Singaporeans and Malaysians at Odds Over Hawker Food

On Aug 22 2018, two days after PM Lee’s announcement of Singapore’s UNESCO nomination of its hawker centres, Malaysians took to social media to voice their grievances against this decision. In particular, The Star, a Malaysian newspaper, published an article featuring Malaysian perspective on this issue. Without going into the facticity of PM Lee’s announcement, the article moves straight into perspectival framing in its second sentence, quoting a local celebrity chef Datuk Ismail who remarked the decision as redolent of “lack of confidence and arrogant behavior”. It cites other reactions to the nomination, such as “food is meant to be enjoyed and not to pick fight over who owns what. We fight about everything else, such as territorial claims, oil and water” and “people who lack confidence will go out to do things for recognition”. It then moves into a comparison of authenticity, claiming that while Singapore’s hawker centers are “confined within buildings”, ones in Malaysia are “widespread and found in both urban and rural areas”. In addition, while Singapore’s hawker centers are “beautiful but tasteless”, Malaysia’s is “original and diverse, with a sensitivity in using fresh ingredients, and efforts to sustain originality of dishes”. Finally, the articles lends some generosity to featuring Singaporean perspective, but not without deliberately choosing the most puerile and antagonistic of comments to feature (“Malaysia doesn’t have anything to be proud of in the last twenty years”, “If you’re so good, why not you be nominated from UNESCO”). 

What interests me in this article is how its framing reflects Singapore-Malaysian tension, in particular the quotes (out of many possible others) from locals that were selected, the ordering of them within the article and what they are attempting to reflect. It is fascinating because I do understand how given Singapore and Malaysia’s intertwined history, any notion of culture and its originality is bound to be tricky. However, it is most interest looking at the perspectives represented in this piece, particular those around authenticity and origin. 

I also note how as compared to Channel News Asia’s coverage of the nomination, the only articles on The Star are focused on the controversy itself. As a tabloid newspaper, it has greater leeway in tone and in expressing greater varieties of opinions, and I note how the light-hearted humor is used to put forth more serious perspectives, such as the underlying note that Singapore should drop the nomination because its hawker culture origin really is Malaysia, and that this whole bid is puerile and pointless to begin with. On the whole, it seems like an article intended to scandalize and provoke.