A Crowded Hawker Centre

In the picture, the hawker centre is packed at what looks like the lunchtime rush. Almost every table is taken, there are queues in front of several stalls, and steam is rising from a wok while roast meats hang in the display case behind it. On the left there is a tray return station, and two people are carrying their used trays across to it. What I also noticed is that one of them has stacked his bowls neatly on the tray before walking over, which makes the job much easier for whoever clears it next.

My family eats at the hawker centre near our block almost every Saturday morning, and my job is to find a table and chope it with a packet of tissue while my parents queue. One Saturday it was so full that I walked two rounds and still found nothing, and I started to panic a little because my father was already holding the food. An elderly couple who were finishing up waved me over and told me they were leaving in a minute. I thanked them, and now whenever I see somebody standing with a tray and nowhere to sit, I try to tell them if we are almost done.

I feel the two most useful things are returning our own trays and not leaving a table choped long before we are ready to eat. Returning a tray takes about twenty seconds, and most of the cleaners at hawker centres are elderly, so every tray left behind is one more they must carry. Choping a table an hour early is worse during a lunch rush, because the seat sits empty while people stand around holding hot food. I understand why some people cannot manage a tray — someone frail, or a parent with a toddler and a full tray, has a genuine reason, and the rule was never meant for them. That is why I believe the point is not the rule itself but noticing the people around you, which is the whole reason our hawker culture was recognised in the first place.