Est-ce que le tauhuay n'est pas assez atas? Part 1

I have been asked for my reaction on the diner en blanc fiasco which has been a really hot topic in Singapore. I am not going to retell the story, so if you are not already familiar with it, please click here for the whole story. I have been asked to comment as I have lived in France, have spent time at Paris-IV Sorbonne and worked amongst French people in a French company. I speak near-native standard French and more importantly, I have a very good understanding of French culture. I am also very active in the Singaporean blogosphere, I love cooking and I understand how PR works. And of course, I get to be a real bitch and laugh at the sheer stupidity of the organizers.

I love tau huay/

Let me start with the mystery of who is to blame for this fiasco and oh boy, this is funny. Okay, apparently there are three entities involved.

1. The local organizing committee, aka Diner En Blanc Singapore Organising Committee  ("DEBSOC")
2. The Singaporean PR company Thóx
3. The "French organizers" - presumably Diner En Blanc International ("DEBI"), the Paris HQ

Now I tried to do some research into each of the entities above and have uncovered the following observations.

Oh you do not permit local food do you? 

The local organizing committee DEBS are brand new and have only been in their positions for about  month, some less. The host Clemen Chiang has been a member since 7 July 2012 and has been the leader since 7 July 2012. The other host Nicole Yee - same thing, member since 8 July 2012 and leader since that same day she joined. All 29 group leaders were conferred 'leader' status on the day they joined - now it seems that all of these people have proper jobs and are not doing DEBSOC for any kind of monetary rewards (I could be wrong and if so, please correct me). It seems bizarre how quickly instantaneously these leaders have gone from members to leaders on the same day they've joined - but hey, they're volunteers. According to my reader Daphne Pang, "I'm guessing the hosts have become immediate leaders because they are the commercial partner in Singapore (although I'm sure many of the other leaders are indeed volunteers)." Okay, so they are the local organizers and fair enough, if this is essentially a private party where they wanna ban Asian food, they have the right to do so, right?

Wrong. They also have an online store - there is definitely a commercial element to the activity. There is the revenue from the alcohol ordered (guests must order their wine and champagne from DEBS and may not bring their own - thanks Daphne). Furthermore they have sponsors like Perrier-Jouet Champagne and OCBC Bank. And in case the idiots at DEBSOC have forgotten, OCBC stands for "Overseas CHINESE Banking Corporation". Talk about pissing off your sponsor. Great, we'll take your Asian sponsorship money but we don't want to be associated with Singaporean food. I cannot begin to describe how fucking stupid the fuckwits at DEBSOC are - okay, I know they're unpaid volunteers, but these are people with proper jobs (which are shown on the DEBS website). Like, do you behave with the same amount of stupidity at work? Freaking unreal.

Diner en blanc was meant to be aspirational, not pretentious. 

Now the million dollar question is this: who was the idiot who told Daniel Ang that local food was not permitted and most of all - is this idiot Singaporean or French? Many people think the person is French because of a statement that Daniel Ang wrote on his blog, but I actually believe that this person is as Singaporean as they come. Let me go through the evidence with you now. According to blogger Daniel Ang who was asked to remove his blog post about bringing local food to DEBS, this was what happened:

 "The French organisers conveyed to the PR company that they were not happy with my post. The argument was that chicken rice and tau huay [bean curd] were not in line with their image." He confirmed that he cleared the blog post with Dîner en Blanc - which is managed by Singapore's PR company, Thóx - before putting it up.

Chicken Rice - considered unsuitable for DEB.

OK, so we don't know for sure if the person at Thox (fuck it, I can't be asked to put in that fucking pretentious accent every time I type their pretentious name) is telling the truth. It was not like Mr Ang received a phone call from a French person who delivered the request in heavily accented English - no, it seems that Mr Ang spoke to a fellow Singaporean who played the "Angmoh buay song your blog lah" card. Was this a decision taken entirely by Thox to ask Mr Ang to remove his blog post - or did DEBI in Paris actually read Mr Ang's blog post and reacted?

No offence to Mr Ang, I love his blog, but I would be quite surprised if someone in Paris was actually monitoring Mr Ang's post and reacted like that to it. And even if a French person did read it, come on - this is not the first time DEB was held outside France. It has been held in countries like Côte d'Ivoire, Mexico, Puerto Rico - even Rwanda. If they had tried to ban local cuisine at these locations, they would've had an equally adverse reaction as well I assure you. This is why I am convinced that it wasn't DEBI who were upset at Mr Ang's blog post, rather it was probably just one or two individuals at either Thox or DEBSOC who objected to the thought of tau huay, chee cheong fun or char siew paus making an appearance at DEBS.

Given that DEBS is part of a global movement, it would've been tempting for someone like Mr Ang to raise his objections to Thox's demands with a higher authority such as DEBI in Paris. It is my guess that Thox was trying to give his/her demand more credibility by claiming that this was a request that came from "the French organizers", rather than the truth - which was that some self-loathing Singapore thinks that tau huay is not atas enough for such an event. WTF, like does the opinion mean more if it came from an Angmoh rather than an Asian person? If you want to express an opinion, then just fucking say it and stand by your point. Grow some fucking balls damnit. Don't play the "I'm just the messenger, don't blame me" card. Trust me, I know all about PR having worked on both ends of the equation - using a PR agency and being employed by a PR agency to represent a client. I can sniff PR bullshit from a mile away and this has bullshit written all over it.

Oh you know how DEBSOC feels about all of the above. 

Now another part of the mystery I want to analyze is this part of the statement released by DEBSOC today:

"Our dedicated local team in Singapore has improvised on a few matters."
"Our local team has asked a blogger to remove a suggestion from his blog." 

