If there is one thing that France and Singapore share, it is our mutual love for good food.
France is famed for its Michelin-starred restaurants and delicate flavours, while Singapore for its flavourful and inexpensive hawker food.
However, it is hard to expect Singapore’s hawker dishes to be of the same quality as that of France’s more developed food scene; and one French exchange student learnt that the hard way.
Cultural Shock
A French exchange student was shocked when she was scolded by the chicken rice auntie in NUS.
The French exchange student had asked the chicken rice auntie about how she had sourced her food, where the chicken and rice were sourced from and if the stall auntie knew the producer.
Sensing this as an insult to her food, the chicken rice stall auntie scolded the French student in Singlish (which luckily or not the French student could not fully understand).
The poor exchange student was left puzzled, as she did not mean to be offensive to the chicken rice auntie.
Back in France, there is a much greater awareness and attention paid to the source of food.
The French are more conscious of the health benefits and costs of their food, and this ranges from the eco-sustainability of ingredients to whether poultry and cows are allowed to roam freely.
As such, the poor girl was derided simply because there were different cultural expectations between the two countries.
A Misunderstanding
The whole situation is a huge misunderstanding that highlights the importance of being cosmopolitan and sensitive to cultural differences.
From the Singaporean perspective, it is easy to see what the Chicken Rice auntie was furious about.
In Singapore, we do not have an expectation for our hawker food to have ‘organic ingredients’ or to have ‘ethical sources’, which are seen in Singapore as ‘atas’ (a sign of affluence). In fact, the only thing we look out for is probably the cost and the taste of the dishes.
Hence, when a French girl (white people stereotypes kicking in too probably) asks about the source of the ingredients and whether they were of high quality, it might have come off as condescending and contemptuous; that the auntie’s chicken rice was not good enough for the exchange student.
On the other hand, it may have been crossing the line for the auntie to chide the exchange student as they might have had different cultural expectations of their food. Moreover, the exchange student was asking in a polite way (or so she claimed).
Luckily, the exchange student was very mature about it and took it in her stride. She said that she still loves Singapore and Singaporean food, and simply hopes to understand what happened and the culture in Singapore better.
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