“I am sorry I have to leave,” Tan Jun Yuan says mid-way through the interview. He rushes off, dusts his shirt and serves a bowl of bah kut teh to a customer. Last September, the young lad struck a cord with many Singaporeans when he rolled up his sleeves and went into the harsh world of selling bah kut teh in a Toa Payoh coffee shop. The Independent Singapore featured him in a report on Oct 4, 2013. A first class honour graduate from the University of Manchester, Tan has been prepared to expand his small food stall to a new outlet in Lau Pa Sat this month. But Tan, 28, is now ready to let it all go after five months in the hawker business. He explains that he could not hire any local stall assistant of a fair calibre. He has been trying for the last four months through ads in newspapers and with the help of job agencies. “I get some applicants here and there. Some of them promised to turn up but never did. I had applicants who wanted to be paid daily, citing f
