"HAWKER culture is an institution and forms a unique part of Singapore’s identity. My friends and I have pledged our support for the move to inscribe hawker culture as our nation’s Intangible Cultural Heritage element on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity in 2020," my niece, a Singaporean, announced proudly in a text message recently.
Her comments alarmed me to no end. Due to the common history shared by both Malaysia and Singapore over the centuries prior to the fateful split in 1965, I’d always thought that the hawker culture is part of the shared identity of our two nations and should never become part of any national upmanship tussle.
When told that Singapore would be submitting its nomination dossier to UNESCO sometime this month, I decide to do some digging, at least to prove to my niece that the hawker culture does not belong to our southern neighbour alone.
POPULAR OCCUPATION
Itinerant hawkers were known to exist in the dusty streets of the Straits Settlements of Penang, Melaka and Singapore as early as the mid-19th century. At the same time, this basic form of entrepreneurship must surely have existed in the Malay states long before the arrival of the British.
During those early formative years, street hawking was a popular occupation for both locals and immigrants, especially those who were unemployed and unskilled, to eke out a living on their own. This form of self-employment was popular as very little capital was required for business to commence.
Although largely left to their own devices by the authorities at that time, past records reveal that there were at least four different types of hawkers that existed by the turn of the 20th century. A vast majority of them were food hawkers who provided quick and affordable meals to the coolies working at the harbour and godowns as well as the lower paid local clerks and office messenger boys.
These roadside vendors performed the vital role of serving a large portion of the local population who neither had the time to cook in their cramp quarters nor afford to go to the more expensive eating houses in town. Back then, it was a common sight to see people squatting by the side of a busy thoroughfare to have a quick meal before resuming work.
The second group comprised small local producers of vegetables, fruit, eggs and poultry, who usually sold their produce at markets in the morning before turning to the streets to peddle their remaining stocks for the rest of the day. These hawkers were joined by the third group of street vendors usually commissioned by local sauce manufacturers as well as wholesalers and importers of perishable goods like fruits and vegetables to sell and distribute their goods.
Street hawkers who peddled sundries such as brooms, towels, drinking cups and sandals on the streets formed the last group together with their fellow traders who provided basic services as street barbers, locksmiths and cobblers.
CONVENIENCE PROVIDERS
Apart from working the streets in heavily populated towns, hawkers also brought convenience to the doorsteps of many households in the suburbs. These travelling hawkers usually followed established routes and had fixed routines to help familiarise regular customers to their scheduled visits. Apart from that, these vendors also alerted customers to their presence by playing whistles, bells or even bamboo sticks.
The transportation mode for these mobile hawkers varied according to the distance they travelled as well as the goods peddled. Many walked the streets while carrying their goods around in baskets attached to shoulder yokes or in trays balanced on heads.
Other traders used carts, bicycles or tricycles ingeniously fitted with cooking equipment to prepare hot meals for their customers. Soup noodle carts were typically customised with a glass cupboard that displayed the ingredients and a cauldron with separate compartments for the soup and boiling water. These vendors made periodic stops at strategic locations like busy thoroughfares during lunch and tea breaks to solicit business and also give their weary limbs a breather.
Over time, street hawking became a popular employment option for those who were desperately in need of one thanks to its undemanding and flexible working conditions. Contrasting with the other jobs, the number of street hawkers proliferated during the 1930s when the Great Depression swept across many parts of the world, including Malaya.
Many people, especially those who lost their jobs when their employers were forced to fold, turned to street hawking to make ends meet. Things became so bad that even children were roped in to help supplement meagre household incomes. They sold cakes, pisang goreng and various other snacks on the streets. By the late 1930s, there were tens of thousands of both licensed and unlicensed hawkers on Malayan streets. All three main races in Malaya at that time formed part of this unique community.
Malay hawkers generally sold food like satay and mee rebus as well as curios and cloth, while Indian food hawkers peddled food and drinks such as rojak, mee goreng and an assortment of savoury snacks ranging from vadai to muruku.
Meanwhile, the Chinese hawkers, sold practically anything they could get their hands on. A majority were independent hawkers while a small portion chose to act as a collective. The former boosted personal freedom while those belonging to the latter were assured of assistance from fellow members during times of need.
FOOD SHORTAGES
Severe hardships endured during the Second World War and the Japanese Occupation drove many towards street hawking. Foodstuff sold well as the people constantly faced the problem of not having enough to eat.
In Kuala Lumpur alone, the Japanese Military Administration issued 5,160 licences to roadside hawkers within the first year of Occupation. That number was about six times the pre-war level. Unfortunately, there was a constant shortage of raw ingredients, especially meat. Conditions were so bad that some hawkers were driven to scour the countryside for stray dogs and cats to slaughter and their meat sold.
