Category: Food
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Street cart vendors in Bali
We’ll head into the streets of Bali where migration, money, and makanan (food) all mix into a life in motion. This story is not about street food, but the people behind it: the street sellers. The majority of small businesses die within 3 years. Each stall that you walk past is run by a brilliant…
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Eating houses in Singapore | Our public living room
14 August, 2015 One of the most beautiful traits of the coffee houses (or eating houses) in Singapore is that anyone can come in and feel at ease over a hot meal or drink. There is no gender divide: women are just as welcome as men. There is little class consciousness: in fact, strangers across social…
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Jakarta: Making a living at home.
I was strolling through a neighbourhood in Jakarta, and observed that people’s homes were also doubling up as shops. Each family seemed to offer a service from dentistry, tailoring, fresh vegetables, and more! Commercial life weaved casually into the community, and it looked like every household had found a way to participate in the economy…
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A vignette of street shops in Japan
I love coming across vivid descriptions of street shops when I’m reading novels, and want to start capturing them. Here’s an extract from the book How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino (1937): “Fishmongers, greengrocers, grilled sweet potato stalls, rice merchants, candy shops– tiny stores with facades no more than three or four meters wide lined…
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A shophouse in the alley
Srey, determined to support her parents, made the courageous decision to leave her rural Cambodian village and move to the city. She joined her older brother, his wife, and their son, who had moved to the city much earlier. All 4 of them live in a small room that doubles as both their private home…
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Making ends meat
Nas sells meat while her husband cruises the city streets in his tuk-tuk as a driver. I asked her why she chose to sell meat in the market rather than sell clothes. She explained that selling meat is more convenient because she doesn’t need to pay for the supply upfront, unlike clothes which requires cash…
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Juicy competition
Night after night, a familiar sight unfolds on the bustling street corner. The vendor’s cart takes centre stage, drawing a lively crowd. Customers call out the names of their fruit juice – watermelon! mango and orange! avocado! He gives a nod to confirm that he’s heard the request, and whips up the juice on the…
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3 tips to flourish at a market
Thyda possesses remarkable expertise in distinguishing between freshwater lake fish and those raised in artificial farms. She explained that farm fish are often administered chemicals to maintain their health, and she can immediately identify the farm fish based on their distinct sliminess that hampers their ability to dry properly. Thyda’s extensive experience of over 30…
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A river of protein
A lady chills on a platform surrounded by plastic buckets of iced seafood in the humid market in Cambodia: fish, eels, stingray, water snakes, prawns, cockles– a sea of protein. The Mekong River is the largest supplier of protein in the region with over 1,100 species of fish. Mekong is second in its bio-diversity only to…
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Breakfast banter
Early one morning at the market, a few strangers huddled around a vendor who was cooking noodles called “Lot Cha” លតឆា during the bustle of breakfast. The air was thick was humidity. At one corner of the table, a lady broke the news about her friend’s newborn baby who had just died. The other women…
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Stronger after a fishy history
Ny comes from a family of fishermen, and she has always sold fish. However, everything changed during the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s when all businesses were forced to shut down. Ny was forced to go to the countryside to work in the fields, while scholars and artists were tragically shot. When Ny described…
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What are you cooking today?
I step into a market in Cambodia. The atmosphere is dim. Bulbs hanging listlessly from zinc rooftops. Maret is perched on a wooden platform surrounded by raw meat that she is chopping on a circular wooden block. Softly, she says: “I quit school to support my parents, they live in the countryside. They told me…
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Reaping Cash
Chenda used to work in the fields of Cambodia, but the harvest could not support her family, so she started a business in Siem Reap to reap cash. Her advice to shopkeepers: be friendly. Business is all about good relationships! Chenda says that the worst thing about her business is when other vendors undercut her…
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Sharing a table with strangers
The aunty in pink has been working as a hawker for over 40 years. As I sat near her stall chowing down a delicious plate of hor fun (flat white noodles), a man in his 70s came by with a bottle of beer and asked if he could sit at my table. I said: of…
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Rice bowl
Rice is a staple food in Cambodia, and any crisis rapidly impacts Sokun*’s business. For example, during a tense border dispute with Thailand in 2008, all her rice was sold out. Similarly, in 2013, devastating floods swept across the land, leaving her without any rice to sell. Economic anxiety is immediately felt in her business,…
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Not too chicken
“Hi sister! What do you want?” Lai Fun was sitting on a stool reading the newspapers. It was the lull of the afternoon when most market stalls were closing for the day. The signboard above their stall says Fatty Supplier. “My father-in-law and brother-in-law were very fat, so we called them… fatty suppliers!” The husband-and-wife…
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Junk
“The market is very dirty,” Terence says, tugging gently at his singlet to show the grime. “Dirty and hot.” His mother had been selling coffee powder for over 20 years and decided to bring her son into the business after his National Service. Terence obliged and has continued for the past 13 years. “Surprisingly, and…
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Many Jars
Little shops express a sense of home where people spend their days and their lives. The shop is a home away from home that interacts with the community: welcome, and let us help you however we can. When I stepped into this medical hall tucked into a row of shops in the neighbourhood, Jie Sheng,…
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Provision Shop
“People in the older generation still buy all the individual ingredients to make soups and curries— they know the recipes well and have more time to cook, but younger people prefer using premade mixes where the spices are already combined. They are busier, and maybe they are not as familiar with the recipes. So we sell…
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Spice of life
Poonam runs a provision shop selling Indian ingredients in a market cluster where you can find hawkers selling fruits, poultry, vegetables, dried beans and other goods for the kitchen. Her shop was open for less than a year at the time of interview, and this is her first business. Poonam does not need to work…
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Snack Shop
“This is my mother’s shop. I’m helping her out.” “She’s lucky to have you.” “I’m lucky to have her!” Wendy Fam regularly helps her mother at the shop after school. Working from 7.00am to 7.00pm every day (except Mondays), her mother’s long hours leave little time for household chores. Thankfully, her husband and children lend…
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Fruits of labour
Say hey to May! May and her brother work together selling fruits at the Clementi West market. “My mother is old, she stays home to rest.” In this dizzying array of fruits, her favourite is the avocado which she loves to “blend with milk to drink.” There are about 5-6 fruit stalls located in close…
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What’s your beef?
