What Food Crawls at Night Taught Me

People tell me all the time why I, a woman, feel so comfortable going out into Singapore’s bustling streets. To be frank, I hadn’t always been this “brave”, as they say. Growing up, my family had always warned me about the dangers of the nightlife, especially in a bustling city like this, what more for a young individual like me who carries the expression of curiosity and wonder everywhere I go.

I still remember the exact moment that my perspective on that changed. I was still on the edge of my youth, and against all the caution that my relatives had thrown to me about going out past daylight, I carefully trudged my feet towards the nearest hawker centre. Walking in, my anxiety didn’t ease with the circumstance of me being alone, but as I sat down with a tray of fried kway teow me from Outram Park, I realized that I was not the only one dining alone; furthermore, the group that I was sharing a table with hadn’t so much as thrown me a glance my way.

I’ve come to realize that the beauty of food crawls at night lies in how you blend into the community. Everyone has their own purpose in being here, and the last thing that they’d likely do is look down upon a girl shovelling two sticks of satay in her mouth at once. Before I could even fully grasp this newfound feeling of freedom in the crowds of the Singapore night, I had made a routine of taking my camera and an empty belly with me every night. 

Along the alleys, hawker centres, and wildly bright restaurants illuminated by neon lights, I have developed a fondness for all the vendors I encounter. The bittersweet truth of street foods in Singapore, or in any place for that matter, is that people pass by them with a single glance, one fleeting second of deciding whether they will stop to eat at this stall or carry on with their idle glancing at the rest of the stalls. In my happy trails of finding ease in wandering the bustling food district of Singapore at night, I want to make that moment last longer with the photos I take. I can’t change the world to make everyone stop at every single food cart they see, but I feel proud knowing that I have my own little corner of the web wherein people, who want to take a longer look, could peruse and find hidden gems that hadn’t been so tucked away after all.