Images by author.

When I playfully suggest that Brad Bowyer meets me in a hawker centre for a casual photoshoot to mock the stale trope of politicians in hawker centres, he gamely suggests Adam Road Food Centre.

All things considered, Adam Road Food Centre is not your typical hawker centre. It’s situated along Dunearn Road—prime real estate for society’s upper echelons—and its partially open-air environment makes the spot less harsh and stuffy than ones situated in heartland wet markets.

On a Thursday at 9 AM, with only half its stalls open for business, it feels like I’m in one of those spot-the-difference puzzles, where everything feels perfectly normal save for one thing that’s out of place.

Adam Road Food Centre is a tad too clean and orderly for a hawker centre. In other words, it is the ideal uncanny backdrop for a politician’s next viral Facebook post about ‘walking the ground’ and ‘meeting residents’.

But Brad is no politician—at least not yet.

The 52-year-old, who grew up in a council flat in East London, only recently gained popularity online because of his speeches at Hong Lim Park this year. One was for the Abuse of Process Rally, and another was about accountability in Singapore.

In fact, my first exposure to Brad came through a video on The Online Citizen, where the new Singaporean spoke about his reasons for entering Singapore politics. Even though he was more eloquent than many in Parliament, I remained unimpressed by this random white man who I assumed just had a saviour complex.

I was also put off by the opposition politicians he seemed to court, from Chee Soon Juan to Lim Tean. Naturally, these photos seemed to attract hardcore opposition and PAP supporters, who were full of commendation and criticism respectively for his perspectives and presence in local politics.

So I reached out to this “ang moh sinkie politician”, a moniker given by a Hardware Zone thread that comes up on the first page of results when I google his name. And, truth be told, I half-expect to be met with the ang moh version of the “oppie” stereotype: a disgruntled, elderly ex-British citizen having second thoughts about becoming Singaporean.