Around midnight, seven days a weekÖ
When all is quiet,
thereís always a shutter up.
Behind the scenes,
in the wee hours of the night,
they keep the hearth burning.
A new generation of hawkers
who do it because they want to.
Can they survive the winds of change
that blow into the hawker centre?
The cooks in the streets
who became a national feature,
from few to many, they fed the country.
Here at the table are their stories,
their hearts, their minds and their food.
The past, present and future
hawker culture in the Belly of a Nation.
She has been here
for the last couple of hours.
An overnight routine which
she observes at least five days a week.
Li Rui Fang has become the poster child
of young people who bear the mantle
of their grandfathers' vocation.
I guess that people are
very interested in my story
because Iím female
and considered to be young.
People just want to know
why I want to be a hawker.
Even though she is with child,
she sticks to the routine.
By 6.30, the business opens.
She sells Hokkien prawn mee,
or "Hae Mee".
My grandfather was from
Nanían in Fujian, China.
He came to Singapore in the 1940s.
A family friend started to teach him how
to sell prawn noodles to make a living,
so he started with a pole and basket
and started selling along Balestier Road.
In 1973, the government decided
to build hawker centres,
thatís when my grandmother and my father
moved there to sell prawn noodles.
At that time, my grandfather was quite sick
so he stopped selling prawn noodles
and he taught my grandmother
how to make the broth.
Rui Fangís grandmother detracted from
the recipe and created a dry version.
The dry version is more popular
than the soup version.
The business was handed
to Rui Fangís father.
I have seen a lot of my favourite
hawker stalls close down
and the hawkers retire
without any successors,
thatís when I knew I had
to continue with the legacy.
The original business was sold
to her aunties
while she came out on her own.
Her parents assist her
in the business today.
I had been telling
my primary school friends
that I want to sell prawn noodles
when I grow up,
but I actually forgot about it
until they told me recently.
I graduated from university and worked
in a finance company for four years,
then I realised that itís not really
what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
The stall is at Tekka Food and Wet Market,
and it was built before she was born.
An area that was once
filled with street hawkers.
I didnít get to eat from the street stalls
because when I was born,
I think there were already a lot
of hawker centres around.
My parents always brought me to hawker
centres for breakfast on weekends,
so I could say that I grew up
eating hawker food.
A year after she was born, the government
stopped building hawker centres.
Old surfaces were torn down,
replaced by new ones.
The country was in a whirl of change.
Staying cool impacted the hawker culture.
There was a time in the 1990s in particular,
where the thinking was that
the younger generation
was not going to be interested
to eat at hawker centres.
They would want to be at air-conditioned
food courts and fast food joints
that had come into Singapore,
so the policy was to forget about
building new hawker centres.
It was also fuelled by concerns that young
people would not want to become hawkers,
and therefore the trade
would die a natural death.
Funan was the first, and only, government
hawker centre that had air-conditioning.
Opened in 1985, it housed
hawkers from Hock Lam Street.
That same year, a food court
appeared within a shopping centre.
The concept of food courts in
shopping centres began to take hold.
Eating hawker food in colder climates,
once a dream, became almost a necessity.
At a time when many of us
are already dreaming,
another second generation
hawker starts his day
in a food court within a shopping centre.
Abdhus Salam is a second generation Indian
rojak hawker with a stall named after him.
I knew that my father was in F&B,
but not specifically Indian rojak.
After I went to secondary school,
thatís when I started to help my father.
Thatís when I realised that heís selling
Indian rojak, and itís named after me.
And thatís why I was so excited.
I felt nice about it.
I even started to share this news with my
friends and teachers at that point of time.
They also told me: "See how much
your father and mother love you.
You should take care of them,
be nice to them,
make sure that you donít
disappoint them in any way."
They even advised me, "If you can,
try to expand their business."
Thatís what my teacher told me.
And I replied: "No, I canít think
of myself as chef or a hawker,
I want to be a pilot, doctor or engineer."
The original stall is in Ayer Rajah
which he manages along with
the branch in a shopping centre.
