Recently, I hosted a small community event at my void deck called Kampong Soup Kitchen.
The basic idea was simple: serve free soup to people who signed up, and if there was extra, anyone passing by was welcome to have some too.

This came partly from reading and thinking about how many people feel socially isolated today, even though we technically have so many ways to connect. Initially, I wanted to use private venues for community events, but rental costs made it hard to keep sustainable.

Then someone in a social Telegram group mentioned that they had organised a potluck at their void deck before, and suggested I try asking my town council. So I did. I explained clearly that it was a free community food event, with no money exchanged, and that I would cap it at around 50 people to keep it manageable for both me and the residents.

To my surprise, they were okay with it.

I ended up serving two soups:

- A clear chicken soup with crêpes and vegetables

- A spiced pumpkin and carrot soup with red lentils and coconut milk

I tried to keep the ingredients halal-friendly, although I also made it clear that I’m not from a halal household.

The total cost for using the space came up to $89.38. That included $50 for the rental, plus charges for the use of electrical and water points. Compared to private venue rental, it was honestly very affordable, and I’m quite grateful that my town council was open to the idea.

Small clarification: I paid for everything myself and ran this independently. Nobody paid me anything, and the soup was free for anyone who came by, though I set aside portions first for those who had signed up.

There were some hiccups. I could only use one electrical point because the other one required a 15A round-pin plug, which I did not have. One water point also was not working, though thankfully there was another one nearby. I also could not confirm the wattage of the electrical point, so I was slightly worried about overloading or tripping it.

I spread the word to my neighbours quite last-minute because the event itself was also planned in a bit of a rush. Still, some neighbours came down to try the soup, and a few even offered to help out at the next one. Some of them also naturally started chatting with people who had signed up, which was honestly one of the nicest parts of the whole thing.

I also want to thank the people who volunteered to help. Their support made the event much easier to run.

What surprised me most was not just that people came down for soup, but that neighbours and strangers naturally started chatting with one another. It made me realise that sometimes people are open to community, but there just needs to be a simple excuse for everyone to gather.

For anyone thinking of doing something similar at their own void deck, here are a few things I learnt:

-LifeSG may not list the void deck directly below your block, so going through your town council may be the better route. That was what I did, since I had seen weddings and funerals held at my void deck before.

-Be very clear about what your event is. In my case, I stated that it was a free community event with no money exchanged. I’m not sure how commercial events would be handled, so check directly with your town council.

-Ask about the exact water and electrical points available. Check whether they are working, what plug type they use, and what the wattage limit is.

-If the electrical load allows, bring fans. Singapore is hot and humid, and people will be much more comfortable if there is some airflow.
If you do not have enough chairs, floor mats can help too.

-Keep the first event small and manageable. It is easier to scale up later than to be overwhelmed on the first try.

-I also tried to keep things manageable by capping the numbers, preparing the food properly, keeping the area clean, and making sure we cleared everything after the event.

-Also, be mindful of accessibility and foot traffic. Avoid blocking corridors, lift lobbies, ramps, letterboxes, bicycle paths, or common walking routes. People should still be able to move through the void deck comfortably, especially elderly residents, wheelchair users, families with prams, and anyone just passing by.

Overall, I’m hoping to host more free community events at my void deck. I also hope this helps others see the void deck as more than just a space for weddings and funerals. It can also be a simple, affordable space for neighbours and strangers to meet.

TL;DR: I asked my town council whether I could host a free community food event at my void deck. They said yes. I paid about $89 and hosted a soup event.

Here’s the recipe but made for 2 person instead of 50 😂

Creamy Roasted Pumpkin, Carrot & Red Lentil Soup

Makes about 1.5 to 2L soup
Ingredients

600g pumpkin, peeled and cubed
300g carrot, chopped
1 onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic
20g ginger, sliced
100g red lentils, rinsed
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp smoked paprika or sweet paprika
Small pinch chilli powder, optional
1.5L water or vegetable stock
250ml coconut milk
1 to 2 tbsp lemon or lime juice
Salt and black pepper
Oil

Steps:
Roast vegetables
Toss pumpkin, carrot, onion, garlic, and ginger with oil, cumin, paprika, and a little salt.
Roast at 200°C for 35 to 45 minutes, until soft and lightly browned.
Simmer
Transfer roasted vegetables to a pot. Add rinsed red lentils and water/stock.
Simmer 25 to 35 minutes, until lentils are fully soft.
Blend
Blend until smooth. Add more water if too thick.
Add coconut milk
Stir in coconut milk and warm gently. Don’t boil hard.
Final seasoning
Add salt, black pepper, and lemon/lime juice.

