A comparative study of singapores chinatown and bangkoks chinatown

Contemporary studies of these enclave formations over time however face the two-fold challenge of firstly distilling the elements that are central to making place a task made more diffic

Chapter 1: Why A Comparative Study of Chinatowns?

1.1 Chinatown: The Ethnic Enclave

An ethnic enclave, it is observed, is created when people of

a particular racial or cultural group create a ―protective‖ (Portes and Manning, 1996) neighborhood which functions separately from the majority population of a city as they try to be self-sufficient and basically survive in a new environment (Hummon, 1996)

In many ways, enclaves like Chinatown were a support mechanism for incoming immigrants (Kwong, 1996; Logan, Alba and Zhang, 2002), allowing incoming immigrants to adapt more comfortably to the new way of life in new places while providing them with much-needed requirements for settlement, like housing, jobs, contacts and access to networks (Zhou, 1992; Portes and Jensen, 1992) ―Dominant in the urban sociology literature on immigrant incorporation is the role of ethnic enclaves—ethnic neighborhoods that provide a ―port of entry‖ or ―context of reception‖ and help facilitate incorporation in the host society by generating informal resources, networks, and institutions that provide linguistic and cultural services and products (Portes and Rumbaut, 1990) The seminal work of Alejandro Portes and his colleagues developed the concept of a ―context of reception‖ to describe the key factors that mediate the incorporation of new

immigrants (Portes and Bach, 1985; Portes and Rumbaut, 1990; Portes and Zhou, 1992) such as the provision of emotional, social and cultural support, as well as other resources such as information, housing, initial entry into the labor market, and social capital, and shelter from abuse all of which help them adapt to the new environment (Aldrich et al; 1984; Zhou and Logan 1991; Bailey and Waldinger 1991; Logan, Richard and Wenquan, 2002) attest to the importance of this arrangement to the new immigrant; for immigration then is more or less a social process facilitated by ethnic-based networks and these largely informal networks also promote a particular set of conditions for socio-economic integration in the host country through the formation of immigrant enclaves and occupational niches The enclave is thus where new migrants congregate, live, work and trade and these activities sustain the place and give it life and vibrancy as communal ties are forged and a certain level of interdependency holds everyone in tension with each other in the same mutual help community

For our purposes here, it is important to note that besides being highly contingent social developments that were engendered out of perceived gaps in service provision and were constituted as

a response to the prevailing social environment these new migrants find themselves embedded, these ethnically constituted social developments also bear very significant spatial expression

as activities are enacted in a specific place or ‗quarters‘ or

‗neighborhoods‘, and give rise to very distinct spatial outcomes These are places whereby ethnic identity was heavily and meaningfully inscribed, developing a distinct sense of place and they exist in heavily interdependent relationships with their incumbents and the social institutions that these then nascent immigrants engendered to cater to their perceived needs and that

of their fellow countrymen, institutions that are embodiments of that ethnic identity

Given this high dependency in taking cues from the physical and social environment in its development, how the initially strongly welded relationship between place and ethnic identity has evolved over time will by implication be a good commentary of the contemporary social relations between those that currently inhabit these traditional enclaves This means that it will be instructive to begin looking at the contemporary manifestations and read the changes that have been wreaked on these traditional enclaves against its genesis to look at how ethnic identity has transformed, and how it manifests itself in place (See Genealogy of both Yaowarat and Chinatown SG‘s development at Appendix A) Looking at how ethnic identity is embodied in space or emplaced (Gieryn, 2000) today in these traditional enclaves, engendering various spatial outcomes constitutes a large part of our endeavour

in this thesis

1.2 The Ethnic Enclave Today: Chinatown SG Niu Che Shui

Singapore‘s Chinatown (Chinatown SG) was conceived in the Jackson Plan of 1822 when Sir Stamford Raffles delineated parcels of land for different groups of migrants to inhabit with the main purpose of facilitating proper governance in the colony the British established in 1819 This form of urban planning based on ethnicity inaugurated the emergence of the phenomenon of ethnic enclaves1 in Singapore, creating the institutionally developed presence of ―distinct social and spatial areas‖ or urban villages‖ (Bell and Jayne, 2004:1) Chinatown grew quickly as immigrants arrived mainly from the southern Chinese provinces with a variety

of dialect groups such as the Hokkiens, Teochews, Cantonese, Hainanese, Hakkas and Foochows which each formed their own communities Raffles' influence also led to the allocation of different areas for each clan group The Hokkiens settled around Telok Ayer and the waterfront, the Teochews along Singapore River (Clarke Quay) and around Fort Canning, while the Cantonese and Hakka lived further out at Kreta Ayer2

2 It should be noted that despite these dialect group differences, there was also a palpable sense of a unified „Chinese‟ identity as evidenced by examples of supra-Chinese

institutions such as the Chinese Chamber of Commerce started in 1908 where “nearly all well-known Chinese of Singapore have been members” The Chamber acts as an arbitrator and intermediary between Chinese and non-Chinese migrants In fact when the Hokkien-Teochew riot broke out in 1906, Capt A.H Young, then the Colonial Secretary, went to the CCC to ask the committee for assistance (Song, 1967:389) This shows that

