Experiences in a hawker centre

Name: Kang Jia hui                                                              

Class: 2E1

Date: 14/01/2015

Draft: 4

My experiences in a hawker centre

                            A hawker Centre? Sounds pretty flaw am I right? The impression for most teenagers would be just a place to satisfy their tummy unlike places such as the Mac Donald's, KFC or other restaurants which provides them an even more delightful meal. If you think hawker centre is underrated, think about it! It is mostly built around all parts of Singapore and the main reasons as to why is because it is convenient for people living nearby or for some of the people who do have trouble walking long distances for example the elderlies or the amputees. There are also many variety of dishes which consists of the Chinese, Indian, Malay and the Caucasians which we all can choose to eat. Of course it does have its own drawbacks and I will be detailing them as you continue reading.

                              This is one of my experiences in the hawker centre.  After school, I always buy foods from the hawker centre on the way home for lunch. There are many dishes to choose to buy such as the Lasi Lemak, Chicken rice, Roti Prata and many other kinds and one day, I caught up in an unpleasant experience. Yes, I had a really bad food poisoning which rendered me useless. I wish I had not devoured dishes from the hawker centre and should have famished myself all the way until home as the next day was important occasion for me due to an annual sport competition. However, that is the past. Now I am pretty sure that the hygiene standard improved which led to my change in perspective towards the hawker centre.

                            First and foremost, by the observation I made while queuing up, I saw evidence of family bonding. The good thing about a hawker centre is that family members can just head down to eat for dinner or in fact I could say it is another way for family bonding. Sometimes, eating at home is a bit too mainstream and a change of environment is needed but of course, some prefers eating as a whole at home. Dedicating my passion for cooking; to me, I would prefer cooking meals at home. There are also reasons why some people preferred eating at home and one of them could be due to some hygiene conscious purposes or afraid of getting food poisoned. No one would ever head down to the same store to buy dishes after being food poisoned unless one is able to accept the fact that its hygienic level improved. 

                           Price is another thing I would like to talk about. We all know hawker centres are located all around us and let's just say, if the dishes are expensive and for that, it would not differ much from a restaurant and if that is the case, people would often buy food from the restaurants instead due to its upper class dishes. Not trying to say the food in hawker centres are really bad but when compared to restaurants, you know it is way better. We also have to know that not everybody is securely financed and if the price goes beyond what they can pay, it is going to be really tough for them unless there is a downpour of money from the sky. 

                      Last but not least, I think it is still a community which people can spend time chit-chatting and leisure for people who works. Overall, I would say that it is actually a blessing for hawker centres to be all around Singapore despite all the bad things that occurred which is forgiveable as it helped people more than it harmed them and most of the shopkeepers there are friendly which never fails to leave a smile for the customers!