In 2020, UNESCO added Singapore's “hawker culture” to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (Yong). Singapore's hawkers boast several international accolades. Hawker cuisine created the world's cheapest Michelin-star meal: S$2.80 chicken rice (US$2.05) (Tan). Even though street vendors exist worldwide, the country adopted hawkers as an important cultural marker. Many other countries banned or criminalized hawking to clean up their streets ("Political Agenda"). However, Singapore embraced hawker culture by relocating hawkers from the streets into hawker centers from the 1960s onwards. Situated near residential areas, hawkers sold their wares to residents in the neighborhood (“Hawker Culture”).

Today, over 110 hawker centers provide food to Singaporeans, thus defining a significant part of the city’s food heritage. Hawkers sell many kinds of food from a wide range of local cultures at large hawker centers. These open-air venues charge hawkers cheaper rent, translating into lower food prices. Hawkers thus work long hours to maximize sales. These centers also act as gathering places and spaces for leisure, especially for middle-aged and older people. Despite their ubiquity, domestic and international recognition, and long history (street hawking in Singapore dates back to the colonial era), many factors contribute to hawker food's obsolescence. The median age of a hawker is 60 years old (Ha), quickly approaching retirement age. A combination of the grueling labor, low profits, and a highly educated younger generation with a wider variety of job prospects facilitate this incoming obsolescence. Recognizing this risk, both the state and independent actors in Singapore enact various means of preserving hawker culture. However, in their attempts at social preservation, stakeholders risk transforming the face of the culture altogether.

Death by Competition, COVID-19, and Cheap Food

Hawker centers face stiff competition to stay relevant to consumers, especially younger ones. Singapore's shift to join the digital and globalized world elucidate hawker centers as nostalgic figments of the past. My parents and grandparents, who lived through hawker centers' golden age of the 1980s, have more fond memories of them than me. My generation grew up with shopping malls dotting every Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station. Malls provide convenient hubs for shopping, eating, entertainment, and leisure. Many of Singapore's 171 shopping malls are air-conditioned, bright, and well-decorated spaces suitable for gathering. However, malls also introduced new competition for food. Today, in addition to hawker centers, malls allow consumers to choose from restaurants, fast food chains, food courts, cafes, and other food establishments.

The main appeal of hawker food becomes either its great taste or low price. However, this cements its image as food for "low-income groups" ("Political Agenda"). This vision of hawker food fails to appeal to the class-conscious youth of the present day with their greater spending power. Yet increasing prices would not change this image, as customers often gripe when hawkers raise their food costs. Hawker food barely increased in price despite inflation over the past few decades. Now they struggle to increase prices even by $0.50 out of fear of losing business.

The emergence of shopping malls and digital spaces for community formation rendered hawker centers less relevant as gathering spaces. Wellman and Leighton’s Community Liberated theory plays out in modern-day Singapore. Young people find new ways of forming communities in what Melvin Webber calls “communities without propinquity.” Older generation Singaporeans relied on weak ties in wet markets, hawker centers, and public spaces for their daily social life. Younger Singaporeans, in contrast, often form close-knit, strong ties in “communities of interest.” The proliferation of social media and digital spaces accelerated this process.

The COVID-19 pandemic increased the challenge hawkers faced to make ends meet. As the government banned in-person dining, many food establishments turned to food delivery platforms to stay open. However, platform fees would eat away at hawkers' already thin profit margins, making food delivery platforms a nonviable option (Yang et al). Even those that used food delivery platforms did not see much difference in sales (Sim). As dine-in restrictions tighten and loosen in Singapore according to the pandemic situation, many hawker stalls continue struggling to stay afloat.

Saving Hawker Culture

Hawker centers are also sites of what Japonica Brown-Saracino refers to as “social preservation.” Although in a different position than new arrivals in a town—whose presence threatens further gentrification—both state and individual actors engage in preservation practices like those Brown-Saracino writes about. The state's incentive to keep hawker centers alive in their current form is also different from Brown-Saracino's social preservationists. Besides being a cultural touchstone, hawker centers across the island serve low-income groups in Singapore by providing affordable food. This provision reduces the burden on the state to provide food-related welfare (“Political Agenda”). State-led projects to counter hawker centers' decline take place on domestic and international stages. Singapore engages in symbolic social preservation, using festivals and international accolades and recognition (Brown-Saracino 148). In 2018, the Singapore Tourism Board spent a large sum showing off the Newton Circus Food Centre in Crazy Rich Asians (Teng). In 2020, Singapore got hawker culture UNESCO-recognized (Yong). The government also runs annual Heritage Festivals. Programs often include discussions about Singapore’s food history, guides to make traditional dishes, and features various hawker stalls (“Past Festivals”).