Interestingly, the dialect segregation also had an unintended effect on commerce in Chinatown – business owners, either for the convenience of communication or the comfort of the familiar, would often hire workers of their own dialect This eventually led to trades being dominated by particular dialect groups Despite these differences between the various dialect groupings which saw them develop clan associations that differentiate them from the other Chinese dialect groups, these groups coexist cheek by jowl in the

complementariity that affords Chinatown a cohesive if initially superficial imagined, essentialized uniform ‗Chinese‘ Identity3

While it is not a totally spontaneous congregation of an ethnic group in a particular place4, in many ways Singapore‘s Chinatown resembles the other Chinatowns in terms of its early beginnings and functions Like Chinatowns all over the world Chinatown SG was engendered as an ethnic enclave whereby an ethnic identity bears strong spatial expression and is strongly grounded into physical space In Niu Che Shui can also be found

3

The state‟s nation-building efforts in the 1960s saw education provision taken out of the hands of clans and private institutions (Wilson, 1978) This period of time also coincided with the sate‟s desire to clean up the appalling living conditions caused by a concentration of Chinese immigrants Plans were then made to move people out and improve the overall standard of living It is important to note as well that by this time, the Chinese as an imagined cohesive ethnic group has become the majority population in Singapore

4 It must be noted that Chinatown is an essentialized entity for Chinese immigrants to Singapore co-habited with other immigrants, a point which is vividly illustrated in Telok Ayer Street where the Thian Hock Keng temple, the Nagore Durga Shrine and the Al Albrar Mosque are located right next to each other on the same street, denoting a multi-

formations that plugged perceived gaps in service provision, social support and these are similarly engendered in and through the relations the ethnic Chinese have with mainstream society and those in power, and serve to alleviate the hardships of the early migrants and the often dire economic and social living conditions they had to endure This narrative of resilience, perseverance and navigating a new environment through mutual help communities bears uncanny similarities to that of the Chinese elsewhere

The similarities however, end there as Singapore‘s Chinatown underwent a dramatic change in trajectory following a series of efforts carried out under the auspices of the state‘s vision

of urban redevelopment in the 1960s that saw the clearing out of Chinatown businesses and residents and later in the 1980s a change of tack in ideologies couched in terms of conservation and heritage These inconsistencies in policies have been frequently been said to account for the ―inauthenticity‖5, ―placelessness‖ of Chinatown SG today for it destroyed the quotidian rhythms of place that made it what it was, and these were often deemed culpable in transforming it into a space that is unrecognizable and ―that speak little of local identities and lifestyles‖

These themes constitute a leitmotif of lamentations that are echoed in the literature surveyed, the first being the notion of how Chinatown was and still is a product of the state‘s changing policies and ideologies; and second, that these changing ideologies have spatial consequences and problems have arisen out of having changes superimposed upon it, usually top-down, by external agencies; third, that because the people who make up this community have not been sufficiently consulted about their views and were largely passive, powerless and lacking a voice in the proceedings as they watched top-down, state-driven projects irrevocably change their lives, mutated their social lives and marched on relentlessly as the state negotiated what is popularly termed the ―conservation-redevelopment dilemma‖ (Kong & Yeoh, 1994; Yeoh & Huang, 1996) on their own with economic goals seemingly at the forefront of any decision-making and as something that is privileged over and above other factors as an overriding concern; with the result that fourth, the occurrence of the production of a ―manufactured sense of place‖ (Henderson, 2000) that has little resonance and fail to strike a chord with the people in general owing to its ―artificial prefabrication‖ of old buildings, with its newly embellished façade marked by a kitsch bright coat of paint and the eradication of traditional activities and tenants who used to reside there, destroying the very elements that made it a

‗place‘ (Yeoh and Kong, 1994) and by implication made it meaningful

The notion that the state‘s ideologies has driven and still drives its conservation efforts; that state-driven, top down, economic-centered efforts at conservation was often carried out without consultation of the public was problematic and deemed a large contributing factor to its current ―inauthentic‖ form; that the state‘s efforts engenders questions of whom the conservation is really for; being ―themed and tamed‖ (Chang, 1997), rid of its

―social contamination‖ and other polluting influences (Yeoh and Kong, 1994) and become a kind of modernist caricature that has little resonance and as a consequence the creation of a dissonant, discordant and meaningless landscape (Chang, 1997: 47) and becoming a place in which locals have unwittingly become relegated to the position of an ―outsider‖; the destruction and creation of memories of place reflect that there is a general consensus that Chinatown has become a victim of sorts, victimized

by the state‘s somewhat overzealous efforts at conservation and suffered as a result of the changing policies the state has employed over the past 40 years, which has robbed it of its potential, and installed in its place a freeze-framed theme park with little resonance for the locals and constitutes part of our dissonant heritage

However, these explanations while valid arguably neglect the fact that Chinatowns are socially contingent ethnic formations

and its forms and functions today actually tell us more about the

meaningfulness of an ethnic identity today for the inhabitants of that space Further, they have always been constituted as a response to the relationships the Chinese have with those in power

in mainstream society These mean that the state can only be one part of the problem and the ‗Chinatown problem‘ is also in part the outcome of wider social changes that have occurred and shaped the meaningfulness and relevance of an ethnic identity which is a crucial component in ethnic place-making Place elements such as restaurants, shops, markets exist because they are meaningful to the people who continue to consume these goods and services that still has resonance as part of their reproduction of their identities; and conversely to the business people who continue to inhabit it as a commercial space, who thrive because of that interdependence they share with place and with their customers These elements embody identities that are produced and enacted

in space, and powerfully draw together the place-ethnic identity dyad that is over time sustained by heritage undergirded by shared social memories that belie the expression of ethnic identity that continue to have currency today