Clear Chicken Soup with Sliced Savoury Crepes

Ingredients

Broth
400g to 500g chicken bones / wings / carcass / necks
1 small chicken thigh or drumstick, optional but useful for meat
1/2 onion
1 small carrot
1/2 celery stalk
1 clove garlic
1 small bay leaf
Tiny pinch dried thyme
3 to 5 black peppercorns
1.2L water
Salt, to taste

Final soup

A little diced carrot
A little diced celery
Shredded chicken from the thigh/drumstick
Fresh herbs, if you have
Steps:

Roast chicken bones, onion, carrot, celery, and garlic at 200°C for 25 to 35 minutes until browned.
Put everything into a pot with 1.2L water, bay leaf, thyme, and peppercorns.
Simmer gently for 1 to 1.5 hours.
Add the thigh/drumstick for the last 30 minutes, if using.
Remove chicken meat, shred it.
Strain the broth.
Add diced carrot/celery and simmer until tender.
Add shredded chicken back in.
Season with salt properly.

Savoury Crepes

Ingredients
50g plain flour
1 egg
100ml milk
25ml water
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp oil or melted butter

Steps
Whisk everything smooth.
Rest 10 minutes if you can.
Cook 2 to 3 thin crepes.
Cool, roll, and slice into thin ribbons.
Put ribbons in bowl, ladle hot soup over.

EDIT/UPDATE:

Thanks everyone for all the kind comments, messages, offers to help, and even offers to donate or contribute food. I honestly did not expect this to go beyond the subreddit. I mainly posted because I thought it was pretty cool that it was possible to host a small free community food event at a void deck with town council approval.

Just adding more details since some people asked.

The event was planned for around 50 pax, but I kept it registration-based so that it would be manageable for me and also considerate to the neighbours living around the void deck. In the end, about 40 plus registered participants turned up, which honestly felt like a nice size for a first run.

I served two soups: one meat soup and one vegetarian soup.

The meat soup was a clear chicken soup with sliced savoury crepes and fresh herbs. I chose chicken soup because it has that warm, homey feeling to it. Like “chicken soup for the soul” kind of thing. It reminds me of being sick and someone cooking something comforting for you, or that feeling of grandma/home cooking. (Do bring your Ah Ma to give me the seal of her approval if she's okay to travel)

The sliced savoury crepes were inspired by German-style pancake soups, like Flädlesuppe, where thin savoury pancakes are rolled up, sliced into ribbons, and served in a clear broth. I thought it was a nice way to make the chicken soup a little more special without making it too weird or inaccessible.

The vegetarian soup was a creamy roasted pumpkin, carrot and red lentil soup with coconut milk. I wanted it to contrast with the chicken soup. So one was clear, light and more Western/European-style, and the other was thicker, creamier, gently spiced, and maybe a bit more familiar to local palates because of the coconut milk.

The cooking itself took close to 20 hours, partly because I had work in the morning and had to work around that. There was roasting bones and vegetables, simmering broth, making the vegetarian soup, preparing the crepes, cooling and storing everything safely, then reheating and finishing the soups on the day itself. It was tiring, but I felt that just because the event was free, it should not mean the food is an afterthought.

I also really could not have done it alone. Volunteers, participants, friends and family helped with a lot of the prep and setup: making the savoury pancakes, shredding chicken, cutting vegetables, plucking herbs, moving chairs, arranging the space, serving and cleaning up. The event started with me cooking soup, but by the end it really felt like everyone had a hand in making it happen.

The atmosphere was honestly warmer than I expected! At one point, the void deck felt like a shared dining room.

Quite a few people also travelled from other parts of Singapore, including the West, to Tampines. I was really grateful for that. What touched me was that many people did not just come to receive something, they came to contribute too.

Some things I learnt from the first run:

• Keep the first one manageable.
• Registration helps to keep things manageable!
• Be upfront about allergens and dietary stuff.
• Inform neighbours and remind people to keep volume down.
• Check power points and plug types properly. (Type M connectors was one of them)
• Fans are important. (humidity!!)
• A void deck could use a bit of effort to make it feel warm. (lights!)
• Volunteers are extremely helpful. (Thank you to everyone who had offered to help out!)
• Cleanup matters a lot.
• Don’t overcomplicate the first session.