After my research, I realised
that you can find Indian rojak
along shophouses or hawker centres.
Thatís very common,
but not in shopping centres.
Thatís how it sparked me that I should
have Indian rojak in a shopping centre.
Indian rojak consists of fritters
which are made with raised batter.
Many are ready-made in
a central kitchen somewhere.
Abdhus Salam still makes his from scratch,
which is why heís here overnight.
The main attraction for Indian rojak
is all the beautiful colours in there.
Just a line here and there,
and I'm just going to turn it like that.
I learnt this from my father.
This was the first thing
he taught me when he was alive.
The preparation for Indian rojak
takes seven to eight hours minimum.
Normally we operate
from 11am to 10pm everyday,
so we will come as early as 1am
to prepare the Indian rojak.
We have 19 items.
One fritter that has been around for
a long time is "that coconut thing".
Some people call it 'kozhu kattai'.
'kozhu kattai' is actually the
common name for coconut fritter.
Some call it 'thengai mavu'.
'Thengai' means 'coconut' and 'mavu' is flour.
Not only are we given a name,
Abdus Salam shows what goes into it.
There are a few different
ingredients we will add in,
so I will start the process now.
This is a solution of yeast powder
and baking powder,
now Iím going to add in coconut milk.
Evaporated milkÖ
Grated coconutÖ
Crushed peanuts to give an extra
crunchy element and hardy texture.
The rice flour and sesame seeds,
which weíre going to mix evenly.
After an hour, the batter is deep fried.
I was actually working as an engineer,
but my father was not feeling well
and had a mild heart attack.
So, I decided to take over the business
and run it myself.
If not, I feel that my fatherís hard work
would have gone to waste.
The old stall runs on its own steam,
but the new branch still needs
a bit of managing,
which Abdhus Salam does
in the early hours, seven days a week.
I feel that this is actually
an accomplishment,
and of course carrying on my fatherís
legacy because he has passed away.
I feel that this is one of the things
which I can present to my father
in return for the amount
of hard work that he had put in.
It makes me very happy
that my fatherís hard work
is still being showcased to my customers.
The shutters are up.
People get on with their workday.
The frying oil infuses the air.
The morning sun starts to tickle.
The young man is not amused.
Heís been at it since 4 in the morning,
he bears the weight of a legacy.
I told my father that
I didn't want to come back.
I just want to go outside to work
and see the world.
The stall is so famous that
itís made it to a Bib Gourmand list.
The dish is Chinese rojak.
My main concern is that
I would try to maintain the taste
as close to my father's as possible.
I definitely cannot make it as good
as him, but it is what Iím trying to do.
My father's name is Lim Ngak Chew.
He used to be an odd job labourer
until about the age of 16 or 17,
when he came across an uncle selling
rojak who asked him to man his stall.
From there, he started to learn,
and that was when he started to sell rojak.
Itís mostly vegetables and fruit, inspired
by the Indonesian dish of similar name.
The essential part is the
prawn paste, called Hae Koh,
and this is where the mixologist plays.
The main concern is that the peanut, sugar,
prawn paste, chilli, and asam water,
these five main ingredients must have
their proportions very well-maintained.
You cannot add a little bit more
or less with any of them.
There's also cucumber and pineapple.
Last time, they used kangkong,
but now we have changed to beansprouts.
The you tiao and taupok remains the same.
I cannot use fruits that are too sweet
or sour, it would spoil the whole dish.
I must use something that's a bit plain,
a bit juicy and crunchy.
Quite recently, about ten years ago,
we started to use jellyfish instead of squid.
My father thought of wanting
something more crunchy and tasty,
because we find that if we keep
using the same ingredients,
people might get bored of it.
In street hawking days, rojak moved
around the island on the back of bicycles.
Often seen at night, when street
operas were tentpole productions.
And they still hung around when cinemas
took over the night entertainment scene.
The stall is named after a cinema.
During that time, Hoover
was actually a very scary place
because my father and a group of hawkers
were stationed by the roadside.