Framed this way, this thesis argues that it is more fruitful to examine the evolution of elements and ethnic identity in Chinatown

SG in contributing to its current configuration, relooking at the

state‘s role in this equation by incorporating considerations of a wider change in society and how that has impacted the relevance and currency of an ethnic identity and impacted the place-identity dyad that is so crucial for enclaves like Chinatown This approach

is premised on the genesis of Chinatown as a place that is ethnically significant, whereby activities enacted en site are ethnically symbolic, significant and emblematic of a reproduction of identities in place; where place and ethnic identity were mutually reinforcing and are produced and reproduced symbiotically in an interdependent quotidian fashion and kept alive through praxis Our goal here is to look at how identities are represented in Chinatown SG today and Chinatown SG today is read as a spatial outcome of that expression of an ethnic identity today

1.3 Why Compare and Why Yaowarat? A Note On The Identity Dyad and Authenticity

Place-The story of Chinatown SG so far is one of destruction of the elements that make place Because these elements have been removed, it is difficult to discuss how these elements have made place To rectify this perceived issue, this thesis adopts a comparative framework with Bangkok‘s Yaowarat in a bid to identify and examine the elements that arguably are embodiments

of ethnic identity and study the impacts they have on place

Yaowarat thus constitutes a foil with which to inform our understanding of Chinatown SG

The relationship between place and ethnic identity identity dyad) have been a focal point of scholars of contemporary urban configurations The earliest studies of Chinatown by Portes and others showed us indubitably that place and identity were strongly welded and constituted lived in experiences, that were

(place-‗authentic‘ owing to its composition of ‗live‘ communities of cultural practitioners Contemporary studies of these enclave formations over time however face the two-fold challenge of firstly distilling the elements that are central to making place (a task made more difficult as simultaneously social and physical change affecting the ways identity is expressed and anchored spatially as ethnic groups relate to the place differently today6 are ongoing); and secondly, in these ―ethnic enclave reconfigurations‖ (Luk and Phan, 2005), defining ‗authenticity‘ becomes difficult and contestations over what the term means today are rife since MacCanell (1973,1976) introduced the concept to sociological studies of tourist motivations and experiences two decades ago

With these in mind, this thesis conceptualizes place-making elements as food (Drucker, 2006), entrepreneurial activity as embodied in ethnic businesses (Valdez, 2002; Waldinger et Al.,

6

For example as people move out of Chinatown to create “ethnoburbs” (Li, 2009) or other satellite ethnic towns and as new immigrants from other ethnicities succeeding the

2009; Zhou, 2004), and places of community worship (Kong, 1994;

Ho, 2006) These are cultural markers and are effective as markers because they differentiate and are commonly accepted by the Chinese community as powerful cultural markers The subsequent chapters will flesh these out

This thesis also follows Bruner (1994) and adopts a constructivist approach towards authenticity This is a view that asserts that authenticity is not a property inherent in an object, forever fixed in time Instead it seen as a struggle, a social process

in which competing interests7 argue for their own interpretation of history (1994:408) Conceptualized this way, this means that authenticity is dependent on the collective agreement of the users and their ―relationship with a place‖ (Sasaki, 2000) and authenticity or inauthenticity is the result of how one sees things and of his perspectives and interpretations In this conception

―culture is always in process‖ and context is always in its purview This is arguably the most reasonable approach in a study of changing social meanings in an enclave This is because this user centric definition of ‗authentic‘ firmly locates the ‗authentic‘ in the

‗lived in experience‘ with ‗lived‘ alluding to being sustained by what

we will term ‗a community of practice‘

7 As mentioned in THESIS “STB is trying to create Chinatown as “living history” but it doesn‟t have the “local life” that convinces tourists On the other hand, the authenticity that STB is creating in Chinatown is questioned by locals who do not always recognize what has been reconstructed in Chinatown as being “accurate” according to their own

This is crucial as this allows for ‗lived in experience‘ to be anchored spatially in Chinatown while being simultaneously cognizant of the fact that the community of practitioners are not restricted to those living in the vicinity but bears a larger social footprint This is meaningful in a study of ethnic enclaves over time

as while concentrated celebrations of festivals like Chinese New Year and Mid- Autumn Festival continue be practiced en site in Chinatown and Yaowarat, and while practices tied to ethnicity continue to be performed regularly en site, it continues to contextualize the experience of these cultural markers in lived in experience through social memory in a way that Chinese living outside of it can also draw and partake in ethnic consumption and continue to be a part of the community of practice Geraldine Lowe-Ismail‘s book on her Chinatown memories and the passionate debates captured by Kwok et al (2000) stand testament

to that

This triadic relationship between place, ethnic identity and authenticity over time thus constitute the crux of the problematic this thesis seeks to explore in Singapore‘s Chinatown as studies and the mass media have often lampooned it as being

―inauthentic‖ A comparative framework is utilized here in a bid to shed greater light into the problematic The place-identity dyad and how it is interlinked affects the authenticity of a place like Chinatown for its users (both within and without) and it is hoped

that a comparative analysis can offer us more insight into broader social changes that have taken place in the Singapore case and allow for a more nuanced and sensitive reading of Chinatown‘s contemporary configuration and perceived inauthenticity

