of us have already watched the following podcast featuring Nee Soon GRC MP and Senior Parliamentary Secretary Goh Han Yan. Let me do a little unpacking for her replies.

She said that Singapore is developing and the hawker culture is evolving. “Our idea of what hawker culture is all about has to keep evolving as well.”

I can’t agree with that completely. Sure, we improve on hygiene standards but it’s our heritage and based on that simple fact, we should be preserving more than we “evolve”. Some new coffeeshops have deliberately adopted a retro/nostalgic theme. I don’t like to use of the word “stagnant”. There is nothing bad about the old model. It’s what got us here. From the time the authorities stopped building hawker centres to the time they started building again, the “complexion of families” has certainly changed and we’re looking at estates that are not mature. So what needs to be “much more different”? Higher ceilings? More airy? Central dishwashing (automated) ? Tray returns (automated)? Are all these facilities essential? Are they “much more different”? Well, if you strip down to the bare essentials, I really don’t mind the older design. There may be more options, but are food standards the same? The host agreed that there are infrastructural difference, but a vast improvement? Questionable.

Next, Ms Goh points out that in an estate that is not mature, NEA does not have the expertise to attract customers for hawkers from day 1. Yao mo gao chor ah? Even before the BTO residents move in, they would want to know where the supermarket and the hawker centre are. If the units are well-occupied, would NEA need any commercial expertise to turn residents into customers? If the estate is a ghost town with no residents, would a commercial operator be able to attracts customers from Pulau Ubin? I may not be a fan of hawker food, but common sense tells me that hawker centres are places people living nearby conveniently visit at a whim in their shorts and sandals whether it’s 1985 or 2015. Why is there a need for marketing expertise? SEHC is a model where private operators manage hawker centres under a social mission to balance public interest with professional management, although there is recent scrutiny and criticism from hawkers and advocates about contractual unfairness, high costs, and potential exploitation. Bring in a commercial operator but still have a social slant to it.

Looks wonderful in words and we can all understand the rationale, but how does it work out on the ground? Was NEA not aware that a lot of the social obligations are to be borne by the hawkers? Ms Goh’s reply? NEA has guidelines. Hawkers can work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Hawkers cannot be forced to over penalise for damages blah blah blah. But she quickly pointed out that it’s a commercial contract agreed upon by both parties. NEA does look through, has done its part, not their fault. So how did that Bukit Canberra issue come about? An excellent question from the host. How is it that it was Seetoh who received their feedback way before NEA and Minister Ong was initially in denial? Could the hawkers have been complacent, thinking that with “NEA oversight” it’s not necessary to go over the fine print? Ms Goh seems to suggest that NEA is with the hawkers every step of the way and even monitors how the operator explains the conditions to the hawker. If NEA needs to put in extra time and effort to help build trust and communication between the hawkers and the operator, then why can’t NEA just take over the operations? And from what Ms Goh said, it seems as if the burden of charity on the hawkers is entirely left to the operator because every centre has its unique way of attracting business. The host also pointed out an online platform that encourages hawkers undercut one another and offer the cheapest meals even to people who can afford. So the guidelines and guardrails won’t go there?

Frankly, all this sound too good to be true and make it even more difficult to understand how all this could have happened. Ms Goh pointed out that hawkers are better educated. Why can’t they run and market their own businesses? I’ve seen some are on Instagram and Facebook. Do they need another layer of management to drive traffic and business to their stalls? With technology, we should be getting rid of the middleman and not be introducing them. No, I don’t understand. Ms Goh herself seemed like she’s caught between trying to sell the model and recognising the areas that need improvement. The biggest question is sustainability. If the hawkers fail to survive, then it doesn’t matter how good the ambience and cleanliness standards are. As the host rightly pointed out, a SEHC hawker centre lacks the soul of a Singaporean hawker centre that reflects our heritage.

Towards the end, the hosts came up with questions and suggestions that practically left Goh Han Yan rambling incoherently. A point that is missed is that when prices go up, the quality also comes down. That’s a fact that even someone who doesn’t frequent hawker centres can attest to. A tour guide friend of mine had a request from a Vietnamese tour group asking him to bring them to a hawker stall to have an iconic Singapore dish. He brought them to the nearest hawker centre. They had a wanton mee and when they bought a plate for him and he tasted it, he felt so embarrassed. It was an awful wanton mee prepared by a foreigner. Does Ms Goh really know what is it that people want when the SEHCs were set up?

What value have landlords and operators added to our hawker centres, especially our SEHCs? Is this UNESCO thing just a “wayang”? We all recognise the need to increase prices, but who organised what are we really paying for? No, I don’t fully agree with pricing hawker food more “respectably” going forward. Because a lot of the price increases don’t go to our hawkers. Neither do I think that NEA should micromanage our intelligent and social media savvy hawkers. If anything, I think the SEHCs are even more controlling and less cost effective. The key feature of hawker experience is no frills. Somewhere down the line, the whole concept of no frills is lost. Is it because of our evolving needs? Would Singaporeans be afraid to try out no frills street food in Malaysia, Thailand or Indonesia because their setups are not on par with Singapore’s? This thing about evolving needs is just bullshit. As Seetoh once told a foreigner he brought to a no frills hawker centre, “just put the food in your mouth and chew. That’s the only etiquette here”. Our hawkers centres, in keeping up with the times, have morphed into food courts without aircon.

The funny thing is, our airlines are going budget but our hawker centres are going business class. I’m already not eating out that often seeing the rising prices. In fact, without CDC vouchers, I would be eating even less hawker food. How about going back to no frills hawker centres?