Singapore is a nation-state that was founded in 1965 and that has a total population of 5,610,000 as of 2017 (Singapore Department of Statistics 2017). The citizen population of 3,440,000 (61.3% of the total population) is classified as 76.1% Chinese, 15.0% Malay, 7.4% Indian, and 1.5% Others. Prior to the nation’s independence, Singapore was a British colony (1819–1940) that was temporarily occupied by the Japanese during World War II (1942–1945). After the British granted internal self-governance to Singapore in 1959, the nation shared a brief period of merger with its neighboring country, Malaysia (1963–1965).

The trade of hawking has existed since the 1800s and has “grown up” with the nation (Kong 2007: 15). The modern manifestation of street hawking can be seen in hawker centers, which are large open-air complexes that offer a wide variety of tasty and affordable ethnic foods, and the cost of an average meal is SGD 3.50–6 (approx. USD 2.54–4.35). Thus, it is of little surprise that they are much-loved eating places among residents and visitors from abroad (Independent 2009; Tan 2018; Groundwater 2018).

Kong (2007) piques that the term “hawker center” is so familiar in Singapore, that its irony is not apparent or taken for granted in everyday life. This is because a hawker is a person that travels around selling his wares, generally advertising them by shouting. In contrast, Singapore’s hawkers have permanent stalls with proper facilities such as water and electricity, and nonverbal advertisements such as celebrity recommendations are the norm of food advertisement in hawker centers.

Thanks to globalization and the new media ecology, there has been increasing recognition of Singapore’s hawker food and centers, and some hawkers shot to international fame when they were awarded the much-acclaimed Michelin star in 2016 (Han 2016; Levius 2017). The high sales and prices of famous hawker recipes also made local headline news (Yeo and Singh 2014; Chua 2016), such as the sale of Kay Lee Roast Meat Joint to a former loyal customer for SGD 4 million in 2014 (approx. USD 3.17 million).

What is less known, perhaps, is that Singapore’s hawker centers are one of the most institutionalized food places in the world. Virtually all aspects – from the cleanliness of public washrooms to the hygiene of hawker food and stalls, and the stall bidding process to the prices of food – all are subject to scrutiny and regulation by institutions and governmental authorities such as the National Environmental Agency of Singapore. While food centers and markets clearly exist outside of Singapore, it is arguable that none of them are subject to the level of planning and regulation of Singapore’s hawker centers, and yet carry such a heavy weight of tradition (hawking) and national identity.

As a major economic hub and global city-state, Singapore has been experiencing rapid urbanization and immigration in recent years, and a third of its total workforce is comprised of foreigners (OECD 2013; Wong 2015; Teng 2018). These changes have led to a questioning of the Singaporean identity, as residents perceive that the Singaporean citizenship and permanent residence permits are increasingly being commodified in the name of economic progress or “survival” (Teng 2017; Han 2017; Tan 2017a, b). Several authors have also described the changing face of hawking, for example, it is no longer a surprise to find international cuisine such as Pad Thai and Italian pasta in hawker centers (Kong 2007; Tay 2010; Tan 2016). While some celebrate the presence of nontraditional hawker food, others have expressed doubt and lament over the loss of heritage in hawker centers.

Previous studies have shown that food culture has the ability to construct, reproduce, and reconstruct identity (Caldwell 2002; Avieli 2005; Ichijo and Ranta 2016; Mendel and Ranta 2014; Schermuly and Forbes-Mewett 2016). Ichijo and Ranta (2016) mention that although the relationship between food and national identity has been extensively studied in anthropology and cultural studies, the reverse is not true for writers on nationalism and national identity. This is despite the fact that other issues such as religion, popular media, and education have been researched and written about regarding the imagination, construction, and reproduction of the nation (Hastings 1997; Edensor 2002). In the case of Singapore, while several authors have extensively documented the relationship between Singapore’s hawker food and identity (Kong 2007; Tay 2010; Duruz and Khoo 2015; Tan 2016; Kong and Sinha 2016), few have brought out the role of spatial layouts and place-making, language and nationalism (multiracialism) in hawker centers. On the other hand, hawker signages have been studied by students and academics largely in the field of linguistics and communication (Neo and Soon 2012; Yeoh 2014); however, these empirical findings have yet to be geographically mapped, visualized, and studied in relation to hawker centers as place-processes.

This study explores the role of language and food culture in the process of identity construction within the context of everyday life in the case of Singapore’s hawker centers. It also attempts to initiate a discussion about the role of place in food culture and identity. How can hawker centers offer us a bottom-up understanding of food, language, and identity in Singapore and inform us about the ways in which language is used by members of the nation in everyday life?

This chapter will first address the topic of identity in the case of Singapore, and it will focus on how the main method of governance (multiracialism) influences the process of identity construction in the nation. Next, it will explain the history of hawking and the meaning of hawker food to members of the nation, followed by how hawker centers are places where food culture, language, and identity intersect in everyday life. This study will then explore how hawker centers can contribute to the existing knowledge about food culture, language, and identity in Singapore with the research findings on five hawker centers, which includes 501 signboard headers and their spatial constituents.