The worst part was that
everyone there was afraid of rain.
Because if it rains,
the drain would flood.
And there would be nobody coming
to patronise the stalls.
I remember my father was so happy
when we came here
because rain or shine,
thereís always a shelter.
The water was clean,
and thereís also a toilet.
That was his happiest time.
Unhappy is this son who maintains
his father's good reputation.
I donít understand how
my father could do it,
from 8 in the morning,
until 10 at night.
And he did so for many years.
When I worked for my father
I found that his work was very tedious.
Actually, the main concern
is still my health,
because my feet
are hurting a lot everyday.
I donít know if my body can take it,
because itís really too tiring.
He was diagnosed with a terminal
illness, so he asked me to.
He told me that at this stage,
I really have to man the store,
because there's no one else.
And I found that I really
had to help him at this time.
I try not to be too emotional,
and see what I can do.
But it seems like I'm stuck here.
During the old days, people liked
to eat rojak that had a raw taste.
For example, heavier prawn
paste and less sugar,
but youngsters nowadays
prefer a different taste.
My concern now is that I'll try to maintain
the main ingredients in the sauce.
If I manage to get some fruits that is
suitable for my rojak, like jambu,
I will just add that in.
Kimchi?
Not bad idea too.
Rojak didn't used to be sold
in the morning,
it was sold in the afternoon
and at night.
But I decided to sell in the mornings
because people are concerned
with health nowadays.
I find that rojak has a lot of vegetables,
and people might treat it as a salad.
And I found that people accept it
after I started selling it in the mornings.
This is why I would continue.
Keeping hawker food alive past the first
generation calls for a lot of sacrifices.
Some do, and some donít.
Within some of the older hawker centres,
drama unfolds.
"Do you want me to take over?"
They said no.
By the 1990s, hawker centres
everywhere were getting upgrades.
Some just torn away,
some made over several times.
This little hawker centre, in a posh part
of town, has been done over four times.
Built in the 70s to house
street hawkers in the area,
some of whose descendants still work here.
To me, to see a third
generation in a hawker centre,
is very rare.
My name is Sumadi Bin Sapari,
the owner of Warung Pak Sapari,
and Iím selling mee rebus and mee soto.
In 1973, my grandfather
was the first owner of the stall
at Adam Road Hawker Centre,
stall number 9.
The heart of mee soto
is the chicken stock,
infused with rempah, or spice paste.
Hokkien noodles is
the mee behind the soto.
Chicken that was boiled
in a stock is shredded.
Topped sometimes with a begedil,
a potato croquette.
Mee soto came to Singapore
via Javanese immigrants.
Sumadiís grandfather
sold it on the streets,
and later, passed the business
on to Sumadiís parents.
It started from my grandfather.
He started here when it was
still kind of a muddy area.
He used to carry all the food
using the satay type of pole.
This place, all along this area, was kind
of muddy because it was always flooded.
My mother stopped her work as a cashier.
My father also stopped his work
and both of them were jobless,
so my grandfather invited them
in the 1980s to start work with him.
When they started selling
mee rebus and mee soto,
my father started to think what more could
he do with the two gravy that I have.
There was a lot of soto in Indonesia,
but in the end, my father said:
"Why donít we make it our own?
Why donít we make it different?"
My father decided to
tweak the recipe of the soup,
and we wanted to make it our own.
My father started putting in gizzard
and other parts of the chicken,
and we also used chicken feet to
accommodate whatever we are selling now.
In 2013, both of them
started to get unwell.
My mother had cancer
and my father also had cancer.
I was still working in 2011,
and I asked them:
"Do you want me to take over?"
They said no.
Before this, I was in the
engineering industry.
Then I was thinking,
since it was passed down from
my grandfather to my father,
it would have been a waste.
My father asked: "Do you have the money?
Do you have the will?
Do you have the passion to do it?"
And he gave me a lesson:
"Whatever I teach you, you follow.
Whatever I buy, you buy the same thing."
