Eating Together: Food, Space, and Identity in Malaysia and Singapore, by Jean Duruz and Gaik Cheng Khoo EATING TOGETHER
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EATING TOGETHER Rowman & Littlefield Studies in Food and Gastronomy General Editor: Ken Albala, Professor of History, University of the Pacific ([email protected]) Food studies is a vibrant and thriving field encompassing not only cooking and eating habits but also issues such as health, sustainability, food safety, and animal rights. Scholars in disciplines as diverse as history, anthropology, sociology, literature, and the arts focus on food. The mission of Rowman & Littlefield Studies in Food and Gas- tronomy is to publish the best in food scholarship, harnessing the energy, ideas, and creativity of a wide array of food writers today. This broad line of food-related titles will range from food history, interdisciplinary food studies monographs, general interest series, and popular trade titles to textbooks for students and budding chefs, scholarly cookbooks, and reference works. Appetites and Aspirations in Vietnam: Food and Drink in the Long Nineteenth Century, by Erica J. Peters Three World Cuisines: Italian, Mexican, Chinese, by Ken Albala Food and Social Media: You Are What You Tweet, by Signe Rousseau Food and the Novel in Nineteenth-Century America, by Mark McWilliams Man Bites Dog: Hot Dog Culture in America, by Bruce Kraig and Patty Carroll New Orleans: A Food Biography, by Elizabeth M. Williams (Big City Food Biographies series) A Year in Food and Beer: Recipes and Beer Pairings for Every Season, by Emily Baime and Darin Michaels Breakfast: A History, by Heather Arndt Anderson (The Meals series) New Paradigms for Treating Relationships, edited by Jill Savege Scharff and David E. Scharff Celebraciones Mexicanas: History, Traditions, and Recipes, by Andrea Lawson Gray and Adriana Almazán Lahl Food History Almanac: Over 1,300 Years of World Culinary History, Culture, and Social Influence, by Janet Clarkson The Food Section: Newspaper Women and the Culinary Community, by Kimberly Wilmot Voss Small Batch: Pickles, Cheese, Chocolate, Spirits, and the Return of Artisanal Foods, by Suzanne Cope Eating Together: Food, Space, and Identity in Malaysia and Singapore, by Jean Duruz and Gaik Cheng Khoo EATING TOGETHER Food, Space, and Identity in Malaysia and Singapore Jean Duruz and Gaik Cheng Khoo ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Published by Rowman & Littlefield A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 16 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BT, United Kingdom Copyright © 2015 by Rowman & Littlefield All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retriev- al systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Duruz, Jean, author. Eating together : food, space, and identity in Malaysia and Singapore / Jean Duruz and Gaik Cheng Khoo. pages cm Summary: “Analyzes cultures of eating together in Malaysia and Singapore. It explores everyday spaces, such as street stalls, hawker centers, and coffee shops. Reflecting on these as sites for people’s ‘different’ culinary exchanges, the book captures resonances of national, ethnic, cosmo- politan and multicultural identity” — Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4422-2740-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-2741-5 (electronic) Food habits—Social aspects—Malaysia. 2. Food habits—Social aspects—Singapore. 3. Malaysia— Social life and customs. 4. Singapore—Social life and customs. I. Khoo, Gaik Cheng, 1969– author. II. Title. GT2853.M4D87 2015 394.1'209595—dc23 2014030099 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America Jean: For my family—all good eaters, who relish eating together and the diversity we bring to this Gaik: To my supportive parents, especially my mother, for her cooking that umbilically ties me to my Nyonya heritage CONTENTS Glossary ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Making Rojak . or Eating “Together-in-Difference”? 