Hawker Culture in Singapore is an integral part of the way of life for Singaporeans where people from all walks of life gather over a meal at their favourite hawker center and bond over food.

Hawker centers in Singapore carry a unique diversity of food and it originated from all the food cultures of the different immigrant groups who settled in Singapore.

MY GO-TO

My go-to breakfast meal would be fro ABC Brickwork’s Food Center! Prior to knowing the store owner, I did not know the amount of effort, dedication and hard work has to be put in for a simple fried bee hoon meal. 

BACKGROUND

Uncle John (*not his real name) wakes up at 3 am every single day without fail just to get to his stall. He has to set up and prepare the ingredients needed to sell along with his fried bee hoon, noodles, as well as porridge. The frying of noodles and ingredients starts at 4 am and it continues until 5.30 am, where he would already have customers queuing up to buy his food.

His wife would come in before 6 am to help him out. Uncle John has to repeat the steps of frying his noodles and ingredients so as to ensure the freshness, crispiness, and hotness for his customers. This whole process would last until 11 am where they would be done for the day.

This whole process repeats from Monday to Saturday and Johnny only gets to rest completely on Sundays and where he gets to spend quality time with his children and wife as well.

SNAPPING BACK TO REALITY

I came to realize that it was not an easy job when it comes to working at hawker centers. When you order the food, you only get to see what is on the surface but not the amount of blood, sweat, and tears that were contributed behind the preparation and cooking.

It is important especially for youths nowadays to express appreciation towards our hawker centers in Singapore because it serves as our national identity. Hawker centers has always been synonymous with Singapore’s identity and a part of every Singaporean’s life.

Craving for a hot soup or spicy food when it is raining? Just head down to your nearest hawker centers and you will be spoilt for choices from herbal soup, bah ku teh, porridge, fish soup to curry chicken, laksa, mala. All these varieties of food are so accessible, and we should show our appreciation towards the hawker cookers because it is their food that makes us warm at heart and fills our empty stomach.