Mee Siam Mai Hum

Since when did Mee Siam come with Hum?!? That was the first thought that sprang into my mind (I’m sure it was the same for any self-respecting Singaporean) as I watched the Prime Minister delivering his National Day Rally Speech to the masses that he ruled. For the record and the uninitiated, this is the exact excerpt, verbatim I might add, of which I have since come to take offence with.

PM Lee: "So, last year, for the rally I showed two little clips, in a very small way putting my toe into the water … Tau Gay Not Enough and Tau Gay Never Enough. That's a harmless form of the new media. But in fact we have some serious decisions to make because we have to decide how far to go, what tone to set. And it's not just all fun and games. I give you an example. You put out a funny podcast, you talk about bak chor mee. I will say mee siam mai harm. Then we compete. Then what will I do? I will hire Jack Neo to be my National Day Rally adviser. It'll be a fun time, we will enjoy thoroughly, go home totally entertained. But is this the way to deal with serious issues? And the problem is it won't stop with fun and games. You'll go to distortions, you'll go to half-truths, you'll go to untruths. The tone of the debate will go down. Eventually, you race to the bottom."

Mee Siam is a spicy dish with Bee Hoon and maybe a hard-boiled egg sometimes. I’ve never, ever, in my almost 21 years of holding a Singaporean passport, even heard (let alone tasted) of Mee Siam with Hum. Hum is Hokkien for cockles, an ingredient that comes with many dishes popular with the general population, dishes like Char Kway Teow or Laksa. But Hum with Mee Siam? Was the Prime Minister trying to invent a new national dish? Does his personal chef actually serve him the said dish with cockles thrown in for good measure? More importantly, what was he thinking?

I guess he thought he was being funny, but little did he know the joke was on him.

I’m sure the online community has pretty much flamed his comments in every way possible, so I’m just going to stop my frivolous rant here. The serious implication only comes when the laughter has subsided and we sit back and think about how the whole hoo-ha started in the first place: Which Singaporean thinks that Mee Siam has Hum?

It seems anal to insist that my Prime Minister knows that little bit of trivial, but I find it disturbing that he doesn’t. In an attempt to connect with the masses by talking about something close to the hearts of everyday Singaporeans (food) and showing that he has a firm understanding of little details of our lives, he has succeeded in doing exactly the opposite. While saying that he has turned every Singaporean against him with his remarks is probably too extreme, suggesting that he has alienated himself from the general population doesn’t seem too far off. The Prime Minister is always eager to soften his image and prove that he is a man of the masses, but when he tries to do that, even the smallest things matter in order to maintain the image of a bona fide commoner. It seems that this time around, it was indeed the smallest of details about the smallest of ingredients that did him in. The phrase “It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than open your mouth and remove all doubt” comes to mind.

So every time you settle down at the coffee shop located at the void deck of your HDB block, and if your favourite breakfast dish happens to be Mee Siam, you might want to consider asking the Prime Minister along to educate him about something so trivial it seems silly not to know.