“I started helping my father in primary school. At first it was only during school holidays, but then I left school to help him every day. While he was doing deliveries, I took care of the stall. At the time, I was still quite young, so I found the work quite fun. I taught myself…
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Sweet Stalker
In Singapore, you can find refreshing cold sugarcane juice at the local markets. The juice is made from extracting sap directly from sugarcane stalks, without using additives. Sugarcane is not a fruit, but it is actually a type of grass that looks like bamboo. Each mug of fresh sugarcane juice costs $1 to $1.50 (less…
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Dry Season
Ah Xin began working in the provision shop as a sprightly 10-year-old, enthusiastically helping her parents. Fast forward fifty years, and her vibrant spirit still shines through as she stocks her cozy little store with an array of dried and preserved goods: dried red chilli, dried fish, dried mushrooms, dried chrysanthemum flowers, dried tofu… you get…
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Intense & Intimate
I don’t always get a chance to chat with the traders. For instance, just as I took this photo, a flock of older Chinese and Malay women surrounded me on all sides and essentially nudged me from the scene so that they could pick through the vegetables while firing an endless bullet of questions to…
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The early bird catches the… fish!
Mr Ang has been selling fish at the Jurong East market in Singapore for the past 50 years (he’s 75 years old), following after his father who also sold fish. However, he advised his son not to pursue the business, especially with his higher education, so his son now works “in an air-conditioned office”. Mr.…
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It never hurts to ask
It never hurts to ask! When Lou Flemming was a 17-year-old teenager in Baltimore, he spotted the owner of Faidley’s Seafood running a food stand at a festival. There was a long and winding line of customers waiting for their crab cakes, so Leo walked over to the owner, Bill Devine, and asked him whether he needed…
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Food Stamps
Many stalls at Lexington Market (Baltimore, USA) display bright signs declaring that they accept “Food Stamps” (or the “Independence Card” — visible in the earlier post with the butcher.) Misconceptions about social welfare float loosely in public conversations: who receives welfare, why they receive welfare, should they receive it, and how much. About 1 in 7 Americans…
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Bringing home the bacon
A butcher shop at Lexington Market in Baltimore (USA) Microbusinesses typically offer a pathway of upward mobility for immigrants and, today, many stall owners at this market are Korean. Bill Devine, the owner of Faidley’s Seafood, explains the transition of vendors: “Wave after wave of new immigrants. This guy over here isn’t Krause anymore, he’s…
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Kopi-ng with change
Singapore has been ranked the most expensive city in the world, yet there are few modern cities left in the world where you can get a strong and shiok (awesome) cup of coffee for less than a dollar at hawker centers located in almost every corner, with each cup of coffee customized to your exact desire with…
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Eggs-posure
How to store eggs You don’t have to refrigerate eggs that you get from the farmer’s market, they keep well outside like this. But, if you buy eggs from the supermarket that have already been refrigerated, then you need to keep refrigerating them. However, since we haven’t refrigerated these, you can leave them out. You’ll…
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Like eating with family
“What’s the secret to making good pasta?” All the pasta at Daniela’s is homemade. “The secret…”, Daniela ponders on this for a moment: “I think the secret… is to work very, very hard!” Daniela’s family emigrated from the island of Sardinia when her husband was offered a position at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Baltimore. “My mother…
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Tastes like Greek to me
“I am the cashier, the designer, the server, the therapist…. yes, even a therapist! Sometimes I have to go into the kitchen to manage the emotions of the staff… as a business owner, you wonder, maybe you are actually superwoman!” Elli immigrated to the United States with her husband from Greece to build their dream of…
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Convenience Shop
“It’s become very difficult for small shops. Big supermarkets import in large quantity for all their chains and can make their prices lower. But, here, we have personal service and trust. You can choose exactly what you want, in any quantity, and see it for yourself outside the package. Also, the supermarket has long queues.…
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Fishy Business
Samuel, a former accountant, now wakes up at 1.00am every morning to get fresh fish from the port. After 12 years working in accountancy, he decided to switch careers and run a market stall instead due to migraines at the office. When I asked him about the dangers of overfishing, Samuel explained that the biggest…
Shopkeeper Stories 