Hawkers

I travelled to multiethnic walkable Singapore on my way to Bali. There, it was a land of four official languages, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, and English. I liked the food there a lot, including "cumi-cumi" or squid served in a clay hotpot. I saw dark Tamil people eating with hands on big banana leaves. Hawkers in Malay shrieked, "Makan! Makan!" (Eat! Eat!). Vendors sold big funny-looking lotus flowers. Some men were wearing colourful aloha shirts. My quaint hotel was decorated in 19th-century colonial Sino-British fashion. Later, from the Web, I tried job-hunting in the city-state, because it looked like a comfortable place.

From hawkers competing for business, to the smell of street food, to the energy in the air, it is a vibe that draws thousands of people, mostly Asians, to the Los Angeles night market.