Life for hawkers became tougher towards the middle of the Japanese Occupation when the authorities began putting in place a monopolistic distribution system known as the kumiai. With that, the power to control foodstuff supply fell into the hands of an exclusive few who were closely related to the Japanese Army.
OPPORTUNISTS IN BLACK MARKETEERING
The locals, who never stood a fair chance to compete, began turning to the black market for their supplies. Resulting from the active participation of police informers, black market rice, salt and sugar reached the public through coffee shops and roadside hawkers.
By mid-1944, tighter controls and growing shortages forced many to cease operations while those that struggled to remain in business offered customers plain coffee without sugar and milk. Fortunately, controls were more lax in smaller towns.
According to a report made by the Batu Gajah District Officer in his December 1944 report, hawker stalls in the town still managed to acquire sugar for their use even though none had been released for general purchase.
An investigation was launched in response to that report and it was discovered that black market supplies came from authorised dealers who diverted rice and sugar meant for sale under the rationing system as well as from smugglers who operated along the largely unguarded Malayan coastline. In Johor, small sailboats were known to enter the Batu Pahat River at night carrying flour, rice, sugar and even opium from the Netherland Indies (now Indonesia).
FOCUS ON KUALA LUMPUR
My research on the post-war activities of hawkers is largely aided by a large collection of photographs and related documents which I purchased from a collector in Kuala Lumpur nearly a decade ago.
The photographs include those of independent hawkers plying their trade along the city streets as well as joint social events organised by the Kuala Lumpur Hawkers and Petty Traders Association (KLHPTA) and the Singapore People & Hawkers Union (SPHU).
The earliest reference to hawkers in the post Second World War files of the Kuala Lumpur Municipal Council was Oct 8, 1946. Conscious of the free reign enjoyed by this sector of the economy during the pre-war years and their prominent role in black-marketeering during the Japanese Occupation, the newly-installed British Military Administration was anxious to keep hawkers under close watch.
The hawkers resisted this attempt to curb their activities and, in retaliation, established the Kuala Lumpur Hawkers and Petty Traders Association (KLHPTA). The association’s leaders wrote to the Town Board pleading for sympathy and warned that hawkers would be completely annihilated should the government's proposed plan become a reality.
The note ended with the following threat: "If you insist on mopping up all our members, we’ll be forced to the jungle. When that happens, the maintenance of peace and order might be severely hampered." This section was perceived as a thinly veiled warning that the hawkers were willing to join the armed struggle of the communist terrorists if left with no other option.
VICTORY FOR THE ASSOCIATION
After much consideration, the Town Board relented and agreed to devise more lenient ways to deal with the hawkers. This decision was an important victory for the KLHPTA as the Town Board had officially recognised its existence and it had a legitimate grievance which the local authority was duty bound to consider.
Over the next decade or so, the KLHPTA carved out for itself a permanent place in the urban political system and there was no longer any question regarding the rights of registered hawkers to trade in Kuala Lumpur. A census conducted on April 30, 1957 showed that there were 3,500 licensed hawkers and over 7,000 illegal vendors trading within the municipal limits.
By the early 1960s, much of the effort of law enforcement agencies was directed at unlicensed hawkers and the activities of registered ones who violated the conditions stipulated in their licences. At that time, the police viewed hawkers on the whole as a nuisance and constant source of traffic congestion, while the Municipal Health Officer condemned traders as a major hazard to the health of the community as well as being a primary cause of disease and deaths from bowel complications.
Soon, however, it became clear that arrests and the blatant confiscation of hawker property did little to solve the existing problems. The victims of police clean-up campaigns simply returned to the streets to set up shop again once they’d paid their fines or served brief terms of imprisonment.
These incidences prompted the Acting Municipal Secretary to change strategy. In an attempt to co-opt the KLHPTA into working with the municipality rather than against it, a request was sent to the association asking for co-operation in keeping Kuala Lumpur clean.
At the same time, steps were taken to increase the number of approved sites for hawkers to do business. Two new multi-storey hawker centres, completed in 1967 at a cost of over M$1.25 million, heralded a new era for hawkers. These new premises with their modern facilities were a big step up for the traders compared to their ramshackle stalls lining the dusty streets of Kuala Lumpur.
By the late 1960s, night trading in certain areas of Kuala Lumpur had been introduced. The initial response was lukewarm with only two main areas taken up with enthusiasm. It took hawkers some time to adjust to their new environment but they eventually accepted that change was inevitable.
At the end of my research, it becomes amply clear that the unique hawker culture claimed by Singapore very much belongs to Malaysia as well. History has shown that street hawkers from both our countries have faced the same type of challenges and their evolution into ultra-modern hawker centres and food courts today are identical.
Instead of having just one country trying to claim exclusivity to this special aspect of our shared heritage, perhaps people from both sides of the causeway should work hand in hand to find better and constructive ways to bring our common hawker heritage to greater heights.