My father's hand and my hand is different,
his tongue and my tongue is different,
although we have the same
ingredients and concoction,
but the thing is that nobody is perfect.
When I started to get awards,
it shocked me.
In a sense, it surprised me
that I can do it.
To me, you cannot just depend
on the business to customers,
you must expand somewhere.
Because I want to keep the heritage
of my food, I made a paste.
And I now start selling it to distributors
and also to some caterers.
During my forefatherís time,
it was always about survival.
During my fatherís time,
he only thought of family.
When I took over,
yes, I did think of family,
but I must also think of my future.
The first generation were street hawkers
who moved to permanent centres.
They were given subsidised rentals.
Mr and Mrs Chua, first generation hawkers,
still pay subsidised rent.
Their children will not be
carrying on the business for them.
They make popiah.
Eaten fresh, the stuff is in the stuffing.
Popiah, an import from Fujian province
in China, is filled with vegetables,
mainly bangkwang, also known
as sengkuang or local turnip.
This has to be braised for a long time,
beginning with pork lard.
Their recipe hasnít changed in the
last 40 years, except for one ingredient.
Just as essential to popiah is the skin
which the couple doesnít make.
By 12pm, all the elements are ready
for assembly, to be made on order.
For more than 12,000 days, it's the same
routine for them, almost without stopping.
The area where they work
is full of kopitiams,
an establishment known for
serving eggs, toast and hot drinks.
The kopitiam has evolved
from its heyday in the 70s.
It is where hawker food culture
is preserved on a smaller scale.
The coffee shop used to hold
a collection of hawkers.
They were better in a sense that they
didnít peddle, so they had water supply.
You straightaway knew that
this was crËme de la crËme,
because the coffee shop owner
wasn't going to have someone
who didn't sell what
wasn't popular or good.
I remember we had to queue up at
Hock Lam Street all the time for food,
but that was where the best beef
kway teow was, or the beef balls soup.
They started their business there.
It had really grimy ceilings,
wirings, and whatnot,
with all these entangled wires
straying along.
But we never saw it,
or rather, I never saw it.
There were spittoons on the floor.
It brings back memories of the past.
Before, kopitiams were small,
now, everything is big.
Like a hawker centre.
Haj Mohammed and sons
run a stall in a coffee shop.
My name is Haj Mohamed.
I am Almalic Faisal, Iím 37 years old.
My name is Mohamed Dufail,
Iím 33 this year.
They sell roti prata.
I have been doing this for 22 years.
Haj Mohamedís father
came to Singapore in the 50s,
and sold prata in a coffee shop.
The stall was in Jalan Besar,
at the corner of Rowell Road.
Not a push cart, but inside a kopitiam.
There were maybe only two stalls,
one for coffee, another for food.
My father had a license,
but I think it was only $6.
I came here in 1960, and
studied for five or six years only.
After that, I joined my father
in his business,
then we moved to West Coast Road.
I moved to Boon Lay Road in 1973,
then here to Sin Ming in 1993.
Then from '93,
we have been here until now.
After he passed it on to my father,
my father passed it on
to my brother and me.
Weíre carrying on the legacy.
Like a family, roti prata dough
needs time to develop,
and this family still does it from scratch.
I do have customers walking in and asking:
"Is your dough ready-made
from the factory?"
I tell them no, it's homemade.
We make it ourselves.
If you look at our Indian roots,
once your parents start something,
it's a family business,
so itís natural for the kids to take over.
There is no written rules.
My eldest son has been helping me
for about 20 years.
My brother had already set
his mind since young.
"When I finish everything,
I will join my dad's business."
Because Iím the lastborn, so they
gave me the privilege of a choice
to whether I would go work outside.
Basically I can do whatever I want,
there is no pressure.
After NS, I did my further studies
in engineering.
After I did my engineering, I worked for
three years as a mechanical engineer.
After that, thatís when
I decided to join my father.
Prata is leavened dough.
A skilled hand can turn an elastic ball
into a flaky crispy disk.
You need to press it and flip it,
so we have to master those skills
for making the prata.
