Last month, I read an online article, datelined New York, about popiah in Singapore. To be precise, it was about a business started in the 1930s by the Ker family, producing the Kway Guan Huat Original Joo Chiat popiah. The business is still going strong and ready for the next generation of the Ker family.

The story was aptly headlined “Popiah: Passing down a classic Singapore snack”.

That did not create a furore, like what happened back in 2009 over the origin or birthplace of chicken rice and chilli crab.

Controversy erupted when the then tourism minister Datuk Seri Ng Yen Yen was reported to have said that Malaysia would lay claim to several famous dishes, synonymous with the country’s identity, as tourism products.

She named, among them, nasi lemak, laksa, bak kut teh, Hainanese chicken rice and chilli crab.

Singapore reacted by saying that could not be true. The birthplace of chicken rice and chilli crab, Singaporeans insisted, was the island republic.

Ng later said she had been “misunderstood”. Well, anyway, it was good that the issue did not boil over and melt the oven, so to speak.

This time, there was no such hoo-ha from our side despite the report describing popiah as a “classic Singapore snack”. Perhaps it was because the article also stated that popiah was born in Fujian province in China and spread across Asia as Fujianese merchants emigrated to places like Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand and, of course, Singapore.

If the report had said that popiah originated in Singapore, would it have resulted in another uproar? Maybe yes, maybe no. Are we being petty to the extent that we fight over who cooked what first?

But the thing is, when Singapore ceased to be part of Malaysia in 1965, it left behind a legacy of mistrust and misunderstanding. In fact, how the two countries separated is still being debated. Some say Singapore was kicked out, others that the separation was negotiated. And there are those who believe Singapore planned it all along as it had wanted out from day one.

Relations between Malaysia and Singapore have since improved greatly but still, there is some sort of love-hate thing going on. I guess that’s normal among neighbours — rivalry is common in sports, and definitely in politics.

Politicians on both sides love to use each other as a bogeyman to drum up support, especially during elections. Sad to say, our Malaysian politicians are the bigger culprits in this respect.

But it is not only scare tactics that are brought into play. Singapore is also trotted out to sweeten things up when things at home turn sour, such as when petrol prices or toll charges are hiked or during an economic downturn.

Recently, Second Finance Minister Datuk Johari Ghani, to fend off criticism about the country’s economic growth, threw in the Singapore card.

He said, based on statistics as at July 31, that Malaysia’s economy still grew 4.1% in the first half, while Singapore registered only a 2% rise. He added that “our debt to GDP is only 54.5% compared with Singapore’s 89%”. Johari, an economist and successful businessman before joining the Najib administration, is not wrong, of course, about the statistics.

But to veteran journalist Datuk Kadir Jasin, the minister is not totally right either. “Johari knows that comparing our economy with Singapore is not exactly right because we are a developing nation while Singapore is already a developed nation,” he pointed out.

He added that it is the norm in economics for growth to be generally higher in a developing country than in a developed nation, and that “the more developed the country is, the harder it is to generate high growth”.

The low economic growth of a developed nation, he explained, is of more value than a higher rate of growth in developing countries, taking into consideration per capita income.

Writing in his column in Malay daily Sinar Harian, Kadir said Johari’s claim that Malaysia’s economic growth is among the best in Asean as not spot on because “the 4.1% quoted by the minister is lower than the Philippines’ 7%, Vietnam’s 5.6% and the 5.2% recorded by Indonesia. Among the 10 Asean countries, we only won against Brunei and Thailand.” The former NSTP head honcho added that Johari “should not be too happy” with 4.1% growth as “it is the lowest since 2013”.

Which brings me to a memoir by former Singapore Straits Times journalist Ismail Kassim.

In No Hard Feelings, published in 2008, Ismail, among other things, wrote: “When I was an undergraduate, Singapore and Malaysia were almost on a par on many fronts. The exchange rate between the (Singapore) dollar and ringgit was roughly the same, as were the journalistic standards and the quality of students from the schools and universities.

“In just over three decades, Singapore has become a first-class nation, economically affluent with strong institutions and a highly skilled educated and resilient society.

“Except for registering strong economic growth in the years before the Asian currency crisis (in the late 1990s), Malaysia, on the other hand, has slid downwards on almost every front”.

To say we have a lot of catching up to do is an understatement. But still, Selamat Hari Malaysia everybody — belated wishes but which will always remain relevant.

Mohsin Abdullah, now a freelancer, is a veteran journalist and formerly executive editor at Edge TV

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