To Those Who Dont know this old news.
Mee Siam refers to "Siamese noodle". It is a dish of thin rice
noodles ( vermicelli ) in spicy sour sweet soup popular in
Singapore.
Originally a Thai dish, it became a Nyonya specialty that is now
prepared by Indians, Malays as well as Chinese stalls in Singapore
with slight variation in ingredients. It is served with salted soy
beans, dried bean curd, boiled egg, and tamarind, garnished with
spring onions and Chinese chives.
At the Singapore 2006 National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien
Loong made a " Mee Siam mai hum ( no cockles in my Mee Siam please
) " remark, and was made the butt of a joke / song in a popular
Singaporean podcast The MrBrown Show. The podcast took Mr Lee's
comment and edited it to the tune of "My Humps" by the Black Eyed
Peas. This comment was also lampooned due to the fact that the dish
does not contain cockles at all.
In his 2006 National Day Rally speech, the Prem Binister had
intended to deliver a withering, cogently argued response to those
who saw the Gahmens clampdown on Mr. Brown as heavy-handed.
Instead, the argument was not only garbled, but he inadvertently
revealed how out of touch he was with the average Singaporeans
experiences.
By saying, mee siam mai hum, he created the impression that
either :
1. he had never eaten mee siam in his life, as mee siam never
contains hum, or cockles;
2. he could not tell the difference between laksa or char kway teow
(which does have cockles) and mee siam (which doesnt), which then
raises questions about what he eats regularly, and how different
his diet is from the average Singaporean;
3. he actually meant to say, mee siam mai hiam, which is
possible. But by asking for no spice in a dish whose entire point
is spiciness only suggests wimpiness;
4. he has never had to order food in a hawker centre in a long
while, if at all, which again sets him apart from his
constituents.
- all of which are not particularly flattering propositions.
However, the Prime Ministers Orifice has managed to uncover the
truth that the Prime Ministers mee siam mai hum statement was
not in fact a gaffe, but derived from personal experience.
Specifically, his experience during a pre-election walkabout
earlier this year at Bukit Gorblok Food Centre in Hong Kan GRC,
where he sampled the wares of Mr. Hum Kah Chan, a tze char hawker
whose speciality is serving cockles with everything.
Yah lor, said Mr. Hum, whose stall is aptly named Humpalang
Hawker Food. Prem Binister come to my stall, so I offer him my
todays special, mah.
Which was you guessed it mee siam with cockles.
I put hum in everything, he said proudly, with a hint of
defensiveness. Chicken rice with hum, nasi lemak with hum, bak kut
teh with hum, prata with hum, even ice kacang with hum. I love hum.
Hum, hum, hum, hum, lovely hum, wonderful hum.
The Prime Minister consumed the dish, said Mr. Gerry Mandhir, an
officer with the PMO. And promptly had diarrhoea. Not the verbal
variety that runs in certain geriatric members of his family, but
from somewhere, um, lower down.
Mr. Hum subsequently had his licence suspended for unhygienic food
practices.
What to do? The hum was pai, said Mr. Hum ruefully, using the
Hokkien word for bad, before chanting angrily, Pai hum! Pai
hum! Pai hum! Pai hum!
Since then, the Prime Minister has had a phobia of foods containing
cockles, and always asks that whatever is served to him does not
contain the offending bivalves.
This explains his statement. The hum was very harmful to him,
said Mr. Mandhir. It was especially embarrassing because he was
wearing white pants. You must understand this incident is also
why he just cannot stand the colour brown.
Laksa with sea hum. Yummy !!