He wants everything to be perfect.
Any simple mistakes, he would also
point it out to make everything right.
Sometimes he gets very fierce,
but after that, he becomes normal.
Originating from Madras, roti prata means
flat round bread, served with curry.
And thatís where we detract
from the state of origin.
I do get Indian customers
and tourists from India.
Once they try our food,
especially the curry,
they would have a spaced out expression.
Then I will tell them that it's different here.
This is not India but Singapore,
we have different people living here.
We also have Malay, Chinese and Eurasian.
We have to suit their tastebuds,
so we did some modifications.
In Singapore, the prata has made
some curious modifications.
The generation now has a different
thinking from those days,
they want something different with fusions.
The business is well known
for its coin prata,
which is simple prata dough,
stretched out and spiralled.
The current trend weíre selling is
coin prata, itís pretty famous right now.
For that, I will go for cheese or chocolate,
with different flavours fused into it.
But when my father sees me
doing that, he will ask:
"You have a lot of time to do this?"
Prata is eaten throughout the day,
and that keeps the boys on their feet
for at least 12 hours everyday,
until their days off in a fortnight's time.
When I was in engineering, I have my
own cubicle and sit in an aircon room.
I have break time and lunch breaks,
I can go home at 6 oíclock.
Once I became a hawker,
the first thing I had to sacrifice
is personal time and family time.
I would say these two
are quite important to me,
but Iím ready to sacrifice it.
Yes, I am sacrificing it now.
My son helps me with running everything.
So now, I'll come in like a supervisor,
just to take a look and I'll go.
I am free now.
A free man.
Second and third generation hawkers
continue the business
because they feel they have to.
But thereís another generation born,
and plunge into it because they want to.
In the final dozen years of the 20th
century, these people were born.
They call themselves "Three Good Guys".
With no experience in the food business,
theyíve survived the first five months,
riding on the back of the trendy dish
"mala xiangguo" (mala stir-fry),
and their version with salted egg.
And the experiment goes onÖ
We always believe that, especially
for Singaporeans, they love food a lot.
So, we want to create something that
is relatable to what we are doing now.
We will actually be trying out
mala spring chicken.
At the same time, we will also be coming
out with mala beef cubes of our own.
More numbÖ
Maybe it can be a bit moreÖcharred.
The temperature for the beef cube
cools down very fast.
If you ask me,
I think the taste is still okay.
They are now called hawkerpreneurs.
Their neighbours downstairs
in the Golden Mile Centre
have similar ambitions of growing big
and are getting there.
Having worked in
the fine dining cafe scene,
they sailed through four years
selling burgers.
They have two branches,
with another on the way.
Lee Syafiq goes behind the scenes
to check on the second branch
in Chai Chee.
In Golden Mile, we canít train our staff
because itís always packed with people,
and the space is very small.
At Chai Chee, we actually do it
as a mini central kitchen
to supply some of the sauces
and products to Golden Mile.
Because at Golden Mile,
we are producing a lot of burgers
so we need more stocks on hand.
That's where Chai Chee comes in.
Unlike the older generation whose
livelihood rests upon a single stall,
hawkerpreneurs hope to expand
from this humble setting.
Hawkers can be a stepping stone.
It is actually more or less
our growing ground.
In the future, we could become
a fast food chain.
That would be our main ideal objective.
We can tell the story that
it all started in hawker centres.
Itís a break for the hawkers
at the Golden Mile Centre,
the usual spring cleaning.
Over the years, hawker centres have been
upgraded in tandem with the country.
The building of hawker centres
began again after a 26-year hiatus.
Despite the change in food trends,
more than 60% of Singaporeans
still eat one of their three daily meals
at a hawker centre.
People still need local, affordable
meals in the 21st century.
Many of the dishes are cuisines of
the streets, but not all made it through.
Many disappeared as hawkers moved
from outside to within.
Cheaper food like sweets and desserts
became untenable in a hawker centre,
what with rent to pay.