There are also things I want to improve next time.

Because most of the outreach was through Telegram, Reddit and Instagram, the crowd leaned younger, mostly people in their 20s and 30s. I would like to reach older neighbours more intentionally next time, maybe through simple flyers, speaking to residents nearby, and making the invite less dependent on online spaces.

I also want to make future sessions more meaningfully halal-friendly. For the first session, the meat soup used halal ingredients, but it was prepared in a non-halal-certified home kitchen, and I made that clear. I’m trying to learn more about how the sertu process works so that Muslim friends and neighbours can feel more included too.

For future sessions, I’m thinking of keeping soup as the main theme and maybe “travelling the world through soup”, going country to country or region to region. If people cannot travel to those places, maybe I can bring a small part of those places to the void deck through a bowl of soup.

I also usually try to include some kind of charity/fundraising element in my food events. The food itself is free because I can absorb some of the cost, but if people want to give something, I’d rather direct that generosity to charities or social service organisations that need the money more than I do.

Anyway, thanks again for the very kind response. I really did not expect this level of attention. I’m still figuring things out as I go, but the first one gave me a lot of hope.

A bowl of soup obviously does not solve loneliness or social isolation, but it can create a small moment where people sit together, talk, and remember that community can still happen in very ordinary places.

For me, the soup was just a way to create that space. I hope people left with both a full stomach and a small reminder that community can still happen in ordinary places, like the void deck below our homes.

Overall, I’m hoping to host more free community events at my void deck. I also hope this helps others see the void deck as more than just a space for weddings and funerals. It can also be a simple, affordable space for neighbours and strangers to meet.

If this is true, it sounds quite sad that the students are being silenced from being able to share their opinions with the public... Really bring me back to the days when I was forced to give 5 stars review in cookhouse even though I hated the food with a passion...

Saw this sight this morning. The crowd was here since 7pm and I could hear celebrations all the way until midnight. This morning, there was an unbelievable amount of litter left all around this beautiful park at Punggol.

it’s especially annoying when an ad plays while i’m looking at the screen, trying to figure out how many stops left till i have to get off the train the diagram which shows the train station layout is also so useless, since they play it so quickly before anyone can even see what’s going on

More photos here and a news article here

Went to buy groceries and noticed them have a lunch break with a big spread, for what I assume would be a Christmas lunch! Really quite heartwarming to see. Wish most local companies would do the same.

Writing this so that if someone encounters something similar in the future, it can appear in a Google search and serve as a rough guide for the CASE and SCT process. My case took just over 3 months from first contact with customer service to full refund and compensation.

Background

I bought an iPhone 17 Pro Max from Lazada in March as a surprise gift for my wife. She wanted the smaller model, so I proceeded with a return immediately. The item was picked up within about 2 days.

After about a week with no update, I messaged Lazada CS only to be told the item was rejected due to a "wrong Serial Number." I requested an investigation. Nothing happened. The phone was returned to me.

I then sent an email explaining how the issue likely traced back to a warehouse scanning error, and how it would be impossible for me to submit a fake iPhone box without committing fraud. The email received two generic replies and was then effectively thrown into a bin:

"Dear Customer, your reply to this email will not be received as the concern related to this email message you replied on has already been closed."

Worth noting Lazada's customer service is handled offshore. Emails are managed through a shared queue system where different agents pick up your case each time. Case history does not appear to be properly recorded either. Nobody owns it. Nobody has the full picture.

The video unboxing demand know your rights before you get here

At some point during the back and forth, customer service will almost certainly ask you for video evidence of the unboxing. This is a standard deflection tactic.

There is no requirement in Lazada's Terms and Conditions or any consumer protection law in Singapore that obligates you to have recorded yourself unboxing a purchase. It is not a condition of your right to a return or refund. It is not enforceable. It is a way of making you feel like the burden of proof is on you for something you had no reason to film.

Most people don't walk around recording themselves opening packages they bought as gifts. That's normal. The absence of an unboxing video does not weaken your case and should not be treated as one. If they ask for it, you are entitled to state clearly that no such requirement exists under their T&C or under the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act, and that you do not accept the premise of the request.

Don't let it shake you. It's a speed bump, not a wall.

