cover | food withdrawls
BK MAGAZINE FRIDAY, JUNE 08, 2018
Save Our Street Food
It’s one year since Bangkok’s street food “ban” came into effect. The world’s still turning, and we’re still eating ba mie on our lunch break—but not everything’s right with Bangkok’s sidewoks. By Chawadee Nualkhair
WHAT DO THE VENDORS ON THE STREET HAVE TO SAY?
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ast year’s reports of a government plan to clear Bangkok’s major sidewalks completely of their street vendors caught the city unaware, arriving only days after CNN’s crowning of the city as “the world’s street food capital.” The food-loving world—with grilled pork skewers, wok-fried noodles and late-night bowls of rice porridge in mind—met the news with a chorus of dismay. Many criticized the move as a tragedy, a whitewashing of the local culture, and shameful treatment of the city’s working class who depend on cheap food to survive. So when articles surfaced hours later exhorting the world’s foodies to relax because street food would remain untouched, they took on the tone of a Trump administration communications official backpedaling over “fake news.” Why would anything be announced at all, if nothing was to change? And if nothing had changed, why were vendors already being cleared from certain areas? It’s now one full year since the “ban” came into effect, and the answers to those questions are beginning to surface.
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Vallop Suwandee is chief consultant to the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), and for over a year, the long-time civil servant has spearheaded the city’s current drive to “clean up” its streets of rogue hawkers. According to Vallop, initial articles announcing a comprehensive clean-up had been “misreported,” despite several media outlets directly quoting him outlining a ban on street vendors from the main roads of all 50 Bangkok districts. The ban only concerned vendors with “temporary” permits, and “a minimum of vendors were affected,” he now tells us, adding that he is a fan of street food from around the Thonglor area. “The only concern from City Hall is that the food remains sanitary.” But experts working with vendor groups and academics say that this isn’t the whole story. “It is clear that the ban isn’t just focusing on a small number of vendors or a particular neighborhood… it is affecting vendors all over the city, from a variety of backgrounds,” says Trude Renwick, a U.S.-based scholar working on her PhD dissertation on commercial space in Bangkok.
“The only concern from City Hall is that the food remain sanitary”
LEK, SHARK FIN SOUP VENDOR “I can’t afford to rent a shophouse. Prices here can go up to B300,000 [a month] for a space on the main road. I’ve already started seeing officers coming to regulate and it’s terrifying knowing we can’t do anything but oblige.”
NOK, PA TONG GO (FRIED DOUGH) VENDOR “I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that we are only getting regulated but not cleared. Right now, we vendors have to help each other. We have to listen to what they say: stop having stalls that stick out into the road, stop washing dishes on the road.”
JENG, JUI GUAY (STEAMED RICE CAKE) VENDOR “If you remove street food everywhere else, there will be a lot more people in Yaowarat and wouldn’t that make things even more disorderly? Plus, this is not the only tourist destination in Bangkok. Tourists want to go all over the city. They need street food elsewhere too.”
6/15/18 8:31 PM