2006-11-16T07:16:00.000-08:00

"Wake up and smell the iced venti decaf caramel macchiato!"
Gracie Hart, Miss Congeniality : Armed and Fabulous

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Click on the lady.

Kopi and Coffee - Same or Not ?

2006-11-16T06:53:00.000-08:00

Introduction

Coffee-drinking is an activity that has survived the test of time. It is a pastime, an art and an energy-booster for the modern day masses. Even in the local context, these features of coffee-drinking have not changed. Since the early 20^th century, kopitiams have been around to serve the coffee addictions of the everyday Singaporean. One can just imagine how a Singaporean, usually clad in an ubiquitous white singlet and with one leg propped up on a chair, would order in typical Singlish fashion – “Uncle, come one cup of Kopi-O!”.

However, in recent times more upscale coffee joints such as Starbucks and Coffee Bean have made their way and planted their roots into Singaporean soil. Digging deep into our mass culture, they have revolutionised where and how Singaporeans drink coffee. Nowadays, instead of the above, we may see an executive in a dimly lighted coffee joint, chanting the following: “An iced Grande caramel macchiato, with whipped cream please.” Oddly enough, even coffee-ordering has evolved to an art in itself. It is apparent that these upscale coffee joints and kopitiams are radically different in culture. But are they really that different? Our group hopes to in part, answer this question.

*Note : We are using Starbucks as a representation of modern coffee joints in our analysis because it is one of the biggest coffee chains and the first international success.

Creators of an alternate reality

Both entities aim to recreate a feel or a memory. Consciously and intentionally or not, the existence of both coffee joints has stumbled upon what we know culturally as creating an alternate reality. Or more significantly, where consumers can enter and escape from the hustle and bustle of the reality cold and hard. This hyperrealistic nature is a common character of many postmodernist institutions. Starbucks is an apt example of a hyperreal, and we will use its marketing success story to illustrate this.

Starbucks aims to create a relaxed atmosphere that is also fun with a tad of celebrity glitz at the same time. When we enter a Starbucks joint, we are greeted by dim lights, jazz music and plush, cushy and very enticing sofas. All these contribute to their unique Starbucks-coffee-drinking experience and as Mark Pendergrast puts it, “Starbucks [has] become synonymous with fine coffee, hip hangouts and upscale image” [1].

The media has also perpetuated this image, as demonstrated in the following quotes:

“Let me tell you when I'm gonna get you an iced Venti Caramel Macchiato…”
- Sam Fuller, in Miss Congeniality 2, Armed and Fabulous .[2]
(That very beverage in question here is solely available in Starbucks.)

Another one by Meg Swan in Best in Show: “We met at Starbucks. Not at the same Starbucks but we saw each other at different Starbucks across the street from each other.”[3]

As seen, the amount of money Starbucks has spent on product placement and image branding is astronomical, to the extent of being able to transport us into a world where we subconsciously believe that our mundane lives can perhaps be as fabulous and serendipitous as the actors/actresses in the movies, where people derive their vicarious desires from. People want to surrender themselves to a fantasy painted by Starbucks and believe that they have entered into another world, where they can be Sandra Bullock or Parker Posey.

Instead of recreating an alternate world of all-that-jazz, clichés, constant image-popping and play-upping of the western brand of life, our very own kopitiam brings to us back to the past. It is not an intended utility for kopitiam towards marketing ends, however. The reason for it may be due to the fact that kopitiams are remnants from our not-so-faraway past. It conjures up the image of rickshaw-pullers, coolies, all of which are characters symbolic of Singapore’s past. This somewhat implied connotation has also been smartly manipulated and played-up by the local mass media which reinforces the notion of it all, creating the air of nostalgia which is tied strongly to it.

Both places have shifted present realities into different hyperrealities, one into a fantasy world of a trendy place to put one’s feet up, and the other, into the past. This is a feature so strikingly different, yet similar at the same time.

Mirrors of national identity

Where did modern coffee joints like Starbucks or the kopitiam originate from? The answer seems immediately obvious, but the real question we should ask ourselves is how we ascertained that one is obviously Singaporean in nature and the other, American. Both now function effectively as a source of nationalist identity to its peoples, and they have come to naturally represent their respective places of origin through a gamut of ways.

The idea of the kopitiam being representative of local culture has been repeatedly used by the media, and this has contributed to it becoming somewhat like an epitome of a Uniquely Singaporean experience. Interestingly enough, this world painted by the kopitiam is eerily realistic, because it represents the past when Singaporeans had to work hard in order to make it to where we are now.