Yaowarat constitutes an interesting case for it has as we shall see later evidently remained an ethnic stronghold, an enclave whereby a Chinese identity continues to have currency and import through the concentrations of ethnic businesses, food, temples, community foundations etc It appears to still embody many characteristics that mark it out as different from the rest of Bangkok and clearly stands out as a place on which an ethnic identity is inscribed, where place identity and social identity remain congruent

as a lived- in memory As Van Roy noted, ―It is among the most successful in having adapted to the host culture while protecting and preserving its own ethnic integrity‖ (Van Roy, 2007:5) This is in marked contrast to the place identity in Chinatown SG that is no longer congruent with that experienced in reality that we have noted earlier to be inscribed, superimposed and seemingly unsustainable

Identifying and examining more closely the embodiments of

an ethnic identity in Yaowarat is purposed towards allowing us to gain more insight into the evolution of the spatial expression of an ethnic identity over time there and use that as a reference point, a

spring board to provide a more broad-based, nuanced, textured explanation for Chinatown SG‘ s current configuration by reconstituting the state‘s oft mentioned heavy hand at urban

redevelopment as a cause of Chinatown SG‘s ―inauthenticity‖,

―placelessness‖ becoming a space ―that speak little of local

identities and lifestyles‖ rather than the state as the final arbiter of

the dissonance of the Chinatown landscape today It will also help

us put a finger as to what elements are missing, how they embody

an ethnic identity, and exactly how these are expressed and impact place identity

In other words, it looks at the state‘s interventions and heavy-handedness in Chinatown SG and asks instead what necessitates such interventions and why place identity appear to

be ultimately unsustainable and requiring frequent resuscitation efforts by the state in enlivening it through deliberate ―festivizing‖ and embellishments From this vantage point, the state‘s intervention is part of the cause but also appears to be a consequence of wider social changes that have taken place and arguably a cross-comparison can shed light on what these social changes can be, and how these changes have spatial impacts Thus, this is a strategy aimed at exploring how place is made in Yaowarat and seeks to establish the elements of import in securing identity in place and how conversely the absence of which can potentially dislocate identity in place over time Yaowarat constitutes a memory regime that is alive and constantly reworked

and current; and that departs from the hijacking of memories and identities we have seen enacted on Chinatown SG

1.4 Methodology

This thesis makes use of semi- structured quantitative surveys with a mixture of both closed and open-ended questions This was the main method of data collection and is utilized in the hope of supplementing quantitative data with qualitative additions that can help us formulate a fuller picture of the site surveyed

With an initial conceptualization and cognizance of the fact that identity is closely tied to food consumption, livelihoods and community places, the target respondents were the hawkers on the food streets in Chinatown SG (Smith Street) and Yaowarat; the shopkeepers conducting businesses in Pagoda and Trengganu Street and Yaowarat Road and Charoen Krung Road and members of the temple and foundation hospitals As this is a comparative study, the choice of streets to conduct the survey in were as closely matched in terms of function and location as possible in the hope of achieving parity It should be noted that the definition of Chinatown SG utilized in this thesis are the boundaries delineated by the state and encompasses the four main streets of Pagoda Street, Temple Street, Smith Street, Mosque Street with Trengganu Street stretching the interstices flanked by the four streets

Response rate varied widely between the two field sites with the best data garnered from the food street in Yaowarat where 38 interviews were conducted successfully out of 45 attempted (84.4%) On Smith Street, the response rate was 3 out of 15 (20%) The shops on Pagoda and Trengganu Street, the main thoroughfare in Chinatown SG garnered a response rate of 19 out

of 30 (63.3%) attempted, whilst that in Yaowarat and Charoen Krung streets was 76 out of 90 (84.4%) attempted

1.5 Conclusion

In sum, the ultimate objective of this thesis is to offer an alternative, more broad based explanation of Singapore‘s Chinatown‘s current configuration To fulfill this aim, Yaowarat is used as a contrast case through which to understand the constitution of place and identity over time and explore what varying strategies of memory say about the larger social context It marries urban sociology with social memory and the sociology of everyday life in a bid to understand how place and identity is constituted and how reality in enacted in and through memory and with what kinds of repercussions for notions of identity and ultimately authenticity of a site like Chinatown that straddles historically contingent time-space-ethnic relationships that has

changed over time We will start our interrogation of food in Chinatown SG and in Yaowarat before moving on to examining the other businesses there in Chapter 3, the temples in Chapter 4, community foundations in Chapter 5 and finally drawing the threads together in the concluding chapter

Chapter 2: Making Place: Food, Memory and Identity

2.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter I mapped out and explained the analytic framework that I will be using in this study of Chinatown; explained the rationale behind approaching the study of Chinatown

SG through the use a comparative approach; and mapped out what I hope to achieve in viewing Chinatown from this vantage point In this chapter I will embark on an analysis of the concepts laid out in the previous chapter and start examining ethnic identity

in place over time through the conduit of food, to look at the

‗foodscape‘ Sociologists of food have long established the relationships between food and one‘s identity (Caplan, 1997; Narayan,1995; Searles, 2002) and also by implication memory (Holtzman, 2006) This makes food a useful analytical tool with which to study the embodiments of identity and memory present in Yaowarat and Chinatown SG today, allowing us to trace the social trajectories that place identity, ethnic identity and memory have undergone Further, framed against an ethnic neighbourhood setting these relationships have a further element of being a part of place identity as well The purpose of this chapter then is to look at what Susan Drucker (2002: 173) has termed ―enclave food‖ in relation to its meanings and representations today; with a view towards utilizing it as a foil from which to study identity formulations

in these historical enclaves today and as a tool that enables us to gauge its current contributions to place identity through understanding its complex influence on ethnic identity

