Singapore’s going all out to get its UNESCO bid for local hawker culture, with a new website and traveling exhibition

Back in August, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong revealed in his National Day Rally speech that Singapore would be nominating our precious hawker culture to be included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. We’ve already got the Botanic Gardens as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so it’s a natural move to declare once and for all our love for food (that borders on obsession).

If the bid is a success, local hawker culture will be part of an esteemed list that includes the likes of Japan’s kabuki theatre, Spain’s flamenco, and batik in Indonesia.

The announcement attracted quite a bit of controversy, with detractors criticizing Singapore for staking its claim on hawker culture, but it looks like our nation is going ahead with its bid anyway. And the government’s making quite a bit of effort to get public support before the submission of documents in March 2019.

On the Our SG Heritage website, which tells you all you could possibly want to know about hawker culture and the UNESCO nomination, more than 35,000 people have already pledged their support as an individual or organization. But just in case the public isn’t clicking on the site, the National Heritage Board, National Environment Agency, and Federation of Merchants’ Associations have also curated a new traveling exhibition called none other than Our SG Hawker Culture.

Naturally, the free showcase offers information on Singapore’s hawkers, hawker centres, and hawker food, as well as details on our country’s efforts in working towards the bid.

If you’re keen to stroll through the display, it has launched at Tiong Bahru Market and will be there till Nov 7, after which it will move to 12 other locations including the National Museum of Singapore, Our Tampines Hub, Bukit Batok Library, Kinex, and Toa Payoh Hub.

But you probably shouldn’t expect it to be an artistic show of creativity. Just the fact that it’s put together by government agencies should give you an inkling of what it’ll look like; so unless you’re really curious, perhaps swing by only if you’re in the neighborhood.