The state often intervenes in the future of hawkers and hawker centers instead of leaving their fate up to market forces. This intervention parallels methods of political social preservation (Brown-Saracino 149). The National Environmental Agency (NEA)'s Hawkers Succession Scheme helps retiring hawkers find successors to take over their stall (“Hawkers Succession Scheme”). The Hawkers’ Development Programme offers subsidized costs, training, and apprenticeship, equipping aspiring and existing hawkers with relevant skills (“Hawkers’ Development Programme”). The Hawker Centres Group (HCG) of the NEA also regulates the price of rent and other fees, bidding for stalls, and general management of hawker centers. Yet when the HCG form panels for consultation, they rarely involve hawkers themselves (Foong and Han). This misstep shows that despite these efforts, the state's methods of preserving hawker culture may not always meet hawkers' needs.

Individual customers also recognize the value of hawker centers. Consequently, many people invented creative ways to support the industry, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. In acts of private social preservation (Brown-Saracino 152), these informal bands of Singaporeans often target their support towards "authentic" old-timers they deem more in need of help and patronage. They may buy specifically from old-timers to make sure market forces do not displace them, or in this case, for them to close their stalls prematurely due to lack of business. In 2020, when the government barred in-person dining due to COVID-19, Melvin Chew founded Hawkers United. This Facebook group attracted almost 300,000 members (Yip). They participate in group buys from sellers Melvin identifies, whose businesses are struggling. Both customers and hawkers benefit from this arrangement. The former sometimes receive discounts on food and the latter get more business. Group buys particularly benefit hawker centers in inaccessible locations. Only one person must collect the food, and group buy participants usually live in the same neighborhood or close by.

Netizens also use social media to publicize hawker stalls that do not run their own pages, especially those managed by older hawkers. For example, in 2021, KF Seetoh—founder of Makansutra, a company promoting food in Asia—used his platform as a food blogger to advertise “obscure, under the radar” hawker stalls to visit and support (Seetoh). Other similar ground-up efforts from non-hawkers include using social media and messaging platforms to promote region-based or shop-specific group buys. Netizens also created a Google Maps layer, dotting it with locations and information about lesser-known hawker centers (Yip). Individual Singaporeans, like the state, recognize the struggles hawkers face and are changing their private practices to help preserve old-timers in hawker centers.

'Hawkerpreneurs'

In recent years, more young hawkers joined the hawker scene seeking refuge from corporate jobs. Additionally, government schemes successfully attracted and created the space young hawkers needed to jump-start first-time hawking careers. Local media dubbed them ‘hawkerpreneurs.’ This new generation often chooses to be in this trade, unlike their predecessors who worked as hawkers out of necessity. This noted and growing group is comparable to Richard Florida’s “creative class.” They are better educated than previous generations of hawkers and bring with them creative new imaginings of hawker food. One example of this is Sutachi. 28-year-old Alex and 32-year-old Yu Ting ran this hawker stall selling Japanese-Italian fusion food. Their menu included foie gras, wagyu beef, and squid ink & salmon mentaiko, which typically only restaurants sell (Sim). They had hoped to bring restaurant food to the average consumer for a fraction of the price.

This creative class also harnesses new technologies to increase sales or efficiency. This group accepts cashless payments, runs social media pages, and uses food delivery platforms. Older generation hawkers remain less receptive to these technologies (Ha). 'Hawkerpreneurs' are the minority for now. The median age of new entrants lowered to 46 years old, but the median age of hawkers in NEA-run hawker centers is still 60 years old (Yong). Despite the excitement and media recognition of this burgeoning class of new hawkers, success stories may be few and far between. Alex and Yu Ting of Sutachi closed after 14 months, revealing that they never took full paychecks while running their business (Sim). The staying power of this creative class is still uncertain, let alone their effect on the hawker scene.