Note that there has been no mention of the local PR firm Thox in this statement of apology - nor has there been any blame levelled at DEBI in Paris. It seems that DEBSOC - the "dedicated local team" has owned up to having made these mistakes. So if by their own admission, the buck stops with DEBSOC (and kudos to them for having the balls to apologize and accept the blame) - this begs the question: why was that PR agent from Thox lying about the French organizers (DEBI in Paris) objecting to Mr Ang's blog? Why didn't that person have the balls to say, "a fellow self-loathing, self-hating Singaporean has objected to your blog post?" Clearly, that person was lying - that is why the facts simply don't add up and the latest statement from DEBSOC contradicts what Daniel Ang was told by Thox.

I'm just taunting DEBSOC now with these photos of glorious Singaporean food!

Here's further evidence of why I believe the person responsible for this PR fiasco is a local Singaporean. I had a look at the list of the team leaders at DEBSOC: there are 29 names on that list. Sorry Mr Ang, but you're misleading your readers by referring to them as the French organizers as they're clearly not all French. It's like assuming that everyone working at every branch of KFC is from the American state of Kentucky. (LOL, I am thinking about the KFC near where my parents live in Ang Mo Kio.) Let me break down the nationalities of DEBSOC for you:

Chinese-Singaporeans/PRCs: 21
Filipino: 1
Indian-Singapore/Indian: 2
White people who clearly don't have a French surname: 3
White people who definitely have a French surname: 2

DEBSOC is overwhelmingly Asian and Singaporean lah! 

Thus from that, I can work out that the ethnic split of DEBSOC is in fact 82.76% Asian and only 6.89% are French. The two French group leaders hold the title of "pedestrian leader" - indicating that they would be responsible for organizing the logistics of pedestrian movement at the event, rather than holding a post which had anything to do with the choice of food at the event. This is why I am convinced that no French person was involved in this PR fiasco - only self-loathing Singaporeans who kwah-suay their own culture.

So please, Mr Ang was lied to by Thox - but to be fair to Mr Ang, he wasn't aware that he was being fed lies at that time and that is why he simply repeated the lie that it was told. But now that I have broken this down and explained it to you, may I appeal to my readers (aka my LIFTers, that's right, I've invented a name for my loyal readers, you're LIFTers) please, it is time to stop this hideous lie that will only make the French look like racists when racism clearly isn't the issue here. This has nothing to do with French people being racist or looking down on Singaporeans. Hell no. It is about pathetic self-loathing Singaporeans.

Why do some Singaporeans loathe themselves? 

If I haven't been cruel enough, let me leave you with a final twist of the knife. Please lah, Limpeh has been there and done that all. I have studied in France. I've lived in Paris. I've worked for a French company and have spent plenty of time in France amongst the French. I'm not saying that racist or ignorant people don't exist in France - they do, but they tend to keep to themselves in France rather then go around the world, organizing big events and interacting with different nationalities. Paris is a culinary heaven! The French are by no means xenophobic when comes to good food  and the evidence of that is the fact that you can experience the best cuisines from all corners of the world in Paris.

Now when it comes to Asian food in Paris, there are many stunningly good Vietnamese, Japanese, Thai and Chinese restaurants in Paris and these are not hidden away in Chinatown - instead, they are scattered all over the city and enjoyed by the French who enjoy good food regardless of its origin. Oh I still remember the Teriyaki quail at a Japanese restaurant in Le Marais where I used to go to with my French friends. Food in France is amazing - and it is because as a nation, they have high standards when it comes to food and this is what they share with Singaporeans. We love good food too and we make such stunningly good food in Singapore. That is why Singaporeans feel so insulted when someone turns their nose up at our culinary tradition. 

The French love good food, especially Vietnamese cuisine!

Years ago in Singapore, I used to have a part time job during my NS days when I worked as a French translator for a local tour company. It was good money, for a few hours during the Sunday, I would accompany groups of French tourists on a tour of downtown Singapore, translating everything the guide said into French for those who didn't understand English. Part of that tour was to introduce them to Singaporean hawker cuisine and they almost always loved it - with the sole exception of durian. You would've thought that with all those stinky cheeses in France they might like durian but oh no. They universally disliked durian - but they were always so polite about it. They would politely apologize for not liking it. Thus I would often get to 'tabao' all the leftover durian they didn't eat and bring it home to my dad (who loves durian). Mind you, I'm not fond particularly of durian either.

It is a hideous, heinous lie to accuse them of food snobbery - stop it. The French may not like some foods that Singaporean adore (such as durian) - but there is certainly no element or racism or snobbery attached to that! That is a vile accusation cooked up by insecure Singaporeans who have a chip on their shoulders who are paranoid about Angmohs looking down on Singaporeans. Stop that stupid shit right now because it couldn't be further from the truth. That is why all the evidence about this PR fiasco points to a self-loathing Singaporean. It cannot possibly be done by a French person, please believe me. Limpeh has been there, done that and lived in France, please trust me on that one.

So why do Singaporeans still have this kind of self-loathing behaviour? All shall be explained in part 2.

Part 2 coming up, where I shall explore this topic further. 

This is just part 1 of my coverage of the entire DEBS saga. Here are the links for all the other articles on DEBS. 

Part 2: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/part-2-le-diner-en-fiasco.html

Part 3: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/pr-firm-thox-dumps-diner-en-blanc-part-3.html

Part 4: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/latest-statement-from-diner-en-blanc.html

Part 5: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/diner-en-blancs-facebook-page.html

Part 6: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/does-looking-down-on-tauhuay-make-you.html