Scenes no longer seen: street hawkers

Posted by noelbynature under Lifestyle, National History, Reflections
(0) Comment • (3811) Reads • Permalink

Younger Singaporeans will probably have no recollection of a time when the wet market was a roadside affair, and when streetside vendors sold not only food but all kinds of goods like furniture, household appliances and toys. Derek Tait writes about when you would go to streetside vendors for your daily marketing and how they moved into permanent marketplaces.

Derek writes:

Back in the 1960s, the streets of Singapore were full with markets and street hawkers. They sold everything that you could want. As well as fish, meat, fruit and vegetables, they also sold furniture, rattan work, household utensils, toys, clothes, jewellery and many other goods. I loved going to them all but was probably more fascinated by the cheap toys and piles of rambutans more than anything. The stalls had their own smell especially at the end of the day when the fruit and vegetables weren’t at their best after cooking in the heat of the sun all day. The stalls produced a lot of rubbish including cardboard boxes, rotting fruit and vegetables as well as other waste, much of which must have ended up in the Singapore River. As the government slowly cleaned up the streets, many of the hawkers were cleared away.

There’s even a newspaper report from the 1970s announcing the plan to gradually move street hawkers indoors. Read more about the indoor-ization of Street Hawkers in Sampans, Banyans and Rambutans.

Rating: 0