Local Flavour

 I’ve just left Margate and am staying in London for two days before heading back to Singapore. I thought I’d try and see if I could squeeze out a thought or two about the week I had in a small town in the South of England.

My stay if coloured by the fact that I was primarily there for family that I hadn’t seen in years. As such most of the focus was on that rather than on being in a small town. I grew up in small town England and I wanted to get out. There was not much to do and everything was, well the same. However, now that I am older and lived in both London and Singapore, I’ve started to look at small towns with different lenses. You could say that age makes you appreciate the fact that there is a lot to be said for tranquility and focus. The hustle and bustle that was once considered “excitement” might actually be the thing that makes you less productive.

Another thing about being in a small town is that you learn to appreciate all things local. In a way, we don’t feel it much in Singapore because of our lack of size. Take the S-League as an example. People found it hard to get excited about “local” teams. How much rivalry do you expect between Tampines and Toa Payoh when there’s not much difference between the places. The S-League didn’t excite people but the Malaysia Cup did. Singapore played as a state team within the Malaysian league and it was fun for us to beat the Malaysian teams and it was fun for the Malaysian fans who wanted to see their teams beat Singapore.

Why do we get worked up about our local places? I guess the answer is familiarity and there are things about our local areas that are unique. There are things in our local region that are special to us. In Margate, it was expressed in beers. There were craft beers which were brewed and designed in the region.

 

 The same can be said for our food. I grew up in small town England. There was a Chinese restaurant that served Chinese food. However, this was food from Hong Kong and while it was food, I was accustomed to, it wasn’t “home.” However, when I moved to London and found a place that sold “chicken rice,” I was reminded of home. This was something unique to Singapore and Malaysia.

Think of that most Singaporean of dishes – Laksa. There are a variety of this dishes based on unique localness. The two that come to mind are “Penang” and “Katong” laksa. A list of laksa varieties can be found at:

https://theculturetrip.com/asia/malaysia/articles/the-different-types-of-laksa-you-can-eat-in-malaysia/

So, here’s the thing. When you look at a place, don’t think of it was a single entity. Think of it was a myriad of entities with their own local flavours. If you look at how we are becoming global and looking for global standards in just about everything, we also need to look at the fact that people are also growing more attached to their “local” things. Think of the HSBC Campaign “The World’s Local” Bank, which made them the world’s strongest financial brand:

https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/case-studies/hsbc-how-a-brand-idea-helped-create-the-world-s-strongest-financial-brand

If you can respect a person at the local level, you can touch their hearts. So, don’t just look at a person by his or her passport. Look at where in that country the person came from and try and reach out on that level.