hawker centre meals with the family are quite a daily affair these days. the mother works. the father works. i work. the brother's at school. normally, it's the mother that does the cooking. but she's working at some urology department at some random hospital currently. and i'm sure that after looking and smelling like piss the whole day, the last thing you wanna do is fry food in piss-coloured olive oil. i don't blame her for wanting to hang up the apron.

but i must say that i'm actually quite a big fan of hawker food. no matter which hawker centre you head for, you can bet that you'll find the same mediocre standard of food. not only that, there will always be the availability of the standards like chicken rice or duck rice or mee pok. ban mian always tastes delicious because of the MSG. mee pok is heavenly with the pig oil. and sugar cane is as fabulous as sugar cane can only get. so you see, i seldom get disappointed with eating in the heartlands. i've come to expect the same 'sap sap soi' standards that i've lowered my demands for good food. i can only be satisfied or impressed. no disappointments. and ok lah, it's cheap.

of ocurse, the hawker centre is not to be confused with the food court which is the bane of the Singaporena culinary experience. things in the food courts are expensive. throw in the often unavailability of seats, it all just makes me wanna steer clear of food courts whenever possible. you ever realize that it's so fucking cold in food courts that your ice kachang never melts, you don't need ice cubes for your diet coke and your beef noodles get cold before you can even find a seat? and you have to do all this with frozen tits and wooden chopsticks. so let's go back to the warm and cosy hawker centres.

now, the hawker centre is of course one place where you can pick up on the idiosyncracies of the singapore heartland. in fact, one thing that always blows me away is the typical beverage-stall auntie who doesn't memorize orders, but preferring to shout them out like a Burger King waitress would say 'ONE WHOPPER MEAL WITH EXTRA EVERYTHING' into the sound system. notice the BK waitress says and the drinks-stall auntie SHOUTS. take for example a simple lunch at a hawker centre near Braddell last saturday:


Auntie: Harlow! Ni men yao he she mo? (hello! what would you like to drink?)

The Father: Ji Puay Kopi-O (a cup of kopi-o)

Auntie: AH SOON! JI PUAY KOPI-O!!! (AH SOON! ONE CUP OF KOPI-O!!!)

The Mother: ke yi gei wo yi guan lu cha ma? (can i have a can of green tea?)

Auntie: JI GONG GLEEN TEA! (ONE CAN OF GREEN TEA!)

Me: (in my B4 standard chinese) auntie, wo yao milo shao de! (auntie, can i have a hot milo?)

Auntie: JI GE TAT KIU, AH SOON! (ONE KICK BALL, AH SOON!)


i don't often talk to the family during meals for fear of saying something stupid. which is why, i don't even talk to them at all. most of the time, dinner conversation revolves around God, my smoking habits, my gay lifestyle and when it's a pretty good day, my general work life. beside i was a bit dazed and deaf from the auntie and her need to shout her orders despite the fact that we were sitting less than a metre away from the drinks stall. but it was so bizarre as to why the auntie called my hot milo a 'tat kiu' (kick ball in Hokkien) that i had to ask the father (who's pretty attuned to the heartlander's mindset).

of course, he went on to explain in his holier-than-thou tone of voice about how the milo mascot was always the guy kicking the football or the hot swimmer with the broad shoulders doing a breast stroke (of course i'm explaining this in my own gay terminology). so it was a choice between 'tat kiu' (kick ball) or 'siu jui' (swimming). and obviously 'tat kiu' had more of an oomph to it. it's forceful and very catchy. and thus it was settle with perhaps the hawker's clan association that 'tat kiu' would be officially accepted into the kopitiam lingo.

very quaint hor! the last time i was as surprised and delighted as this was when i discovered that you could substitute chee bye for labia and still sound very intelligent. of course, imagine all the other drinks that the various kopitiam lingo they would use? reminds me of my my favourite drink while i was in brunei. just imagine me ordering a cup of 3-in-1:

Me: Auntie, wo yao yi bei Nescafe san-he-yi! (Auntie i would like a cup of nescafe 3-in-1!)

Auntie: AH SOON!!!! JI BUAY AH KUA!!!!!!

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