Singapore’s hawker culture clinches spot on Unesco’s intangible cultural heritage list

PM Lee Hsien Loong thanks generations of food vendors for ‘nourishing a nation’ and encourages Singaporeans to celebrate by ordering their favourite dish

The nation’s hawker culture joins more than 463 items already on the prestigious list of international treasures, including angklung music and kimchi making

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Hawker Leong Yuet Meng of Nam Seng Noodle House cooks at her shop in Singapore in February 2019. Photo: Reuters

Published: 7:30am, 17 Dec 2020Updated: 10:12pm, 17 Dec 2020

After a journey of more than two years, Singapore’s hawker culture has made it onto a prestigious list of international treasures, alongside Indonesia’s angklung musical tradition and South Korea’s kimjang, the making and sharing of kimchi.

The decision to inscribe hawker culture in Singapore onto the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) was announced by the international body‘s intergovernmental committee on Wednesday.

This comes five years after Singapore’s successful bid to have the Botanic Gardens listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site.

The nation’s hawker culture joins the more than 463 items already inscribed on the list of intangible culture heritage. This is Singapore’s first attempt at making this Unesco list.

In a Facebook post, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong thanked the people who have “worked very hard” to get Singapore’s hawker culture inscribed on the list.