The attempt at understanding the relations between food and ethnic identity and how it is enacted in place will be explored through ethnographic descriptions and discussions of the physical manifestations of food institutions present in Yaowarat and Chinatown SG today; as well as a through a selective cross-sectional study8 of the social profile of the proprietors manning these Simultaneously, to enable a more holistic, contextual understanding of contemporary configurations of food and identity

in these traditional enclaves over time, these primary findings will

be framed and understood against the backdrop of historical social trajectories the relationship between food and ethnic identity has taken over time in these two places as embodied in these food spaces and purveyors of food Tracing these permutations will allow us to glean insight into the social ecology of these hawkers over time and allow us a contextualized understanding of the different constructions of ethnic identity over time in place in both Yaowarat and Chinatown SG respectively

After mapping out the social ecologies of food hawkers in the two sites over time the chapter will take another comparative

8

Because this is a comparative study, there is a need to juxtapose comparable manifestations against each other Due to this consideration, the food street is

turn and the two sites will be juxtaposed The differences in the social ecologies of food hawkers in Yaowarat and Chinatown SG will then be discussed in a bid to look at what food represents in each enclave today and its impacts on place identity This then forms the basis from which we conduct a discussion with regards

to the contexts that give rise to memory conditions that contribute

to the formation of a strong, accessible ethnic identity and hence place identity versus one that results in a weak, inaccessible, dislocated place identity This chapter will then conclude with an extrapolation on what these differing constellations of food as a consumptive aspect of identity formation can inform us with regards to understanding the placelessness that has become synonymous with Chinatown SG, and allow us to examine/extrapolate on what is being consumed through food beyond identity in weak memory regimes

2.2 Chinatown SG

Chinatown SG offers an array of cuisines for the visitor to pick from Available are Korean restaurants, vegetarian cuisine, Chinese food hailing from different parts of China, Thai food, local fare served in a kopitiam and other local snacks such as desserts and Chinese yam cake, mooncakes and other assorted Chinese biscuits interspersed between the various cuisines that also includes a German/Austrian sausage store with a gregarious

German proprietor who has been featured in local media forming part of the Chinatown SG food scene

The word ‗eclectic‘ comes to mind when trying to collectively describe the kinds of food available in Chinatown SG There are no obvious concentrations of a particular cuisine or type of food, and one will be hard pressed to categorize a trademark cuisine synonymous with the place The disparate nature/character of food

in Chinatown SG is noteworthy and is a point we will revisit later in the chapter

Given this wide-ranging variety and apparent lack of definition in the kinds of food served in Chinatown SG, the only clustering of food stalls that is evident on Smith Street stands out as distinctly different Clustering expresses a certain homogeneity or complementarity in function or is an expression of a set of relationships It is hence from here that we will begin our discussion on food, ethnicity, memory and place identity, with the conscious knowledge that a food parallel food street exists in Yaowarat (organically) and will provide a basis for comparative cross referencing subsequently

2.2.1 Welcome to The Food Street

The food street (above) was inaugurated 10 years ago, the brainchild of the Singapore Tourism Promotion Board in

collaboration with the Chinatown Business Association (CBA) as part of a larger overall overhaul of Chinatown in a bid to rejuvenate

it The CBA itself was the brainchild of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) who inaugurated the CBA to act on its behalf in matters pertaining to businesses in Chinatown As part of this joint-initiative, the Food Street is a carefully coordinated establishment run by the CBA and hawkers who hope to conduct business there lease these stalls from the association The Food Street then, can

be inferred thus to be a joint effort between the state and its agents, as essentially a state sanctioned, organized effort deemed compatible with Chinatown land use9

One will realize that they have reached ‗The Food Street‘ by virtue of actual signboards that trumpet its exact location Situated along Smith Street, the food street rolls out in a neat and orderly fashion

9 The food street was mooted as part of STB‘s proposal for theme streets that was supposed to include market street, festive street, tradition street and bazaar street (Kwok et al, 1998:39) It was a plan that drew much criticism but STB put

up a ―strenuous defense against fears that Chinatown is being developed into a theme park‖ That food hawking was singled out as part of the resuscitation efforts by the state is worth noting as the whole spectrum of wet market and night markets went hand in hand with food hawkers in the daily rhythms of those who inhabited Chinatown in the 1980s and before (Thoo, 1983) and yet only this cross section was singled out for re-manifestation It is also worth noting that while the other proposed theme streets did not materialize, the food street went ahead despite objections from members of the public who were concerned that such a move to ‗thematize‘ Chinatown will compartmentalize it into functions, providing visitors a neat but simplified experience of Chinatown There were also apprehensions voiced with regards to STB‘s attempts to provide an overarching theme to Chinatown, with fears that in so doing, it has ignored Chinatown‘s history and culture-that it has reduced the layers of meaning to one that over- emphasizes an idealized or artificial kind of ‗Chineseness‘ (Kwok et al, 1998:39) This will be a point we will come back to later in the chapter

