The Lion's Pause

Beads of crystalline sweat formed on Jia Wei's forehead as he wiped the counter of the laksa stall at Maxwell food centre. Passed down from his father and his father before him, the laksa stall was a beacon of food tradition - it sold homemade laksa, the coconut gravy and white noodles made from scratch. The savory aroma - a delectable mix of coconut, lemon grass and tumeric-together with light white vermicelli, intrigued and fed hundreds of customers daily.

Like the stall, the decades old food hub it called its home bathed in history and tradition. One could, and still can, find any culinary cuisine - laksa, rojak and tah mee-sold at a stall which lined its corridors. The familiar, spice-filled aroma of these dishes lingered in the air, bathing customers in its warmth.

Prawn noodles

Jiawei and his fellow hawkers basked in the daily attention they received from customers. Maxwell food centre was consistently packed to the brim with unmanageable crowds.

But the COVID 19 pandemic hit, a contagion of proportions worthy of a tsunami. World governments, with Singapore’s no exception, enforced restrictions - and human contact came to an unprecedented halt.

With his stall closed for the first time, Jiawei found a gaping hole in his spirit. He still toured the food centre, his mandatory mask an unwelcome, yet necessary shield.

Poh Piah

As he wiped down the counter of his stall on one of these visits, his foot bumped against a drawer at the base he had never noticed before. Inside it was a dog-eared, yellow-stained recipe book. Tucked purposefully between the pages was a letter from his father.The pages smelled of nostalgia, a testament to years of culinary devotion.

”When the lion pauses, it not retreating. It’s getting ready to leap forward. Jiawei, now's the time."

At that moment, Jiawei drew himself upright, the aged pages in his hands trembling slightly as a wave of nostalgia surged through him.

The stall was more than a business to the midlife hawker-it was a legacy. It had paid for his education. boyhood allowance and even his marriage- his father had put the proceeds from it as collateral to pay for his wedding. For him food, and his stall, wasn't just sustenance- it was a bridge between hearts.

He paused in thought, then made a decision that sparked a monumental shift - he wouldn’t let his family’s legacy fade into obscurity.

Turning to Facebook, Instagram and other social media, he told the tale that his father, and his father before him had shared for generations-that of Maxwell Food Centre, and his family’s original laksa recipe.  

But the lure of the digital age amid modernity was difficult to fight. Singapore's hawker tradition faced the challenge of avante garde, upmarket food trends, leaving stall like Jiawei's as rare gems. The hawkers, including Jia Wei, struggled to cope with the digital landscape - a phenomenon that wouldn't stop growing. Jiawei, who had paused his studies to help his father at the stall, didn't have the literary skills necessary to overcome the divide.

The struggle getting on line was an heartwreching yet funny one. Jiawei, who had almost no knowledge of how computers functioned, thought that a disk drive was shaped like a wheel. Sending posts had its foibles - Instagram was a weighing scale.

He often asked the question- what is the point of preserving something the world is ready to forget?

Fishball noodles

As luck would have it, the Maxwell food centre and Jiawei got the answer to that question - they received reprieve from the pandemic.His attemps at reviving his stall bore fruit - popular food blogger Adam Cai came across one of his posts on Facebook, with a tell-all photo attached. It read: "In every bowl of laksa, you'll find not just flavour but a piece of my family's story."

Jiawei never realised that Adam had visited his stall as an incognito patron. At least, not until he glanced at a headline on the middle pages of The Lion Times.

"Jiawei's laksa is not just a dish- it's the heartbeat of Singapore's soul," was the food critic's ringing endorsement. Jiawei's felt a rush of pride - the change to a new promoting methods had been a massive hurdle.

The resulting media storm and hype drives a partnership between the laksa master and other hawkers. Together, they concocted a stupendous creation - a digital food map of Singapore's famous cuisines. Laksa, rojak, prawn noodles and carrot cake grew as famous that it was on the cusp of UNESCO's acknowledgement.

Crowds started to gather after the pandemic- and lines began to come to life again at the food centre. Business picked up, and the centre came through the rough waters.

Mee Siam

Jiawei's ceaseless dedication to his laksa stall and its ancestral traditions caught the government's eye. A minister walks by one fateful afternoon and spots him dutifully transferring the aromatic, steaming white noodles into bowls, turning them into hearty lunches for a long line of waiting customers.

The unassuming hawker's dedication prompts the news-hungry media crew, whose cameras were always hungry for the next piece of information to disseminate.

The abrupt media attention was unexpected to say the least, but the Minister's response was beyond words - it left the industrious hawker on the fringes of culinary heaven for the rest of the day.

"Hawkers like Jia Wei remind us that Singapore's heritage is not in its monuments, but in the hands of everyday heroes who keep our culture alive."

From that turning point, Maxwell Food Centre brimmed with new life; it became a beacon of resilience and tradition. Singapore's hawker culture saw a new revival; lines formed every hour, on the hour at Jia Wei's stall, triggering ads for food assistants. Yet, a new age dawned- hawkers attended courses that helped them to navigate today's ever-changing digital landscape. The lion had leapt and Singapore's food culture thrived yet again, albeit in new ways. 

Maxwell Food Centre

The food centre reopened with the expected fanfare after the pandemic- the young and the old were in a rush to satisfy their food cravings at their go-to restaurants.

Jiawei's eyes caught sight of a young child taking his first bite of laksa. As the little boy savoured the coconut gravy with curious and satisfied lips, he had a sense of someone watching.

He turned, and his gaze fell upon the spectre of a man whom he resembled - his father. He drew back, his mouth hanging open.

The spirit hovered next to him. The spectral head, beneath a gentle, silver glow, turned and looked at the boy. "The lion has leaped, Jiawei, " The ghost's voice was a low, resonant echo. Jia Wei both perturbed and hesitant, stuttered and looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"Singapore's food culture is still alive. Maxwell Food Centre will thrive, although in new ways. And you're destined to be part of it.

A thunderstruck Jiawei's mouth remained open in shock. "Dad...b..but how?" He stuttered "I'm only running this simple stall, and all I have is your recipe. It...it's famous, but i don't see how I can preserve something so fragile in this changing world?"

"It's simple, but it will show the rest of Singapore and the world what laksa is. And you'll put the country on the world's food map.The lion pauses not to retreat, but to leap forward. Leap, my son."

And he vanished as suddenly as he appeared.

Mee Rebus

Jiawei's father had provided incredible foresight - he was part of the revamp of Singapore's hawker culture. He and the hawkers at Maxwell food centre crafted a remarkable story - it is featured in the Lion TImes, and the article became a famous exhibit on SIngapore's pandemic resilience.

Jia Wei hands the stall to his son along with the dog-eared recipe book. The pages now had two letters tucked within-one from his father, and another from himself.

"Keep the fire burning. Singapore's food culture is alive because of you.

Laksa isn't just food- it's a story of love, tradition and resilience in every bowl.