Welcome to episode 1 of the brand-new Mynah Podcast, brought to you by Mynah Magazine! Editors Ruby and Karen are joined by Lim Jialiang to discuss the political economy of hawker culture in Singapore. We talk about how hawkers were unfairly handed the responsibility of ensuring food security in Singapore, people’s expectations of (and delusions about) hawker food, and what the future of hawkering looks like. We also talk a lot about hokkien mee.
(This episode is marked Explicit because of occasional coarse language. We'll swear less next time.)
Jialiang is the founder of the beer distribution company Watering Hole. Before that, he managed a hawker stall in Chinatown for four years. To learn more about Jialiang and for more context about this episode, check out our newsletter at mynahmag.substack.com
Some notes on the podcast and additional resources:
We recorded this episode in September 2024, when Old Airport Road Food Centre was still under renovation. It reopened on October 1.
Speaking of (upsetting) 8days coverage of corporates turned hawkers: https://www.8days.sg/eatanddrink/hawkerfood/ex-engineer-who-sold-his-company-25mil-now-sells-hokkien-mee-cooked-robot-wok-ai-838261
“Hawkerpreneurs: hawkers, entrepreneurship, and reinventing street food in Singapore” by Nicole Tarulevicz, for a brief overview of the history of hawkering in Singapore
Minister Vivian Balakrishnan in an exchange with MP Lily Neo in Parliament in 2007: “Do you want three meals in a hawker centre, food court or restaurant?”
Key findings of the 2023 Minimum Income Standards report
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Mynah Magazine started as a print magazine for untold Singaporean stories in 2016. We’ve published four issues to date.
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The music for The Mynah Podcast was written and recorded by Daniel Seah.