Figure 1 The Food Street on Smith Street at 6 p.m on a weekday

Consisting of 20 standardized-sized stalls lined up equidistant from

one another on the pavement of one side of Smith Street, the food

street operates daily officially from 6pm on till late Patrons can

either seat themselves on the row of wooden tables and benches

running parallel to the stalls about two metres away from the stalls,

or in the evenings dine alfresco seated on the tables and plastic

stools rolled out on Smith Street itself, which closes to vehicular

traffic after 6 pm to cater to the anticipated human traffic such an

arrangement was designated to serve

Interestingly, lined up along Smith Street on both sides are

two corresponding rows of restaurants with many offering a

pantheon of ‗Chinese‘ cuisine from Tian Jin, Beijing, Shanghai, that

are run by Chinese nationals Interspersed between these restaurants are institutions located in Chinatown under the Arts Housing Scheme that include the Harmonica Aficionados Community, Xin Sheng Poets Society and Singapore Association

of Writers, Ping Sheh, Chinese Theatre Circle, Shi Cheng Calligraphy and Seal Carving Society, Er Woo Musical and Dramatic Society, TAS Theatre Company and Toy Factory Productions Limited

The food street is well lit at night with coloured streetlights zig-zagging their way along the street overhead in the alfresco setting These are accompanied by red swaths of cloth artfully draped adorned with traditional Chinese red lanterns interspaced similarly, all zigzagging artfully above the street creating a distinct ethnic overtone That these were installed by the CBA and not the hawkers themselves add to the notion of contrived, deliberate attempts to foster a, hyper-Chinese ambience that reeks of an ethnic overtone

Food sold on the food street include Chinese desserts such

as ―ah balling‖ or flour balls with peanut or sesame filling served in

a sweet soup and other desserts like ice-kachang, pig-organ soup, stir-fried and/or barbecued seafood with ‗sambal‘ chilli sauce, fried carrot cake, fishball noodles, fried kway teow, fruit juice, poh piah

or spring rolls, fried hokkien prawn noodles These are often referred to as ‗local favourites‘

The food street hence appears to be an interesting mesh of local fare tinged with stylized Chinese street furniture, housed amidst a concentration of traditional Chinese arts such as opera troupes and calligraphy writing and fringed together with a new emerging pantheon of ethnic Chinese restaurants Having painted the food street and described its physical composition, I will now turn to describing the people in and of the food street and how they relate to the food street This will be a precursor before I launch into a discussion of the relationship between the former and the latter which will help throw into sharper relief and help us make sense of the scene just described above as well as that I am about

mish-to describe below

2.2.2 The Social Ecology of the Food Street

At the time of research10, there were six stalls on the food street sporting A4-sized papers with ‗for rent‘ imprinted on them Out of 14 hawkers, only 3 responses were gathered The small

sample set was the result of a combination of factors that include

‗survey fatigue‘11

, the time the research was conducted12 (amongst those who declined to be surveyed many claimed to be ―busy‖) This may also be an apparent reflection of ownership patterns of the stalls on the food street Many of the hawkers who preferred not to be surveyed claimed to be unable to answer questions of how long their stalls have been in business on the food street13, claiming to not be the owners but merely stall assistants hired by the absent ‗boss‘ This is once again unverifiable and it is not certain if the response was reliable or was provided to deflect or evade questions regarding rents and profit margins and reasons for locating their businesses on the food street There is hence a regrettable gap here in knowledge about proprietorship However, this may be instructive in helping us understand the ownership-stakeholdership aspect of the food street This response from many of the hawkers, including those who kindly participated in the survey suggests that the people who operate the food stalls are often not the owners, and are not related to these owners There is

a distinct emotive disconnect then between the people who man the food stalls with the food street itself The fact that the stalls surveyed were there for one year (fishball noodles), seven to eight

11

The reason for not wanting to participate for some hawkers is that they have done many similar surveys before This unfortunately cannot be verified and they cannot be persuaded despite the researcher producing credentials to prove that this is a school- supported project

12

It was conducted at about 6 pm as the stalls are setting up for dinner

years (Bak Kut Teh14), and the last respondent not being certain of the number of years (zhong zhong15) seem to reinforce this notion

of an emotional distance or an apparent lack of stakeholdership evident between the businesses and the food street itself

This theme is perhaps further supported by the responses gathered for the reasons for location Out of the three responses, all of them were unable to answer that question If food was related

to ethnic identity in an enclave, this is distinctly absent in this context It was as if location on the Chinatown food street did not matter and that they could have chosen to set up their stalls anywhere else in Singapore16

This point seems related to the fact that the food sold here appear distinctly ‗local‘ i.e Singaporean in nature and appear devoid of any perceivable ethnic marking17 The foods available on the food street are not uniquely ‗Chinese‘ but consist of local favourites that can be found in most hawker centres and coffee shops located island-wide Fishball noodles, kway chap18, hand-made noodles, bak kut teh, prawn noodles, steamboat and the like are all easily available and at much lower prices all over the island

There hence appears little reason for Chinese Singaporeans to come to the Chinatown food street to sample ‗the best‘ local fare, because ‗best‘ is located island wide in a dispersed fashion according to the various food guides Hence, it appears that if food, ethnic identity were in place in the past in the enclave, it is no longer the case