In the case of modern coffee joints, it appears that their start-up stories are rather archetypal of US capitalist successes. In particular, the Starbucks story bears a rather striking resemblance to the history of the USA. Originally started by two teachers and a writer out of their love for coffee, their eventual selling out to an ambitious but ingenious entrepreneur named Howard Schultz completely altered the Starbucks coffee. The Starbucks under Shultz did revolutionise the coffee joint industry in the US (and later, all over the world) but while it professed and advertised a love for coffee and the determination to spread this love and knowledge of coffee to consumers everywhere, the capitalist motive eventually won out. With complaints of it trying to monopolise the coffee house industry by forcing smaller, private coffee joints to close down amid accusations that Starbucks did not really use Fair Trade coffee, it appears that their love of coffee is now merely a façade for their love of profit-making.[4]

There is a disturbing parallel in the Starbucks story to that of the history of the USA. The USA was founded as one of the first few liberal nation-states, emphasising the liberties and rights of the individual and state to freedom. The USA was arguably found on the passions of the men living there for their liberty and while the war against her colonial master could be deemed a necessary war, it seems that over time the USA has participated in wars on the pretext of promoting liberty and freedom, while ironically crushing the very ideals that they sought to uphold. This was especially so in the Cold War period, where they would support any regime that labeled themselves “democratic” – even if they were far from democratic. Syngman Rhee from Korea and Ngo Dinh Diem from Vietnam were autocratic, cruel and repressive political leaders and yet they received the support of the USA simply because they were anti-Communist.

In both cases, the original ideal and passion is not only lost, but is falsely used as a rhetoric and justification for their actions, and this perversion of values is indeed rather disturbing.

Kopitiams are also definitive of Singporean culture in a number of ways, one of them being how they are representative of a particularly Singaporean notion of racial harmony. Singapore constitutes a number of races, namely: Chinese, Malays, Indians and a smaller proportion of other races such as the Eurasians. Since Singapore became independent, the issue of racial harmony has become an important priority and agenda in many facets of the Singapore government’s policies. Kopitiams have slowly become a materialization of a hope for racial harmony and has assumed that role comfortably and naturally. The very term kopitiam is an excellent example of this, since it is a fusion of the Malay word for coffee ("kopi") and the Hokkien dialect word for shop ("tiam"). In more recent times, kopitiams have come to house many different styles of cuisines from different races. However, they remain sold in different stalls, much like in the early stages of Singapore where different races were “stalled” in different parts of Singapore. For example, the Indians mostly lived in Little India while the Chinese in Chinatown. Ironically, the supposed “step” towards racial harmony is in actuality more similar to a step backwards.

Eric Khoo played on this notion in his film Mee Pok Man, in a scene cleverly shot to make it appear that people of different races were sitting and eating at the same table at a kopitiam, before panning out the camera to reveal that they are all actually sitting at different tables. The scene is a sly jibe at how Singapore, for all her talk of racial harmony, still has a lot to work on towards the achievement of racial harmony.

It is in this obvious irony that we actually find a

Singapore

culture, which is in itself ironic. The irony presents itself in everyday Singaporean life and is so prevalent that we barely even notice it. For example, we technically have freedom of speech – albeit only at a designated Speaker’s Corner where you must first obtain a license before you can speak, and woe betide you if you were to assemble an audience beforehand because that might be construed as organising an illegal gathering by who else but the Singapore Police Force.

It can thus be seen that modern coffee joints like Starbucks represent a certain American culture because it behaves like how the whole country is functioning. It is a reflection of its own parent country just like how the kopitiam reflects the Singapore culture of irony, so much so that, with all these ideas built in us, it slowly constructs the national identity in both instances.

Representatives of class status

Modern coffee joints and kopitiams have the function of representing class status differences. Singapore’s masked but acutely visible class system or division does not manifest itself as obviously as in India. However, this does not disguise the formation of a gradual class division amongst the Singaporean population. This can be observed easily through the number of branches of modern coffee joints and kopitiams in different areas of Singapore. Just in Orchard Road alone, modern coffee joints can be found within a stone’s throw away from each other, which is also the case for the multitude of kopitiams in typically heartland areas in the country. Are we thus able to deduce or infer from these, that modern coffee joints are indicative of a high end culture and kopitiams, perhaps a ghetto equivalent so to speak?

