CCXLVIII - Passing of the old timers

Think, for a moment, of a hawker centre; the one you know. Perhaps you immediately know which stall to eat from. You wouldn't hesitate to recommend this to anyone who asks. Or maybe you need to evoke something from memory, because there's plenty to choose from, plenty to see. In your mind's eye you see the rows of stalls, tables and seats, the practical pillars and roofs, the warmth, smoke, clatter, colours of the signboards, stallholders perched around their cashiers listening and jabbering intently. This roast stall is here, that noodle shop is there, washbasins and toilets behind, malay food in their own little band. Oh, I'm not sure what's there now. Let's go take a look anyway. Maybe there's something new; maybe there's something with a queue. And so it goes. Sometimes all it takes is a sight of something glistening, or a look at what someone else is cheerily eating. Try something new, try the tau huey. 

Your usual stall seems to last forever, doesn't it? The familiar faces with their furrowed brows, and yellow fisherman boots. But one day something gives and they're no longer there. The old man gives up the ghost, the family gives up the rented stall, somebody falls ill and can't continue, the son's gamboling becomes too much, the renovations take too long, the family argues over who continues to run the shop. Think back, and see again the face of the weathered stallholder smiling wanly back at you when you were ten or so, towel on his shoulder. He's dead now; but that char kway teow was black and grimy, the very best. The plump man and his wife running the long kee economical rice, always reliable for their chicken curry, tau yu bak, and stir fried cabbage. Chicken rice, just about everyone has a reliable go-to. But things change, don't they? The stall still stands, but someone else is at home; the taste just seems different. Some days we eat without relish, some days we make do with something else.

Hawker food is cheap in Singapore. I don't think it's arguable. Not counting those union-related stalls which are required to offer food at very low prices, the real increase in food prices sold, year by year, probably doesn't meet cost increases. That's my guess. It's simply not that expensive to eat at a hawker centre. It's always been cheaper than eating fast food, and I don't believe that we think those are expensive. Why is hawker food cheap? I think it's because the individual stallholder doesn't want to disaffect his existing, old time customers. Through hard times in the past, the stallholder is loyal to his silver-tinged customers. So prices remain low. He doesn't want to be criticised by them, some his old friends and neighbours, even if he doesn't make quite as much as he should. Kopi can't be more than 1.20, mee chiang kueh 80 cents.

It's hard to be a hawker. Oh, it's hard to be anything, of course, but it's hard to be a hawker. Cooking is tiring. Cooking the same things, every single day, well that's a hard life. All of us know a hawker from somewhere, most of us think about their trade, some of us talk to them. Perhaps a few of us have more than a passing word or two; listened to their jaded stories told with wry smirks, nursing a slowly perspiring bottle of Carlsberg, interspersed with brisk snaps back to taking orders and re-performing practiced skills. 

There's not much more to say. I think most people accept as inevitable that hawkers will disappear, or decline. Most people talk about standards of old hawker food, reminisce about past, in part legendary, stalls. What is so inevitable about it? Well, the fact that it's no good being a hawker; good in the sense of modern education and being a respectable working man, and having a reliable trade. And making a good income (having went to school for so long). To me, it's sort of ribald, sort of obscene, that a typical meal in a shopping centre costs 30 bucks, and a hawker meal costs 5 or so. But that's how it is, and those that can't survive don't. There's just too much competition, too many other places (Dire Straits, Sultans of Swing). Individually everyone has a story, something that if lost, is lost forever, but collectively, that's the game, those are the rules, and sympathy doesn't go far. I guess there's pride at having lived so long, even finally, failing, on your own terms, by the deftness of your hands, the blaze of your wok, and the cleverness of your heart.

CCXLVII - Seeing

 Why do we treat people nicer if they're more good looking?

I don't think it's difficult to find out quite generic, rational reasons, on the internet. I don't intend to try. Sometimes it's worthwhile to think it out on your own. What sort of reasons do I subscribe to, and what do I think of that sort of judgment, on reflection?

I guess the foremost reason is that I want a good looking person to like me. It's nice to have affinity with good looking things, of any kind. I'd like a sleek car, a shiny PC, a classic watch, a sharp suit of clothes, and so on. And I'd like to think that my identity consists, in appearance, of having tastefully adopted good looking things. Therefore, the good regard of a good looking person lends itself to me the idea that I have made it in some sense, that I have earned acceptance into certain station. I, having transposed certain ideas of beauty or ideal onto a good looking person, imagine that that person has also transposed those ideas on me, or perhaps is oblivious to my actual failings or inferiorities. He no longer sees them when he sees me; he does not look too hard at me to assume that I am approximately a social equal. 

The foundation of this idea is that there are separate classes of people, and that each class more or less corresponds to their appearance, or perhaps how they are regarded. Needless to say, those are quite distinct facts. Imagine that - we intuitively think of individuals in classes, and the background scripts immediately start ticking off. The other funny thing is that there's a quote that goes "art imitates life", which Wilde recognised as ironic as he considered life to imitate art more. In other words I, with Wilde, think it to be oftener true that we mis-cast folks one way or another, and being blind to their faults or their fancies, hardly ever change our minds about them. So we see the poor-man tendencies easily in the man cast as the poor man, and the rich-folk qualities in abundance in the actions of a princeling. But think, is he the same man or not; is he so bred, so treated, and so asked to play his role?

I think the modern man (or woman) is fundamentally sceptical. In other words I think, were he not so busy, so pressed, distracted, or pursuing so many things, I think he would like to think himself the master of his own opinion, rigorously applied. At the same time, the modern man is, as a result of a long, hard education, and a tiring career life, quite cynical. He is out for himself, and his own. So I think being good, in the sense of being decent, is optional. It is more important to be wealthy than to be good. What that means, perhaps, is that shortcuts to wealth become quite attractive. Heuristics - there's a strange word. It means, in so many words, acquired patterns of learning - recognising sequences and geometries, applying analogies, making sense through seeing the inner matrix, if you will. Quite powerful, but at the same time, quite prone to error, compounded error even. Where I'm going with this is: I think the modern man tends to rely on assumptions or prejudices a little too much to his detriment - and personal appearance is one of them. It is very difficult to think bad about a good looking person, provided he or she is normal (if we do not talk about irrational jealousy). The corollary is that it is not easy to think well of a poor looking person, even if he is normal. We don't see it.

Perhaps it helps to think: why should we want to be nice to people if they're poor looking? The gods Zeus (of thunder) and Hermes (the emissary) were said to take on poor disguises, hence it was an essential custom for Grecians to treat travellers kindly. The story of Baucis and Philemon in Tyana is quite interesting, and pre-figures the bible's telling of Sodom and Gomorrah (angels in disguise). But I don't think we need external reasons to do so. To me it seems quite silly to want to understand one individual but not another, if we're truly curious about life; understand, appreciate or befriend. Of course, it's all optional - all our interactions are. What we do is completely up to us, leaving aside custom and norm. I suppose time matters. In time we inevitably become who we most want to be.