Food Wars

Last week, our very own Malaysian Tourism minister, Ng Yen Yen made a remark that it's time to stake a claim on a couple of food which should be labelled as belonging to Malaysia. She mentioned specifically laksa, bak kut teh, chilli crab, nasi lemak and hainanese chicken rice. Apparently, she's pointing fingers that some countries are "hijacking" the food as theirs and even without names being specified, I know where its pointed at. After the controversies that erupted over claims of batik and balinese dance, it does look a little like an effort to score some political brownie points to regain some lost image.

A check around the net and responses saw many, even Malaysians themselves, are slamming her for making such a claim. Part of the reason for this negative reaction is probably because she's a BN minister herself. If it's one of the PR people, perhaps the reaction would have been less. I wouldn't say her remarks are very wise, and the examples that she has given are really grey areas that can be disputed. Perhaps the way she has worded her ideas were very poorly done but I gotta agree with the essence that is being mooted. Perhaps many Malaysians are not aware of this, but the Singaporean marketing machine has been for many years promoting these foodstuffs, including laksa and bak kut teh as uniquely theirs to the foreigners. So, before everyone gets carried away with the bandwagon fallacy of ridiculing BN ministers (which many of us Malaysians love to), there's some speck of points that we should take note of.

To start it all off, the Singaporeans are not happy at all with Yen Yen's claim. I read the Singapore papers two days ago which pointed out that all those actually belonged to Singapore! That's even more ridiculous! Among the examples that Yen Yen has given, I would disagree the most with Chilli Crab because I think Chilli Crab is really Singaporean. I've never heard of a Malaysian Chilli Crab and I've never eaten Chilli Crab until I reached Singapore. Hainanese Chicken rice is the greatest gray area, so I wouldn't touch on that. I would say neither Singapore nor Malaysia owns that and it's a shared culture between both sides. Instead, we should say that Hainanese Chicken Rice is a Straits Chinese culture. Nasi Lemak is difficult case too because it's a common Malay dish that can be found at Indonesia.

For the case of laksa, I believe Malaysians can have a claim to that if it's Penang Assam or Lemak laksa. That is Malaysian stuff and it taste and looks different from their Katong laksa. The newspaper report pointed out that laksa was introduced by the Peranakans but the way they are writing it suggests that they are ignoring the fact that a sizeable bunch of these Peranakans can be found at Penang and Melaka too. Bak Kut Teh is more widespread in Malaysia as compared to Singapore. The Singaporean definition of Bak Kut Teh is a peppery version with garlic popping out of clear soup. It is nothing similar to the Klang Bak Kut Teh with its darker soup and herbal taste. If it's to be claimed that the Hokkiens created Bak Kut Teh, it cannot be said that they brought it to Singapore only because places like Penang and Klang are predominantly Hokkien too.

Having lived at both sides for a considerable amount of time, I can list down all the other possible food disputes where although they share the same name, the resultant recipes turn out to be very different indeed. Take for example Char Kway Teow and Char Kway Kak (Fried Carrot Cake). I got a surprise when I ate the Char Kway Teow at Singapore because all of them were fried with sweet black sauce! This is also the same as char kway kak where there's no salty variant of the black char kway kwak at Singapore. In fact, they have a white version with eggs covering over it. The Wantan mee at Singapore is a lil strange with chilli or tomato ketchup being added inside instead of the usual plain black sauce. It is called roti canai in Malaysia while roti prata is the name that Singaporeans understand.

Some do note that Yen Yen had claimed it too late because over the past 20 years or so, the Singapore marketing machinery has already gone around the world to market those food as their own. The Malaysian government on the other hand were kinda reluctant in promoting these food stuff especially when it gotta do with the minorities and non-Malay food. The result is that the Singaporeans cashed in on some unclaimed food and make it theirs. The Singapore broadcasting stations have zealously promote these hawker food and proudly proclaimed those as Singaporean food. So, why didn't anyone make any noise about that?

Yen yen would have walked off with less controversies if she had quoted some examples which we can safely say, without much dispute that it's truly Malaysian. You can find it no where done best except in Malaysia. Instead of pointing out by country, we could slap on a region tag instead. These are the bunch of food which I think both sides can safely claim:

Malaysia: Penang Assam Laksa, Penang Lemak Laksa, Ampang Yong Tau Foo, Kajang Satay, Nasi Kandar (Hahaha..this is definitely unclaimable by the Singaporeans), Ipoh Hor Fun, Klang Bak Kut Teh, Penang Hokkien Mee, Seremban Siew Pau, Mee Goreng Mamak, Dai Lok Mee, Kuching Kolo Mee

Singapore: Mee Pok/Bak Chor Mee, Mee Siam, Chilli Crab, Katong Laksa, Singapore Fried Hokkien Mee (White version with beehoon and yellow mee), Tau Suan

As you can see, if Yen Yen had used Assam Laksa and Nasi Kandar as examples, she would not be in such a big trouble. For anyone that said that Singapore is a food hub with all those hawker food, they clearly have not travelled to Penang to taste the food there. Any Singaporean who travelled to Penang to makan will be slurping away and craving for more. After staying at both sides, I gotta say that hawker food in Malaysia still taste way better than Singapore. For me personally, there are way better versions of char kway teow, char kway kwak and wantan mee in Malaysia. Malaysia has a huge potential to market these food to tourist but alas, the government does a poor job in promoting them. Instead of just harping plain words and do nonsensical stuff like patenting food, the Malaysian government should spend the money to help Malaysian kitchens to spread some truly Malaysian dishes abroad. Help famous hawkers in Malaysia to spread the word around and promote them in the Internet for tourist to check out. Prove to the neighbours that the Malaysian variant taste better. That'll be a better solid foundation to promote Malaysian culture.

To sum it all up, we shouldn't throw the barrages of fury onto Yen Yen because she was not the first one to attempt to claim the ownership of these food items. Instead direct it to our kiasu Singaporean neighbours who have been insidiously, quietly and unshameful too in claiming these food items as purely "made in Singapore" while disregarding the fact that Malaysians do serve laksa, chicken rice, roti canai, nasi lemak and char kway teow. They are reaping profits at countries abroad and misrepresented its origins to the ang mohs and foreigners at the same time. They are getting away with it by propagating that chicken rice is Singaporean in the media locally and abroad and nobody said a thing about that. The Singapore Tourism Board website happily lists down chicken rice, laksa(without differentiating the types) and char kway teow as Singaporean dishes. While the Singaporeans are mocking Malaysian ministers for making a fool of themselves in the international political arena (which is true..haha), they should also check themselves before calling the kettle black.

I think we do need to be proud of our heritage and history and though the histories of both countries intertwined, it's vital to know that there are some differences too between Malaysian food and Singapore food. There is no need to stamp copyrights or royalties but a mere simple act of acknowledgment and educating the people around regarding our heritage makes a difference. Otherwise, in 10 years to come by, somebody from the West may come babbling that nasi kandar originated from Serangoon or Geylang. It's important to create awareness among Malaysians instead of all these focus on maths, science and money-making education. The problem with this hu-hah is because of the lack of awareness, many of our younger generation who don't even know where their food comes from. I would definitely love to consult Professor Khoo on the historical aspect of this.

Amidst of all the blog posts, I think this one comes up as one of the more sensible ones. Do check out this post too:

Why is everyone laughing at Yen Yen?
http://uppercaise.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/why-is-everyone-laughing-at-yen-yen/

Of course, Sarah Lian is certainly bold in exclaiming this, which I cheekily agree with :

They stole our food…and they do a bad job of stealing it cuz it aint’ that good.