This is the way we eat (Part 1) by Peter Chan

Since Chun See kicked-off the blog on street hawkers, I thought it interesting if I look back and follow Singapore’s progress from street hawkers to air-conditioned food courts. Thanks to my old university Economics term paper submitted to a lecturer (with a PhD as a salutation to his name and also a P.A.P MP then) I am able to pluck information from therein. By the way this lecturer never made us male undergraduates happy; he graded most of us with a B minus.

Photo 1: Ngo Hiang street hawker operates in front of a “5-foot-way”. Little glass cups in the foreground contain chilly and sweet sauces. You pick the skewed food items from the plates and dip into the sauce and dispose the skewer on the road. Just remember you are never the only one doing it (c 1970).

Singapore cultural and food streetscape used to be a myriad of hawker stalls that filled the wet markets and alleys. Living in the city you just took up space along the “5-foot way” shop-houses and in the rural area you built a tent, perhaps under a tree. There were few barriers to entry to begin with; small capital, simple cooking skills and cheap family-supplied labour. Hawking licence? Not really necessary - those that needed one operated in government-built wet markets or pasar malams. Although there were licensed street stalls, unlicensed hawkers out-numbered the former by 8:1 at the time of separation from Malaysia.


There were different types of hawkers, generally categorised as cooked food, cold drinks, fruits & vegetables, sundry goods, and fresh meats. Even the neighbourhood Cold Storage and Walls Ice Cream seller was included but under a slightly different definition. The Chinese were more open to the idea of street hawking as a form of employment than other races. Hence large concentration of street hawkers was found in Kreta Ayer, Teluk Ayer Street, Queen Street, North Canal Road, and Tanjong Pagar.

Photo 2: Feeling thirsty? Try this push-cart for coconut-water. 10 cents one glass (c 1967).

During the British colonial rule, the hawker management came under the purview of the City Council and the Ministry of Health. Prosecution was seldom practised and this could be attributed to rampant corruption or because hawker inspectors were frequently assaulted. If the arm of the law works, confiscated perishables were forcibly removed by hawker inspectors and foodstuff s donated to charitable institutions.

This is a 1967 photo of a shop selling roast meat in downtown Singapore. Russ Wickson remembers seeing hordes of flies take off as he walked by.