On mamak restaurants, free-trade, and the Malaysian government’s decision to ban foreign chefs
Protectionism is not the answer. Here’s my perspective as a former culinary student.
Lunch options are always limited for a Malaysian student on a tight budget like me. My wallet frequently disagrees with my desire for a cold, satisfying glass of iced latte at Starbucks. Most students would want to hang out in Starbucks (if they could afford it, of course) for a variety of reasons, including free Wi-Fi, air-conditioning, ample space most of the time, power outlets for phone and laptop chargers, sugar-flavored frappes, and sandwiches that could barely fill our stomachs. Basically, it’s a good place for students to do their homework or even put it off.
But, alas, my finances are a problem. I couldn’t afford to eat my lunch and write there. Unless, of course, I’m okay with going a week without eating. My only option is a few metres away: a noisy, hot, and crowded mamak (Indian Muslim) restaurant.
I must admit that I, like many other local students in my country, am impoverished. However, I do understand why:
- We’re still young. That is, we are inexperienced in the labour market.
- Because of our commitment to our courses, most of us can only afford part-time jobs. Some people are unable to commit to even a part-time job.
- We’re still honing our skills. That is why we go to university in the first place.
- Personally, I’m a dreadful steward of my finances. It’s something I’ll have to work on as I get older. But that is my issue (ha ha).
Well, it seems like I have to delay my gratification for now. Another time, latte. Another time. So to the dreaded mamak, I go then.
I’ve recently developed the habit of observing my surroundings. I looked around the restaurant and considered the people as soon as I found a table, sat down, and placed my order. All of the servers and cooks are immigrants, as far as I can tell. Some are mainland Indians, while the majority are Indonesians. They are also overseen by a Malay manager. The customers, on the other hand, were mostly locals who attended the same university as I did. A few tables away from me, I noticed a group of Bangladeshi construction workers eating lunch and chatting with their colleagues. I assume they work in the building next to my university, which is currently undergoing major renovations.
I’m particularly intrigued with one of the Indian chefs; the one that’s assigned to prepare roti canai. Perhaps he reminded me of my internship as a chef a few years ago. I too have prepared roti canai like him. There’s one thing I can tell you about preparing roti canai: it’s depressingly difficult! Every flip of the dough demands a high amount of poise and dexterity from the chef. But I worked on a slightly different battlefield back then. It was a five-star hotel right in the middle of Kuala Lumpur. I was wearing a chef’s hat and a white military-like chef jacket. It was classier, or so it seems. Him, contrarily, wearing a smudged shirt and a pair of jeans. He also never had any patrons standing in front of him and admiring his roti flipping skills. Which I had the privilege of. He instead got constantly yelled at by one of the patrons asking him when his order would be delivered.
Working in an industrial kitchen is no fun or games. It demands complete attention, speed, communication and time management skills from each individual working in the kitchen. In addition, you can’t even sit for at least eight hours. From the humble Nepalese kitchen helper peeling off the potato skins to the Hitler-esque Italian executive chef, everyone has to toil through the day.
I must confess, the food and beverage industry is not for me. I can not keep up with the physical and psychological demands of the industrial kitchen. The place could mess up your mind, literally. Which is the reason why I have absolute respect for every individual who works in the industry.
After I’m done with my lunch, I came across this article while scrolling through Facebook. The headline alone shocked me. It says,
“Govt to ban foreign cooks, only locals allowed to cook in restaurants”
More quotes from the article follow.
“So we want locals to be employed as cooks. There will be no compromise … we are giving you notice to do it by Dec 31. If you don’t do it we can’t help it,” he told Bernama News Channel here on Thursday.
Commenting on the statement, Prisma(Indian Restaurant Operators Association) president P. Muthusamy said the decision was quite shocking and would have major implications to operators.
“In the past few years, we have been facing problems of manpower. In fact more than 500 restaurants had closed during the period due to the shortage of workers,” he said.And the most surprising part comes from the number of “happy reactions” the article received. As I’m writing it now, it has 711 happy reacts.
I’m highly sceptical about the move. And obviously, I am not going to give a happy react.
The first thing that we need to do is to identify what kind of policy that the government is trying to approach. There is a name for this, actually. It’s called protectionism.
What’s that, exactly? According to Investopedia, protectionism refers to government actions and policies that restrict or restrain international trade, often with the intent of protecting local businesses and jobs from foreign competition.
The intent of protectionist policies, as the name implies, is to limit free-trade between countries in order to protect the national economy. Examples of protectionist policies include tariffs, subsidies to national companies, embargoes, regulation towards foreign businesses, import quotas, and anti-immigration laws.
But the truth is, it’s difficult to accurately define what is protectionism.
From the legal perspective, there is no agreed definition of what protectionism actually is... As a European Parliament study in 2015 put it: “Although it is widely recognised that protectionism can take many different forms, there is no common agreement on what precise measures should be considered as protectionist.”
Why do most Malaysians support this policy? Simple. The intention of the policy is to appeal to the majority. Here’s a simple breakdown of the common logic:
- The policy plans to empower our national economy and workforce by restricting foreign workers in the food industry.
- F&B businesses will have to depend less on foreign labourers (in this case, chefs) and rely solely on locals.
- Local talents would have easier access to jobs once the policy is enforced.
- Once the majority of local talents have been employed, the nation’s food industry will be fully empowered with homegrown talents. Or so we believe.
Let us refer to the very last sentence of the article:
“We advertised, offering a salary of up to RM2,500, but no one came. It is not easy to find local workers for restaurants,”
The statement doesn’t specify which position that salary applies to. Assuming that he meant entry-level positions in mamak restaurants, I must say that’s quite a figure to start with. Why would no one take the offer remains a mystery. Be as it may, what amount then, are employers willing to pay these chefs? And could they afford to pay that amount without harming their businesses? As stated above, they already had enough issues with manpower even without the ban, which resulted in more than 500 restaurants closing up. Do you think the ban will introduce more jobs for our local talents with all the restaurants closing up? Since the plan seems imminent, we’ll see how it goes then. But I do hope I was wrong this time.
Perhaps that’s the problem with most policies. We often judge them based on their intention and not the results.
I suspect there are also elements of xenophobia behind the support. Ask a Malaysian what they think about foreign workers and you may get the following answers:
- They’re stealing our jobs.
- They’re harassing our ladies
- Our ladies are marrying them (I’m not exactly sure why this is a problem).
- They commit various crimes.
Except for the first point (which I had addressed previously), I fail to see how any of these are related to our economic wellbeing. And wouldn’t these points be made about our local populace as well? The government can enact as many laws as the people want it to, but there’s no point if they are not properly enforced. Now I can meditate about that for miles in a separate article.
“So what are the options then?”
I propose free-trade: lessen the restrictions on businesses, keep the barriers that obstruct the exchange of goods, services, and manpower between nations as reasonably low as possible. As transport and communication technology improves, international businesses improve as well. Which then leads to globalisation.
And only when we dare to compete in the global market can we be proud of our nation’s economic achievement. And it begins in our industrial kitchens.
