Singapore's hidden heartland - full version now available on WSJ website

The full version of my piece on Singapore's little-known farming heartlands, which was published in October's Far Eastern Economic Review, is now available for free on the Wall Street Journal website here.

Below is the intro:

The car weaves along the winding country lane, cutting a narrow path through the lush tropical vegetation. As well as the occasional dog ambling sleepily down the roadside, we pass farm after farm producing everything from vegetables to goat's milk and even crocodiles. We reach the summit of a short incline from where the gently-undulating landscape stretches out in front of us, punctuated only by farm buildings and electricity pylons.

Briefly, it's almost possible to imagine that I'm in one of Asia's expansive agricultural heartlands such as Malaysia's Cameron Highlands or Vietnam's Mekong Delta. But the frequent road signs warning people away from state land and urging trespassers not to enter "protected areas" at risk of being shot give the plot away.

Welcome to Singapore's last remaining slice of rural life: the Kranji countryside. The Southeast Asian city-state may be better known for its banks, shopping malls and sprawling public housing estates but here, in the northwestern corner of the island, Singapore's hardy farmers struggle on, producing 18,000 tons of vegetables, 47 million chickens, millions of eggs and 5,000 tons of fish each year.

"There's no PAP up here -- we're not prim and proper," quips Ivy Singh-Lim, president of the Kranji Countryside Association (KCA), as she pokes fun at Singapore's ruling People's Action Party, which has maintained a tight and, critics say, stifling grip on power since Britain granted self-rule in 1959.

Malaysia's McCurry has the last laugh after legal battle with McDonald's

I don't imagine that many people were backing the all-encompassing, homogenous might of McDonald's in its 8-year legal battle to stop McCurry, an Indian fast food eatery in Kuala Lumpur, from using the "Mc" prefix.

Having finally fended off the accusation of trademark infringement earlier this month, McCurry's owner P. Suppiah appears to be having the last laugh.

Thanks to all the global media attention aroused by the case, he has had numerous calls from investors wishing to set up McCurry restaurants overseas and plans to open outlets in Sri Lanka and the Maldives later this year, according to a report in Singapore's Straits Times (see below).

I wonder if McDonald's will take a more relaxed approach in future or whether McCurry's new overseas operators can expect Sri Lankan and Maldivian court papers to land on their doormats sometime in the near future.

KUALA LUMPUR - SINCE restaurant owner P. Suppiah won an eight-year legal battle against fast-food giant McDonald's three weeks ago, which allowed McCurry Restaurant to keep its name, his life has changed.

Mr Suppiah, 55, has been busier than ever, receiving congratulatory messages and phone calls from all over the world. Half of them came from interested investors who wanted to open a McCurry franchise in their country.

Indeed, the Indian restaurant owner disclosed that he would be opening branches in Sri Lanka and Maldives by the end of the year.

'So many investors called me after the case, and they said that McCurry food looks very good,' he told The Straits Times at his shop in Jalan Ipoh on Tuesday.

'But I choose to open in Sri Lanka and Maldives because the investors are restaurant operators themselves, so I don't have to worry much.'

Mr Suppiah, who has been running McCurry Restaurant since 1999, said he had just returned from a meeting with some investors in Hong Kong last week. They were interested in developing his business in Hong Kong and Shanghai but the plans were still at a preliminary stage.

His restaurant became world-famous after it won a case filed by McDonald's in 2001 to stop it from using the prefix 'Mc'.

The US fast-food chain argued that McCurry had infringed its trademark and the restaurant could mislead people to associate its products with McDonald's.

McCurry lost the case in 2006 when the High Court ruled in favour of McDonald's, and the restaurant was forced to change its name to MCurry while appealing against the ruling at the Court of Appeal.

On April 27 this year, the Appeals Court overturned the High Court's decision and allowed Mr Suppiah to re-attach 'Mc' to the name of his eatery.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user tankgrrl.

Malaysian minister drags Singapore into Southeast Asia's simmering culture war

Just when Malaysia and Indonesia seemed ready to end their ridiculous kulturkampf over traditional dances and batik, Malaysia's tourism minister has dragged Singapore into the fray, implicitly accusing the neighbouring city-state of "hijacking" its food.

"We cannot continue to let other countries hijack our food," tourism minister Ng Yen Yen told reporters at the launch of a gourmet food festival in Kuala Lumpur.

She went on to cite dishes such as chilli crab, laksa, and bak kut teh as examples of Malaysian dishes that had been hijacked by others, with Singapore presumably at the top of that list.

Without a hint of irony, she even singled out "Hainanese chicken rice" as an authentic Malaysian dish that had been stolen by interlopers, according to The Star newspaper.

All these dishes, incidentally, are listed by the Singapore Tourism Board as quintessential Singaporean fare.

Apparently this was more than idle banter as Ng explained that over the next three months, the Malaysian government would "identify certain key dishes to declare as Malaysian".

Forgive me for suggesting that, faced with rising racial tensions, crumbling public support and a stagnating economy, the Malaysian government ought to have better things to do than launch a food war against Singapore.

Given the shared cultural heritage of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia and the fact that these three entities (none of which existed before 1949) could easily have become one giant nation (Indonesia Raya) or many smaller states, these new culture wars are rather farcical.

Nineteenth century British prime ministers Palmerston and Disraeli used gunboat diplomacy as their preferred vehicle for the jingoism needed to distract the people from the real issues of the day.

The Malaysian and Indonesian governments obviously prefer hawker stall diplomacy: "Mine is the original, best No.1 Laksa, lah. Other one only copy but no good, wah."

Pic courtesy of Flickr user KayVee.INC.

Myanmar boys on tour

In the West, Myanmar is often depicted as a hermit state, isolated from the rest of the world. That may be an accurate view in the US, the EU and Australia, where there are strict sanctions in force, but it is not the case in Asia, as this photograph shows.

This is the Myanmar boys football team doing some sightseeing in Singapore after being knocked out of the Asian Youth Games following a 5-1 thrashing by South Korea on Monday.

They seemed pretty relaxed until I got my camera out and started snapping, at which point a few of them turned away, reluctant to have their photo taken.

They were at City Hall MRT station, which is very close to Peninsula Plaza, the shopping centre of choice for Singapore's sizable Burmese community. There are some great Burmese food places there such as Inle, which most definitely gets the thumbs up from my Burmese friends.

Hopefully the lads were more successful at picking up souvenirs then they were on the football pitch.