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I will now attempt to write a thread of the food that has defined Singapore elections:
In 2006, ‘mee siam mai hum’ and ‘bak chor mee mai ter kwa’. We were unable to speak directly about political shortcomings and everybody uses food allegory. See video
In 2006, ‘mee siam mai hum’ and ‘bak chor mee mai ter kwa’. We were unable to speak directly about political shortcomings and everybody uses food allegory. See video
Related text on 2006 / election / foods: https://www.facebook.com/theonlinecitizen/posts/mee-siam-especially-when-mentioned-together-with-hum-has-been-synonymous-with-pm/10157088511736383/
In 2011, we made fun of an MP who had this unfortunate photo of herself on the internets. Which spawned a cake shop of the name...
Related story on Kate Spade: https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/after-baptism-bags-and-fire-tin-pei-ling-grows
Two unfortunate aspects of our democratic process: (1) you don’t know when elections will be called, then suddenly it’s the hustings (2) you don’t have much access to the media. Sometimes, you signal political intent over oyster omelette (or not). https://www.straitstimes.com/politics/workers-party-chairman-sylvia-lims-orh-luak-meal-in-fengshan-feeds-rumours
In 2015, leading opposition politician Sylvia Lim was seen eating a dish of fried oyster omelettes in an area rumored to be of interest to the opposition. The orh luak discussion went on for days. Parties keep seats and candidates secret, typically, until Nomination Day
The leading party’s cadre system is selective & opaque. If you’re invited for coffee (to ‘lim kopi’) with the PAP that usually means you’re being considered for a political future. Given the hitherto uncompetitive nature of elections, that usually meant a sure win. A ‘parachute’
Most politicking happens over or near or adjacent to food. This is when you can gauge sentiment on the ground. Hawker centres and town centers, with ‘kopitiams’, are usually the epicentre of any ‘vote for me’ offline hustle.
Political drama has always happened near hawker centres. In 2001, Dr Chee Soon Juan used a megaphone and yelled at the Prime Minister “where is our money!” alleging that we lent $17 billion to Indonesian president Suharto.
State run news media in 2001 gave the impression that a madman was chasing the prime minister around in a hawker centre, yelling where’s our money? As a teenager, I found it funny.
Not funny: he was sued for it
https://www.supremecourt.gov.sg/docs/default-source/module-document/judgement/2003-sghc-79.pdf
Not funny: he was sued for it
https://www.supremecourt.gov.sg/docs/default-source/module-document/judgement/2003-sghc-79.pdf
In 1991, one of our first female politicians lost her seat largely because of perceived elitism. She washed her hands immediately after shaking the hands of a fishmonger in a market, paving the way for a Ling How Doong win. https://mothership.sg/2018/04/seet-ai-mee-female-minister-singapore/
To be clear, she did this during the hustings for the 1988 elections. But her opponent played it up for 1991. It was kryptonite. This sort of thing plays into class, which usually puts the PAP on the back foot.
Since then, the elitism gap seems to have significantly widened. Anecdotally, many of the younger generation of PAP members are not fluent in dialects or Malay, making hawker centre visits very awkward. Opposition members get applauded, typically.
As we saw from 2015, groundswell and popular sentiment does not always translate to electoral wins. Our ‘first past the post’ system is largely to blame.
Going back to ‘mee siam mai hum’. In 2006, our politics seemed far more repressed. People were talking about it, a little. The PAP badgered James Gomez over a ‘minority race’ form he had forgotten to submit. For a week, the state media went on about this form.
I was hanging out with @mrbrown at the time, in a kopitiam! He went upstairs to record the ‘bak chor mee’ podcast. At that time, podcasts were really new. He created this podcast featuring a person ordering pork noodles and getting badgered. https://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/f/c/0/fc068d7ed604bcf2/tmbs-060501-the_persistently_non-political_podcast_no6.mp3?c_id=2219640&cs_id=2219640&expiration=1593501920&hwt=ae5e64579df76a397df708a960127e66
It was so popular, there were spoofs, like this Bollywood spoof of the whole incident.
