What the prawns??!!!

In a debacle involving 6 American tourists, an insidious seafood stall and a hard-nosed stall assistant, the ugliness of our local mentality stuck in the colonial era was played out on a busy Saturday night at one of our tourist hot spots, Newton Food Centre.

Hoping to impress upon his friends the "safe, clean and honest" city-state, Mr Rigby must have felt exceedingly abashed when presented with a bill of $491 for his dinner. Almost $500 for a party of 6 at a hawker centre? Did the diners feast on out-of-this-world delicacy drizzled in ginseng gravy or foie gras or perhaps caviar whipped up hawker centre style?

No, they merely ordered 8 tiger prawns, 4 crabs, baby squids, half a steamed chicken, 4 bottles of beer and fruit juices. The usual run-of-the-mill fare we can find at Lau Pat Saat, Chomp Chomp or East Coast Lagoon Food Centre.

It seems that the protagonists of this saga are from the crustacean family - tiger prawns. At the listed price of $8 per 100g, the 8 prawns would have to weigh an average of 375g each to cost $239. But are we splitting hair here?

Or is the colonial mentality that tourists, particularly those of Caucasian descent are wealthy and free with their money still alive and kicking in this day and age? If so, hawkers at Newton and other tourist attractions have to sit up and take note that the economic recession is felt more deeply in Europe and the Americas than in China and India. With the falling dollar, $491 Singapore Dollars would have meant much more in US Dollars exchange.

Current recession aside, it is also no longer true that 'gwai-louhs' have inexhaustible spending power and are thus easy to fleece. It has not been that way for a long time. Over the last few decades, the spending power of Asians has increased dramatically with profound economic, social, political, cultural and psychological transformations. Although Bill Gates and Warren Buffet still count as the richest men on earth, many Asians now wield tremendous spending power beyond what their forefathers ever dreamt possible.

In today's economic climate and with the integration of foreigners into our midst whether by employment or by marriage, an average Caucasian can be seen to be as dime-watching as the next guy. Indeed, I know of friends who would rather take the MRT than take a cab to get around the island. It is common to see a head or two of blond hair (not the chemically-dyed variety) bobbling in the sea of shoppers at Giant or NTUC Supermarket. Caucasians clad in our national costumes of T-shirts, shorts and flip flops milling about food courts and hawker centres is also an ubiquitous sight today.

In the Newton fiasco, NEA has officially ordered the suspension of the errant stall for 3 months while the staff in question is barred from working in the food centre for a year. Some people attribute the 'harsh' and prompt sentence to the fact that the complaint was lodged by Caucasians. There, you see? Colonial mentality again. Sigh.

I say it's because NEA is looking at the big picture. The Newton saga is the third negative exposure on our tourism in almost as many months. Last December, it was the Singapore Flyer. Last month, it was the Merlion. Now, tiger prawns are hogging the headlines.

It is high time someone stepped in to right our image a little. Right about now and rightly so, I surmise. Right.