Mr Teoís artisanal skills
were rescued by a fan
who persuaded a food court owner
to lower the rent.
A privilege accorded to one
of the very few remaining
who makes muah chee from scratch.
Muah chee is glutinous rice flour
milled, doughed and steamed.
Dip in shallot oil and rolled in
ground peanuts or black sesame.
Originating from China,
Muah Chee is festive food,
capturing the Chinese love of puns.
Mr Teoís father sold muah chee in an era
when milestones marked out the districts.
People were poor,
muah chee was a treat.
Alongside Mr Teo is his wife, who
has been his helper all these years.
But the line stops here.
Itís a sad fact but true,
that most of the people feeding us
hawker food are middle-aged or older.
Tell-tale signs predict an uncertain future.
Will a new generation
fill these empty spaces?
Iím Aericurl, Iím 27 this year.
Today actually.
I like desserts,
I have a sweet tooth.
I graduated in around 2015.
Then I started work as a clinic assistant
for about three months.
I wanted to be an F&B entrepreneur,
and I chanced upon an entrepreneurship
programme by Fei Siong.
That was how I got
into the hawker trade.
The entrepreneurship programme pairs
aspirants with experienced hawkers,
itís the idea of a former
fishball noodle seller
who learnt much from his own uncle.
Fei Siong is now an F&B enterprise
focusing on hawker heritage food,
itís an attempt at
preserving the tradition.
Basically, Fei Siong had mentors for us.
They gave us the manpower
and helped us to hire people.
There is also a mentorship programme.
Slowly, after three months,
we are on our own.
Itís been four years since.
Aericurl, and a handful
of ìenterprisedî hawkers,
trade alongside more established
hawkers in this new centre.
Ci Yuan is set in a community centre,
and was the first to be built
when the government rebooted
the hawker centre building programme.
It is, however, managed
privately by Fei Siong.
40 stalls in all, and with no repeats.
Over here, there is a restriction
of one stall to each type of food,
which means we donít have competitors.
Stallholders also donít wash
their own dishes,
they pay for a washing facility.
To me, it is considered
to be acceptable.
Currently, the government
is actually helping us
by subsidising 50%
of our dishwashing fees.
That is actually quite a great help.
And thereís inspection.
Because I entered this trade
with a very open mind,
so I just absorb everything.
It is very difficult, but to me,
tomorrow will be a new day.
Everything will be new,
itís okay and there are no doubts.
Whatever difficulties I face,
tomorrow will be okay.
The hawker centre is an open environment,
but to operate in one, there are barriers.
Costs of equipment and rentals
being one of many bugbears.
The NEA has an incubation programme
where newcomers are given some
assistance for a limited time frame.
Michelle Yee is an incubee.
And just when her business got started,
the centre she was in closed down
for three months of upgrading.
Chinatown, a place where hawkers
congregated en masse 60 to 80 years ago.
Itís still a colourful gathering
of vendors, old and new.
The food style is predominantly Chinese.
Into this potpourri of flavours
is something new, but traditional.
Thunder tea rice,
a Hakka special occasion dish.
Itís a rice dish topped with a range
of finely chopped ingredients,
herbs, peanuts, and dried prawns.
You canít hear it,
but the Thunder part comes
from when they used to
pound tea leaves for the soup.
In Hakka, itís called 'hum cha'.
Some call it 'lei cha'.
In Chinatown, it is served by an incubee.
In a previous life,
Michelle was an office manager
and husband Alan worked in IT.
They gave up their cushy comforts
for this crushing routine as hawkers,
and to spend more time together.
The incubation stall programme
is a sign of the times.
Things arenít cheap.
One of the barriers for newcomers
is the cost of rental.
Rental is one thing, because a lot of
people think that the location is good
and they want to get the stall,
thatís why they tender for $4,000
to $5,000, but it is not sustainable.
It is really very difficult
to survive at that rate.
Ruifang has a stall in Tekka market,
where she sells Hokkien noodles.
It is actually quite difficult
because I'm in Little India,
a lot of tourists come here
for Indian food.