The higher than average prices are also reflective of the higher rents Rents are reportedly cost up to SGD 5000 per month plus utilities, which is payable to the Chinatown Business Association who runs the place and are in charge of leasing out the stalls Some of the stall owners when queried about the stalls that remained empty next to theirs report high turnover rates in tenants, owing to the fact that ―they cannot survive‖ because ―business is bad nowadays (it used to be better and late at night it can still be quote crowded on weekends in the past) and the rental here is very expensive‖ It appears then that customer traffic is often irregular and it was observed by one of the hawkers that ―it is worse nowadays because of the poor economy because fewer tourists‖

This seems to imply that while they claim not to know the reason for location, that they are aware that locating here will mean that a proportion of their patrons will be tourists and this is possibly part of the reason they are located here rather than elsewhere The

notion that businesses are not doing well because of a drop in touristic arrivals seem to imply that in fact the income accrued from tourist patrons formulate a significant part of their income This is corroborated from their response that half of their patrons are tourists and the other half locals who work in the offices around the area

That locals who patronize these stalls are from the offices in the near vicinity implies that convenience is an important consideration in their patronage, over and above possible factors such as taste, loyalty and the like This seems to be supported by the low rates of repeat customers who reportedly eat at the stalls It appears then that repeat customers are rare and customers tend to come from a diverse range

The reliance on touristic clientele and the diversity of clients and patronage based apparently predominantly on convenience seem to be factors that plague the food street From the responses

of the hawkers it appears that it is increasingly less viable to conduct their business there, because customer flow is not sustained and is erratic and it seems, declining The lack of viability and sustainability appear to stem from a strong local base

of patrons that can help the businesses ‗survive‘ through regular patronage that will help ensure regular income for these hawkers even when touristic arrivals are low

The short time period the stalls are in business, the lack of knowledge about the food street itself, the lack of attachment to the food street, the lack of business viability, the over-privileging and reliance on a touristic clientele all seem to point to a lack of continuity from its enclave roots, an emotive disconnect between the locals and the food street, and a lack of invocation of an ethnic identity tied to place that can provide a business advantage for these hawkers Ethnic identity appears to have little currency here although the food street is on the surface located at the heart of an overtly ethnic Chinese place of heritage, and is adorned amidst stylized Chinese street furniture such as lanterns

This disjuncture and dislocation between food and ethnic identity; and between the physical, explicitly expressed Chinese identity and the lack of social expression by the inhabitants of that landscape as evident from the observations so far bears further investigation The state‘s role in this has been well –documented and studied (Thoo, 1983) The premise of this paper is that these disjunctures and contradictions need to be understood more holistically juxtaposed against Yaowarat‘s food street and it is to the description of observations in Yaowarat that I will now turn before delving into a comparative discussion in the hope of shedding new light onto the apparent disjuncture between food and ethnic identity, between the physical Chinese-ness of physical

space and a lack of social expression of that Chinese ethnic identity and how looking at these contradictions through food that can help to explain the ‗placelessness‘ that has been commonly associated with Chinatown SG from a different angle

2.3 Yaowarat

Unlike the experience at Chinatown SG, the moment one arrives on Yaowarat Road it is apparent that it is a Chinese stronghold With respect to food, it is immediately noticeable that there are concentrations of particular food, with sharks fin and birds nest being synonymous with Yaowarat That is not to say that these products are unique to Yaowarat and can only be found here, but as I am enlightened by my Thai friend, that if one wants

to buy these products, or consume these, that Yaowarat is the

go-to place for quality assurances and competitive prices The number

of specialist shops selling these products and the observations that these products can be found in many provision shops as well as medicine halls seems to bear testament in support of her comments Yaowarat is where everyday food coexists with festive, seasonal eats and it is apparent from the food found there Below are some examples of the variety observed in Yaowarat

Figure 2: Everyday essentials such as salted fish and other dried goods are on

full display in the markets

Figure 3: The research period coincided with the Dumpling Festival and festive

seasonal products such as these bags of bright orange salted egg yolks and

banana leaves are widely available The sheer volume of these specialized

items indicate that the shopkeepers perceive the selling of these goods to make

good business sense, which in turn indicates that the Chinese continue to look

for these as well as the more everyday items such as fish maw and other dried

goods

This reflects culture in practice and bespeak of a cultural depth as these are ‗raw

materials‘ for the end product i.e the dumpling and the production process

typically involves certain age-old family practices and traditions and time spent

frying, chopping, wrapping and steaming The fact that the Thai Chinese still

make these themselves is hence culturally significant Interestingly, this bountiful

supply of ‗raw materials‘ is no longer seen in Chinatown SG and what is sold are

typically the dumplings as a finished product for consumption, signaling perhaps

a gradual obsolescence of traditional cultural practices such as slaving over the

stove to make dumplings, and involving the family in these festive cooking

events.

Figure 4: One of the several stalls selling braised pork knuckle with rice Note

that the signboard is in two languages, Chinese and Thai This is a characteristic

of signboards observed in Yaowarat in general

Figure 5: A roasted duck stall doing brisk business

Figure 6: One of the many stalls selling birds nest drinks and dessert It is iconic

and ubiquitous

Figure 7: Teochew rice cakes or bee kueh These are filled with stir fried

glutinous rice and are flavourful savoury snacks These add variety to the range

and variety of the foodscape and are highly ethnically specialized snacks

Figure 8: Chinese herbal teas brewed with typical Chinese favourites such as

dried chrysanthemum flowers and lotus root These are said to have ‗cooling‘

properties i.e that these drinks help to maintain balance in the body, which is a

distinctly Chinese medicinal concept.

