SINGAPORE: For nearly six decades, hawker Leong Yuet Meng, 91, had been getting up before the crack of dawn six days a week, to prepare her old-school wonton noodles.
One of Singapore’s oldest hawkers, this Cantonese cook is well known as the founder of the Nam Seng Noodle House that was just outside the old National Library in Stamford Road.
AdvertisementAdvertisementBut she has closed her only stall, in Far East Square along China Street, where she had relocated 20 years ago. It is a casualty of the COVID-19 crisis, with the work-from-home norm having hollowed out the Central Business District.
“The business dropped drastically overnight. It was very hard to get back to where we were before,” she said.
“Ideally, I’d like to continue … I hope to preserve my brand (Nam Seng) — I built it up with a lot of hardship.”
In the programme Belly Of A Nation, hawkers such as Leong share their fears and dismay during the pandemic, and relate how getting by became more and more challenging.
AdvertisementAdvertisementHANDS-ON, EVEN AT HER AGE
It was in 1962 when Leong and her late husband opened their stall at a little food centre in front of the old National Library.
Her first foray into the hawker trade had been to sell chicken porridge and macaroni at a school in Queen Street, but she learnt to make wonton mee from her cousin, an amah who also sold this dish in Chinatown.
The stall’s name was suggested by her mother-in-law. “Nam means Nanyang (the region encompassing Malaya and the wider Southeast Asia), since we were doing business in Nanyang, and Seng represents a successful business,” said Leong.
AdvertisementDuring the withdrawal of British troops from Singapore later in the 1960s, her husband, who also worked as a clerk for the British, was offered a chance to move his family to the United Kingdom.
“I said, ‘Please don’t joke with me. Go overseas? I don’t know a single English word. I’ll stay here,’” she recalled.
Back then, they sold their signature dish for 30 cents a bowl.
“You’d have had wonton, noodles and char siu,” she said. “I started at 30 cents and increased it to 50 cents (and then) to 70 cents; then from a dollar … until today’s S$5.”
Before the library was torn down, she relocated to Joo Chiat briefly and then accepted an invitation to open a stall at Far East Square.
Besides wonton noodles, the couple used to sell fried rice, venison hor fun and seafood hor fun at this stall.
Although she had a small team of helpers, Leong was still very involved in running the stall, including waking up early in the morning to pick up fresh produce at a wet market in Toa Payoh, where she lives.
Her second son, Michael Tang, would send her to Nam Seng, where she would spend the day making the wontons from scratch and taking customers’ orders.
“I like to be hands-on … A person must be able to do everything. I don’t rely on the workers,” she said.
“If you want to make money, don't complain about hardship. Go back home to sleep if you worry about hardship.”
For two decades, she witnessed life in busy China Street, but that came to a halt when COVID-19 struck.
At her age, she belongs to the high-risk group, and with people also staying away from the CBD, she decided to shut the stall temporarily. But the restless matriarch complained about being bored during the “circuit breaker” period.
“I just stayed at home for two months,” she said. “I read the newspapers, and sometimes I watched television.”
ENTERING THE TRADE BEFORE ‘CIRCUIT BREAKER’
For 22-year-old Delonix Tan Wei Jie, on the other hand, he could not have chosen a more inopportune time to enter the hawker trade.
Having signed up for the National Environment Agency’s Incubation Stall Programme, he opened his fish ball stall, San Dai Fishball, at Amoy Street Food Centre when the number of COVID-19 cases was on the rise.
“After four days of operation, the Government announced that on April 7, there’d be this circuit breaker,” he lamented, calling it suay (Hokkien for unlucky).
Although he had little experience in cooking, he had been helping his father make yong tau foo at a wet market in Toa Payoh, and thought he would like the “hectic” hawker lifestyle.
And when he first started, he was doing double duty: During the day, he was at his stall, and overnight, he helped out at his family’s food business.
Given his schedule, his girlfriend helped him out with his stall initially.
“(My girlfriend) knew that I was very stressed, running tight on cash, et cetera, so she offered to help me,” said the newbie, who acknowledged that his cooking skills needed “some time to develop”.
Realising, however, that there will be almost zero footfall as his stall is within the CBD area, he decided to shut his stall down during the circuit breaker period.
When he re-opened in June, he saw that the office crowd still has not returned.
“The food centre used to be busy at lunch time, but not anymore,” he said. “We spoke to our customers, and they told us (they) would be coming back only next year.”
So, after a few months, Tan decided to call it quits and help his father at the wet market instead.
“Instead of continuing (to) throw money into this black hole, we decided to just cut it off,” he said.
“(Being a) hawker … is very, very tough work, and the (profit margins are) very, very thin. After this experience, I don’t think I want to be a hawker.”
PROMISE OF A COMEBACK
For Leong, she also resumed business after the lifting of the circuit breaker measures.
“When the government said we could open for business, I did so immediately even if it was just to meet people,” she said.
However, her customers are mostly office workers from the CBD area and despite the lifting of restrictive measures, the area was still quiet.
In July, Leong decided to close her outlet at Far East Square for good due to dwindling crowd and leasing issues.
“When I started renting there 20 years ago, the people (building management) were nice. Who knew that they would change this year and become difficult to talk to?” she said.
For her employees, one had returned to China, one went to work at her brother’s restaurant and the last one decided to stop working.
At her age and having worked for so many years, Leong should be retiring comfortably but she’s adamant to keep the Nam Seng brand alive.
“I have worked for so many years. My focus and dedication for these last 60 years has been for my brand (Nam Seng). How can I bear to let it go?” she added. “We will make a comeback.”
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