• Members of the public will be able to rediscover Singapore’s vibrant hawker culture through a web application
• It will feature an online treasure hunt and users may complete quizzes to get virtual badges 
• These badges can then be exchanged for dining vouchers to be redeemed at 29 participating hawker centres 
• Ms Grace Fu, the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, said that the inscription is an important milestone in Singapore’s cultural history

SINGAPORE — A festival will be held to celebrate Singapore’s hawker culture making it onto the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).

Taking place across three weekends from Dec 26 to Jan 11, the SG HawkerFest will allow members of the public to rediscover Singapore’s vibrant hawker culture through a web application that features an online treasure hunt.

Participants may also complete quizzes and share ideas on the infrastructure and features that they hope to see in hawker centres of the future.

They will be awarded virtual badges from completed quizzes, which can then be exchanged for dining vouchers that they can redeem from a list of 29 participating hawker centres islandwide.

Other celebratory activities of the SG HawkerFest include a digital video series, a webinar on Singapore’s hawker culture and a seminar involving the hawker community.

On Thursday (Dec 17), Mr Edwin Tong, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, and Ms Grace Fu, the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, visited the Ghim Moh food centre to meet the hawkers there and to thank them for their contributions to hawker culture.

Mr Tong said: “Generations of many hawkers, past and present, even future ones, I hope they will be inspired by this. It is up to all of us in Singapore to do something to retain it, to ensure that future generations will continue to enjoy and cherish it.” 

Ms Fu said that the inscription, which was confirmed on Wednesday, is an important milestone in Singapore’s cultural history.

“For a small country to have something like a hawker culture to anchor our national identity and to be recognised by Unesco, I think, is very timely considering the important role that hawker centres and hawkers have played in the last few months. It didn't close throughout the pandemic and it provided a very essential food, nourishment and also a bit of a social anchoring for Singaporeans,” she said.

HOPE FOR HAWKER CULTURE TO BE KEPT ALIVE

Mr Kelly Ng, a 49-year-old hawker who has been running his laksa stall at the Ghim Moh food centre for the past five years, hopes that the inscription will make visiting hawker centres a “highlight for tourists”.

With the median age of hawkers being 60, he described people in his profession as a “dying population”.

“The number of hawker centres and stalls is still growing but the number of people taking it up, even though they are young hawkerpreneurs, is not enough to fill all the spaces,” he said.

Mr Ng suggested that vocational institutes let their students go on work attachments to hawker centres.

“Send them to the hawker stalls to pick up certain skills, and later on if they want to seek employment in more established places, they may,” he said.

“Interest may wane for some people, but they have something to fall back on because they have been to a hawker centre and they already have experienced the lifestyle. They might become their own bosses one day.”

For 35-year-old hawker Loo Boon Kiat who has been selling fish ball noodles at the same food centre for the past seven years, he hopes that more young people will be interested in the trade now that hawker culture is being celebrated.

His journey started after he completed his National Service, when he decided to help his friend’s mother at her stall in a hawker centre. Soon, cooking became his passion.

“I think the younger generation will be interested if many grants are made available to them and if the Government can maybe help them out by linking them up with suppliers for ingredients and equipment. Then, they’ll have a starting point and feel more confident,” he said.

Ms Amber Pong, 30, who has been selling cakes and other baked goods from her hawker stall since January this year, said that she would encourage young people such as herself to “step out of their comfort zones” and join the trade.

Her favourite part about being in a hawker centre is being able to interact with people of all ages.

“It's not exclusive like at a cafe where there is a certain target group. We have many customers, 'aunties' and 'uncles', and people from all walks of life who are really friendly and very easy-going,” she said.