Hawker

Honestly, I think it would be actually more appropriate to call them street vendors than anything else, because we can call them peddlers.

Oh.

Yeah, hawkers.

Oh.

You understand? In, in Singapore-

Hmm

...

there are a lot of hawkers.

and to attract customers.

Hawking was about this idea of access to a kind of labor that anyone could turn to in very simple terms, just a way to participate in like creative business markets and economies.

And at a time when these market avenues were not as formalized as today, for example, like in the mining towns and plantation areas of Malaya, you have people who also set up shop to be able to cook up meals, to sell to hungry workers returning from their mines.

At the state level, they did sort of understand that it was in many ways a way that community members fought about and contended with hunger.

One of the main time savers and also cost savers was just going to these hawker stalls and then a bowl of noodles, for example.

The rise in hawkers at this time meant that the government took steps to define and regulate hawking, because even though hawking had become an essential part of life, it also presented challenges to a developing nation.

Hawking was actually a very big public health question at the time.

This idea that hawkers cause problems with sanitation, traffic, and overall health in general.

We're excited.

We're going to the Hawker centers tomorrow.

We're gonna be at the track.

We're doing an amazing CUT pop-up at the F1 track this year as well.

Right, yeah.

So we'll be exploring all of that in the next episode, entitled Hawkers and the Aftermath of War.

And we're gonna look at the period between 1945 into the early 1960s.

All right.

Oh.

Right? Hawker food culture is very, very present-

Yeah

...

Not as many as there were, but there are still a lot.

And the question, of course, is always, does this illegal street vending hurt the businesses that pay all the taxes, pay all the rent, pay for all the inventory? Let me flip it around.

Okay.

How could it not?

And Steve, I know you got to run, but before you do, you recently walked around Westlake with our friends over at Fox 11.

And I know that one permitting area that people struggle with is starting a business.

Now, a lot of that may be local regulations, but specifically as it relates to the challenges that brick and mortar businesses face from illegal street vending, is there something from the governor's seat that you think you can do to get this in check?

Well, here's the thing.

And then I said to the guy, "When did all this happen? Uh, when did it start? W- was this, has this been here all the time you've been here?" "No, it's the last six or seven years." I said, "Is it something to do with the pandemic?" "No." I looked into it.

Eight years ago, in twenty eighteen, they passed a bill in Sacramento to legalize street vending in California across the state.

Cities can't do anything about it.

Counties can't do anything about it.

Yes, it is.

Yao Liang is asking Hawker.

It's not Hawker.

It's a

homegrown brand.