The Chinese food is sold to a minority.
I really like this place
because itís very spacious,
it faces the main road
and is near an MRT station.
So I did some research
and decided to tender for $1,800,
and I actually won by $12.
They should actually have a capped system
that allows young hawkers
to tender stalls at a lower rate.
We started our bid with a very low value,
so of course we lost.
So, we started to increase the value
to see if we are able to win.
In total, we actually put in five bids,
and we lost quite a few times.
Today, they are at it againÖ
We are looking at more outlets
from NEA that are up for bidding.
Currently for this month,
there are actually not a lot of locations
out in the market for now.
There's the table cleaning fee.
Over here, it costs about $700.
We donít want to move into the next outlet
and have to bear the same high costs.
Ultimately, I think accessibility
is also very important.
Wait, I saw something.
11 Telok Blangah Crescent.
Do you know where it is?
Safra Mount Faber!
Check whether there's any
mala stall there.
Admin fee is $201.
So Iím assuming the cleaning fee
is $300, itís roughly about $500 also.
The price is about there.
-Shall we bid?
-Okay, sure!
The food that we eat
at hawker centres today
are primarily cooked only by
Singaporeans or Permanent Residents.
Thatís the rule since 2014,
but itís a bottleneck.
One thing that worries me
is manpower issues,
because so many stalls have closed down
because of this problem.
I don't have enough helpers,
I don't have enough space.
I think the key issue is manpower.
You cannot expect family
or relatives to help you.
Precisely that.
Often working behind the scenes
are close relations,
spouses, family, kith and kin.
Younger hawkers pull in new forms of
social networking to expand their business.
How we actually sustain in the long run
is through social media.
Now, I feel that we are more gifted,
because everything is just
with a click of the phone.
Just by a click, you can just spread
the news to the entire world.
If we talk about customers coming
to dine-in and they take a picture,
people would automatically know that
these burgers are from Burgs,
because of the signature "B" on top.
To reach out to people, to allow them
to understand what we are doing.
When we met up with an investor,
we actually learned quite a lot of things.
Like how much manpower is needed,
how much potential income
you can actually make in an outlet.
We initially thought that
we could handle it,
but I think if we were to handle it,
it would really drain us out.
But with these kind of things happening,
I think itís a good experience for us.
Itís almost the end of another trading day.
The music beginsÖ
For the last two years,
this group has been meeting without fail
at the Golden Mile Food Centre.
Every Saturday, the old folks
actually have this group
where they have sing-a-long sessions.
It's a very good, harmonious
community over there.
A place to meet, a place to feed.
The hawker centre
has a place in Singapore.
But what fears do hawkers
have of the future?
As long as the three of us are here and
our minds are strong on this business,
nothing will be feared,
we are not afraid of anything.
We started off as a three-man team,
and now, we are 12.
Without the new people in the team,
we wouldnít be where we are right now.
So, if you ask me whatís my biggest fearÖ
My biggest fear is actually
losing the team I have right now.
The future of hawker centres
I would say is going to beÖ
Actually, Iím thinking of expanding.
Will future generations be able to handle
the stress and outshine from the rest,
so that they can sustain in this F&B line.
I believe in work-life balance.
Itís only in this year that
I started to close on weekends
so that I get to spend more time
with my family.
When it comes to the fourth generation,
I donít know whether
my children want to take over.
The important part is that
people can accept my rojak,
and I feel that I probably
might have to continue for a while.
Until I really cannot do it.
It depends on how you want to create it.
If you happen to go to those chill-out
places where they have live bands,
over a bottle of beer and
some finger food,
if this culture is able to be brought
into the hawker culture,
I believe itís going to be
a very happening place.
We are actually looking at
hawkers to become like this
in the next ten to twenty years.
I think itís going to be very interesting.
Theyíve shared their stories with us,
their trials, fears, hopes and aspirations.
They are few of many, many others,
leading individual lives,
but linked through a common
vocation and a love of food.
They became a culture,
and built a sense of belonging
in the Belly of a Nation.