Again, this may be viewed through the mass media’s portrayal of both these entities.

Almost every other television advertisement by Starbucks includes someone in an executive wear drinking coffee, regardless of the fact that in both Singapore and USA, people from all walks of life do drink coffee from Starbucks. However, in movies, it is always the rich and the famous, or at least, a white-collared office worker who drinks coffee from some modern day coffee joint.

So who drinks Starbucks ?

In the famous "Glen" TV advertisement :

In “Miss Congeniality 2”, it was Gracie Hart, a celebrity for the Federal Bureaucratic Investigations Department.

In “You’ve Got Mail”, it was Joe Fox, a business associate at a big bookstore company.

So what does Glen, Joe and Gracie want to tell you ? Simply : Only high class people drink Starbucks. Due to it's subconscious hinting ,using these techniques, the idea that "Starbucks = High-class" is gradually established.

For the local equivalent, the kopitiam is rarely seen as a place of high culture. Instead, it is viewed as a haven for the masses. Even in movies or TV serials, the people who frequent the kopitiams are the ordinary folks living in the Housing Development Board flats.

The more mature generation might remember the following lyrics: “Kopi-O! Kopi-O!” These are the lyrics to the opening song of Kopi-O (咖啡屋), a popular local Chinese drama serial a la Friends. Screened in 1986 and set in a typically Singaporean kopitiam, the series revolved around the loves and lives of the people who work in and frequent the kopitiam, and it captured the imaginations of Singaporeans with their humourous insights into life at kopitiams, and even spawned a sequel in 2002. While not being the focal point of many other local drama serials, the kopitiam continued to feature regularly in these serials.

Hainan Kopi Tales, a MediaCorp production about a family running a kopitam :

The theme song of the serial plays on with scenes of the kopitiam in the old days, where they look dirty, cheap and down-trodden. It is this common portrayal of kopitiams by the local mass media that may have led to it being viewed as a low-class place for the poor, at least in comparison with upscale coffee joints. This can also be observed through the type of furniture and utensils used. As a rule, kopitiam owners usually do not use branded glasses and plates in order to reduce their operating costs. Instead, they use cheap mass-produced glasses and plastic cups. In addition, the furniture in a kopitiam almost always includes the same wooden tables and plastic chairs. All these characteristics of the kopitiam certainly do not project an aura of a palace or any sense of exclusivity, and this had led to the kopitiam being perceived as a “low class” institution.

From another perspective, kopitiams can be seen as an expression of common folk culture. This is because at the end of the day, cuisine expression is an art, an elaborate penmanship of the coffee maker’s identity. This is especially so in modern day coffee joints, where coffee makers now adorn the fanciful name of “barista”, meaning a person skilled in the art of brewing good coffee. Viewed from such a perspective, and drawing parallels to the above points, does it mean that kopitiams as an expression of a folk culture is lower as compared to modern coffee joints? It certainly seems so. Sadly, this myth is being perpetuated with the combination of local and foreign media and as a result, we are deeming our own heritage as kitsch when placed beside foreign culture.

So what do we think ?

Kopitiams and modern coffee joints are similar in the sense that they both create alternate realities for people to retreat into and are representatives of national and class identity. However, as individual entities they are still just places for people to gather and enjoy food and drink. Finally, we may also draw parallels between these two institutions and our attitudes towards modernisation in the rapidly globalising world. Our frequenting modern coffee joints is indicative of our desire to be contemporary and to keep up with the changes brought about by globalisation, but the fact that we still visit kopitiams suggests that we are also trying to preserve and hold on to our Asian and Singaporean values and traditions at the same time. A dilemma then arises - because if we were to keep pace with the developments of the world we would ultimately be faceless individuals without any identity in the case of a completely globalised world, but if we stubbornly hold on to our traditions, we will be eventually left behind. So which way would Singapore go? There simply is no real way to tell at the moment, given the political, economic and cultural forces at work now, and we can only look to the future and hope that we will walk in the right direction.

[1] Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed the World (New York: Basic Books, 1999), p. 367

[2] http://imdb.com/title/tt0385307/quotes

[3] http://imdb.com/title/tt0218839/quotes

[4] Howard Schultz and Dori Jones Yang, Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built A Company One Cup At A Time (New York; Hyperion, 1997)

Drink some cultural coffee with me, will you ?

Kopi and Coffee - Same or Not ?