The creative class of young hawkers distinguish themselves from old-timers through their creative dish offerings and stall decor. Finding foie gras and mentaiko (spicy pollock/cod roe) or a hand-drawn chalkboard menu would be difficult in a hawker center. These meals are more reminiscent of the trappings of restaurant or cafe dining.

Hannah Chua, "Sutachi Review: Foie Gras Beef Donburi And Salmon Mentaiko Pasta At Chinatown Complex," Eatbook.sg, Feburary 15, 2018, https://eatbook.sg/sutachi/. The left image features Sutachi's Foie Gras Gyu Donburi (S$19.50), Salmon Mentaiko Pasta (S$7.50), and miso soup. The right image shows Sutachi's menu, drawn up on a chalkboard.

Richard Ocejo’s Masters of Craft also can explain the rise of ‘hawkerpreneurs.’ Ocejo describes a class of "drifters," who search for meaningful manual jobs to reclaim a sense of masculinity, work with one’s hands, and escape the humdrum of cubicle-confined corporate jobs (Scanlan). Many young hawkers—if not already involved in the food industry—experienced corporate culture before finding their way into a stall. They often attribute their arrival to a love for food or cooking. Yu Ting of Sutachi was an auditor for six years before attending a culinary academy (Sim). 28-year-old Donovan Wong of Wen Li Taiwanese Food worked in backend operations at a bank (Lim). 26-year-old Benjamin Phang, who inherited his stall from his father, tried out various office jobs in logistics and events before settling into his hawker job (Lin).

Yet, as Ocejo identifies, "drifters" who find their way into meaningful manual labor jobs are often more well-off. They can afford to take risks with their incomes. This limits the pool that 'hawkerpreneurs' can come from; they often have to be at least in the middle-class. As Singaporeans' household incomes climb and dissatisfaction with corporate jobs grows, this class of "drifters" is likely to increase.

In entering the established hawker industry, young people forge new urban citizenships. Although the average hawker is much older than them, new entrants can claim a right to space in hawker centers. Seeing the need for their entry, aided by the spate of government-supported schemes to draw them in, new hawkers feel justified in claiming their rights to the space. This, along with already stiff competition from old-timers, presents another reason why many young hawkers feel comfortable bringing creative and unconventional dishes to the hawker food landscape.

As the number of young hawkers grows, they become a more salient and distinct group, usually understood as selling “hipster food” (Tan). Hawker center management also recognized this difference. Pasir Ris Central Hawker Center allocates different floors for "hipster food" and more local, traditional fare (“Political Agenda”). They also charge higher rentals to stalls leasing in the "hipster food" section, taking advantage of their inexperience and the group’s material resources (“Political Agenda”). As more young hawkers color the hawker food landscape, their participation may change the image of hawker food as they produce new meanings. Two distinct ideas of hawker food—by the creative class and by old-timers—may emerge and co-exist.

Conclusion

Despite many top-down and ground-up efforts, many challenges remain to preserve hawker culture. State-led ‘rescue missions’ reveal bureaucratic myopia around what hawkers actually need. The thin profit margins are endemic. Stalls are often hot, stuffy, and lack adequate storage space. The small space and lack of profit result in unattractive working conditions for new employees, making hawkers' long hours more tiresome. Even current hawkers dissuade young people from joining the trade (“Political Agenda”). In pursuing preservation, the state and its people glamorize hawker culture instead of seeing all its difficulties. Singaporeans’ cultural tastes are shifting towards shopping malls and restaurants as their disposable incomes increase. The arrival of the pandemic adds a layer of uncertainty to the future of many hawkers, young and old alike.

Hawker culture is unlikely to remain the same unless the state subsidizes costs enough to both keep hawkers satisfied and food prices low. However, a mass exodus of an entire generation of hawkers is inevitable as they reach retirement age. Currently, hawker culture faces two likely routes. The first possibility is that many ‘hawkerpreneurs’ close their stalls due to high costs and little business. Older hawkers retire, and hawker culture dies out in a decade or two. The second is that the young people save the industry, boosted by government support. Prices increase, and hipster hawker food takes center stage. Anthony Bourdain predicted this as early 2013 (Tan). Their collective placemaking transforms hawker food and its culture into something unrecognizable: a glamorized, artisanal, and attractive job for young people.