These pictures reflect the sheer variety of food available to

cater to every need and displays how food incarnates into different

uses i.e as snacks, drinks and even medicine The cuisines

available here are markedly less varied compared to that in

Chinatown SG as well and it is clear that the overwhelmingly

dominant one is ethnic Chinese cuisine Forming a substantial part

of this Chinese foodscape is the number of restaurants offering

sharks fin and birds nest Palpably concentrated, these, together

with some Chinese restaurants such as Shangarila and Hua Seng

Hong have become synonymous with the Yaowarat landscape

Complementing these more formal dining options are food stalls

haphazardly scattered on the already pavements outside shop fronts in the mornings peddling an assortment of food consisting mainly of Chinese snacks such as chive dumplings, chwee kueh or rice cakes with preserved radish, bee kueh, a flat pink rice dumpling stuffed with glutinous rice amongst other tantalizing food products that are distinctly ethnic Chinese Although these food institutions are spread out throughout Yaowarat, they are linked by

a homogeneity in products proffered and also by product complementarity whereby within Yaowarat can be found a density

of shops offering Chinese provisions and dried goods like dried shrimp and mushrooms soya sauce, tea leaves, and other condiments, preserved fruit, Chinese peanut or traditional cakes and the like along with wet market produce such as steamboat items like fish dumplings and bean curd skin all available under Yaowarat‘s metaphorical roof

This distinct clustering of similar functions and dominance of

a particular cuisine in Yaowarat, the concentration of particular foods and the complementarity of the products hence stand as marked contrasts to the undefined foodscape observed in Chinatown SG Because this is set up as a comparative study there is a need to find a basis for comparison What is similar between the two places as alluded to earlier is a food street that is also a part of the evening Yaowarat foodscape, concentrating evening food activities in a manner similar to the one on Smith

Street In the next section, I will describe the Yaowarat food street, and the social ecology of the hawkers there I will simultaneously highlight the similarities and differences, setting it up for a comparative discussion in the final section of the chapter

2.3.1 The Yaowarat Food Street

The food street on Yaowarat is different from the one in Chinatown SG in many respects While the food street in the latter

is announced with much fanfare through well-placed signboards, there are no corresponding official signages proclaiming to the visitor that they have arrived at the food street That is not to say that the food street is inconspicuous Quite the contrary, the food street in Yaowarat is considerably larger in scale compared to the one in Chinatown SG While the latter consists of twenty stalls lined up in a neat and orderly fashion, the former is a food enterprise that sprawls along both sides of Yaowarat, snakes into the side streets where stalls line up three rolls deep, obstructing traffic Hawkers set up shop on the pavement and/or roadside in front of the shops that are mostly closed for the night in the early hours of the evening at about 6 pm19, constituting part of the

19

As an outsider looking in, the assemblage of the food street proves rather fascinating The early morning anticipation and bustle transforms into the scorching lull of the slow afternoon and as light ebbs and subsides after 6p.m and most of the shops pull out their shutters, roller doors, and you can almost feel their sigh of audible relief that their retail day is over, and for some, that another work day has gone by without event nor incident The winding down after a day‟s labour is palpable and as the day draws to a close, that

sidewalk rhythm20 that is part of urban land use in Thailand (Dovey and Polakit, 2006:8)

Unlike the formal standardization and fixity in store location

in Chinatown SG, the hawkers informally arrange themselves in the sidewalk, streaming in to take their place on the street in an informally negotiated, seemingly organically derived order, armed with their wares for the night on their portable wagons21 The manner in which the stalls are organized and are snaking along the street sprawling haphazardly with each stall‘s respective tables and chairs exudes a sense of casual spontaneity and fluidity that departs from the rigidity and highly mechanical constellation of the food street observed in Chinatown SG22

While both offering al fresco dining experiences, there appears to be little ‗contrivedness‘ in Yaowarat‘s food street in that compared to the bright lights and overtly Chinese street furniture put in place in Chinatown SG, the stalls in Yaowarat are light by

20

The food street in Bangkok comes alive at about 6 p.m everyday except Thursdays This set of hawkers constitutes the last leg of the sophisticated appropriation of space that give rise to sidewalk rhythm that (Dovey and Polakit, 2006) identified in their work which sees breakfast fast food stalls (6 a.m to 10 a.m.), shops (10 a.m to 6 p.m.) and a late night restaurant (6.p.m till 11 p.m.) occupy the same piece of land in a negotiated yet seemingly ad hoc and seamless diurnal ritualistic transition from day time to nighttime activities

21

This ranges from huge pots of soup and stock or roasted chestnuts to a lorry loaded with durians) and utensils such as multiple large woks that sit atop stoves that will be working in overdrive later on in the evening as the dinner crowd pulls in

22 Stalls selling bottled Chinese herbal teas and bottled orange juice can be found as well with some operating out of a little nook in between two closed shops on the pavement, with their Styrofoam ice boxes steeped in melted ice and water and chillers to keep the neatly arranged drinks nice and cold and using metal pots to keep the hot drinks at the