1 1 Kopitiam: In Search of Cosmopolitan Spaces and Meanings in Malaysia 25 2 Spreading the Toast of Memory: From Hainanese Kopitiams to Boutique Coffee Shops in Singapore 45 3 “Mamak, Anyone?”: Tamil Muslim Eateries in Malaysia 67 4 Growing Up Transnational: Traveling through Singapore’s Hawker Centers 95 5 Dumplings at Changi: Singapore’s Urban Villages as Spaces of Exchange and Reinvention 123 6 The Little Nyonya and Peranakan Chinese Identity: Between Commodification and Cosmopolitanism 151 7 Currying the Nation: A Song and Dance about Multiculturalism 173 Notes 195 Bibliography 239 Index 255 About the Authors 261 vii GLOSSARY BN—Barisan Nasional, the National Front led by UMNO and consisting traditionally of two other communal-based parties, the MCA and MIC Bumiputera—Sanskrit, lit. “sons of the soil”; describes Malays and other indigenous peoples of Malaysia CMC—Community Mediation Centre CMIO—Chinese Malay Indian Other; used in Singapore to describe the ethnic population and mix DAP—Democratic Action Party, Malaysian Opposition party led by longtime stalwart Lim Kit Siang FT—Foreign Talent; legal term to describe imported skilled labor and white-collar worker immigration into Singapore HDB—Housing Development Board, which develops and manages public housing in Singa- pore Jakim—Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia, the Department of Islamic Development Malay- sia KL—Fond acronym for Malaysia’s capital city, Kuala Lumpur Keadilan—The Justice Party led by Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim MCA—Malaysian Chinese Association, component political party in the Barisan Nasional (National Front) MIC—Malaysian Indian Congress, component political party in the BN NEP—New Economic Policy (1971–1990); a series of five-year plans meant to eradicate poverty across all ethnic groups and change the links between ethnicity and occupation that came to be seen as a racist system meant to privilege ethnic Malays over other minorities. The NEP was subsequently replaced by other economic plans with different names that essentially kept its pro-Malay agenda. PAP—The Singaporean People’s Action Party, in power since 1965 PAS—Parti Se-Islam Malaysia, the Pan Islamic Party of Malaysia, an Opposition Party PJ—Petaling Jaya, a middle-class, mostly Chinese suburb in Selangor, Malaysia PRC—People’s Republic of China SS2—A suburb in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia UMNO—United Malays National Organisation, ethnonationalist party in power in Malaysia since Independence ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people and places make a book, especially one that has been simmering since 2004. Jean would like to thank: Colleagues at the University of South Australia and University of Adelaide, in particular Peter Bishop, Susan Luckman, Kit Mac- Farlane, Suzanne Franzway, Pal Ahluwalia, and Carol Johnson, for their ongoing critical comment and emotional support; Colleagues elsewhere in Australia, especially Lisa Law, Jeannie Mar- tin, Sian Supski, Amanda Wise, Selvaraj Velayutham, Cecilia Le- ong-Salobir, Katrina Schlunke, Elaine Swan, Rick Flowers, Ter- ence Lee, and Simon Choo, all of whom have provided lively occasions for discussion and debate; Overseas colleagues, including, in England, Phil Crang, Ian Cook, Ben Highmore, Sasha Roseneil, Fran Tonkiss, and Susan Par- ham; in Hong Kong, Sidney Cheung and Tan Chee-Beng; in the United States, Krishnendu Ray; in Japan, James Farrer; in Singa- pore, Chua Beng Huat, Lai Ah Eng, Tim Bunnell, and Hong Suen Wong. Such networks have not only kept me on my toes conceptually but have also been extremely generous in extending hospitality. And, here, I also wish to thank my co-writer, Gaik Cheng Khoo, for her acute intellectual insights, her persistence with the project, the warmth of her companionship, and her excellent cooking! xi xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In terms of institutional assistance, I am indebted to the Hawke Research Institute of the University of South Australia, particu- larly to its director and deputy director, Anthony Elliot and Jenni- fer Rutherford, respectively, for providing a stimulating and con- genial environment in which to write, and for conference and travel support; Thanks are also due to members of the Research Centre for Gender Studies within the Hawke Research Institute for collegial support throughout the entire project and a contribution to research funding. I have also appreciated the day-to-day assistance given by the institute’s professional staff, especially Maureen Cotton and Phoebe Smith, whose patience and efficiency have been ex- emplary. I also want to acknowledge the School of Communication, Interna- tional Studies and Languages within the University of South Aus- tralia for granting periods of research leave that enabled field- work to be conducted in Singapore. Likewise, I’d like to acknowl- edge the University of Technology, Sydney, New York University, Royal Holloway University of London, and both the Geography Department and Asia Research Institute of the National Univer- sity of Singapore for periods of attachment there as Academic Visitor. These attachments have helped to shape my theoretical analyses and knowledge of the region’s food cultures in useful and distinctive ways. In Singapore,