Mdm Yu

The Hawker; The Innovator; The Listener

Every morning, Mdm Yu would wake up at 4AM to prepare the ingredients for Economic Bee Hoon and opens her store at Blk 496 at 530AM. As the morning crowd disappears, she starts to prepare her ingredients for Yong Tau Foo, Chee Cheong Fun and Nasi Lemak at around 9AM. While we were amazed by the variety of food offered, Mdm Yu shared she didn’t sell all in the beginning. 

Driven by her interest to cook, she opened a Chicken Rice store with her sister in Jurong West when she first moved to Singapore from Malaysia. However, due to poor business, they shifted to Blk 493 Market 25 years ago and started selling Yong Tau Foo. She recalled that Yong Tau Foo was not very common there but they liked how it offers customers variety. 4 years ago, the fire at the Market led to her shift to Blk 496. She wanted the store to remain in Jurong as they had many regular customers here, and the hawker association helped her find a store nearby. Although business has not been easy, Mdm Yu is adaptable and always trying new things. Realising that she was not attracting the morning and younger crowd, she ventured into Economic Bee Hoon, Chee Cheong Fun and Nasi Lemak. She had never cooked these dishes before and had to taste other stores’ and experiment. Fortunately, these allowed her to draw the morning and younger crowd. 

While Mdm Yu’s creativity definitely helped her business, we were certain it was more than that. As we sat at her store and observed Mdm Yu in action, we were struck by her warm interactions with her customers. She shares that she would remember her regular customers’ orders, and often talk to her customers. As many of her customers are seniors living alone, she would also look out for them -- she shared that many seniors are hesitant to let their children know when they are ill, but she would encourage them to.

Her family supports her business too -- her husband would run the store in the evening and her children would help out whenever they are free. Although her daughter once mentioned that she wanted to take over the store, Mdm Yu didn’t agree to it -- she shared that a hawker needs to have a certain level of culinary skills which she feels her daughter is not ready yet. Nevertheless, Mdm Yu agrees that it is not common for young Singaporeans to be hawkers and they cannot be forced -- they need to have an interest in it to persevere as a hawker. She also reflected that many of the hawkers she knows are actually Malaysians. 

After a long day standing and working, Mdm Yu would rest. This might look like catching up on news or chatting with her children. Although she loves to play sports like table tennis, she shared that she is so physically drained by work that she wouldn’t play them on her off-days now. When she does take a day off, she would either rest at home or return to Malaysia to visit her family. She is extremely grateful to have the flexibility to decide the number of off-days at her current hawker centre -- she previously only had 2 days off at the previous location, and had to pay $500 if she took an additional day off. While she might not retire anytime soon, Mdm Yu excitedly shared that she has plans to join her friend to volunteer. 

We were thus also curious what Mdm Yu thought about Singapore’s hawker culture. Mdm Yu candidly shared that she doesn’t find it a pity if it does disappear. Instead, she sees it as an evolution of Singapore’s food scene, and this would necessarily look different across generations. Moreover, it seems that stores in smaller coffee shops that are less famous tend to be ignored in the movement.