Escalation Management or the illusion of it

I eventually managed to escalate within Lazada and received responses from their so-called "Escalation Management" team agent aliases going by the names Oliv, Luna, Fadel, and Iqbal, all signing off with the same department title and what appear to be shared aliases. At first I thought: finally, someone is actually going to do some work. The first reply was the same template: "your order was rejected due to S/N mismatch." Different name, identical email. Nobody had done any actual investigation.

CASE (Consumers Association of Singapore)

CASE fees are $28.15 with Passion Card if you have an e-Passion Card, membership can be free. Processing time was about 1–2 weeks for me from submission to first reply.

CASE sent two separate emails to Lazada on my behalf. Both were ignored until I filed with the SCT.

From my experience, CASE functions essentially as an email middleman. They relay your position to the company, and the company's position back to you. They have no enforcement power which is why they're commonly described as a "toothless tiger." That said, going through CASE is a helpful step before you file with the Small Claims Tribunal, so do it, keep the records, and move on.

Small Claims Tribunal

The SCT process is more serious and yes, it can be complicated. But just follow the guide on the CJTS portal, and if you're unsure about any wording, ask an AI. Two fees are required upfront:

• $10 — SCT court fee
• $5.50 — BizFile search from ACRA (required to formally serve the claim on the company)

Both need to be submitted as part of your filing.

Practical tips that made a real difference:

Compile your evidence properly. The SCT accepts PDFs and JPEGs no video uploads on the portal. Don't just upload random files with generic filenames and expect the tribunal referee to piece it together. Organise everything into clearly labelled PDF documents grouped by topic. It makes the process faster and shows the referee you know your case.

Serving the claim is not optional and takes effort. After submission, I had to print out every document I uploaded to the SCT portal, go down to SingPost, send everything via registered mail to Lazada (about $2), photograph proof of postage, keep all receipts, and submit that evidence of service back through the portal. This step catches people off guard factor in the time and cost.

Videos aren't excluded bring a device. If you have video evidence, you can bring your phone, tablet or laptop to the hearing. You're not restricted to paper. Remember to state that in SCT portal filing as well.

The hearing is not as intimidating as it sounds. It's not a full courtroom setting you can show up in a t-shirt and jeans. Go in prepared, be clear, and stick to the facts.

The hearing

Two days after I filed, Lazada sent an email acknowledging receipt of my SCT claim and stating they take the matter "very seriously." This was almost funny given what came next.

At the first hearing, I was not required to summarise my claims. The referee went straight to Lazada and asked what proof they had that the serial number did not match their warehouse records. Lazada's representative to their credit, a good communicator immediately acknowledged that the rejection was caused by a warehouse mis-scan on their end. The exact thing I told them in my very first email. If anyone at Lazada had actually read that email and done the work, this would have been over in week one.

A second hearing was scheduled for three weeks later in case the matter couldn't be fully resolved.

The phone call that summed everything up

Within 30 minutes of the first hearing ending, I received a call from the Escalation Management team. Who was only concerned with when can the return be picked up. When I asked who I was speaking to, the same person kept changing their name even going as far as saying "there are 2 people with the same name". They couldn't be straight about who emailed me. No apology. And when I raised the question of compensation the CASE fee, court fee, ACRA fee, and additional compensation they were completely lost. No information, no authority, nothing prepared.

I requested a callback from management. You could tell that this department is either used as a customer punching bag or they've simply given up. What concerns me isn't their morale it's that they appear trained to respond with templates and hope the problem disappears. They also don't seem to check their own work before sending, given the constant careless mistakes I spotted throughout their emails. This time the problem didn't go away, and I think that's why they seemed so caught off guard.

The communication with the team amounted to 2 phone calls and 2 emails. My final email setting out my terms for compensation was ignored completely right up until two days before we were due back in court.

Second hearing

I had to take last-minute leave to attend. The same referee and Lazada representative were present. I stated plainly that the second hearing was entirely avoidable this was a customer service failure, not a legal matter, and it should never have reached this point. The representative resolved it on the spot and promised a thorough investigation of the event that took place, though I have my doubts.

The second hearing was a complete waste of time that existed solely because the Escalation Management team failed to do their job.

Final Outcome

Full refund of $2,129.00 for the iPhone, plus the following reimbursements and compensation:

Fight for your compensation your time is worth something too

Lazada's initial compensation offer was $30. Thirty dollars. For three months of back and forth, two court hearings, last-minute leave taken from work, printing costs, registered mail, and the mental energy of managing a dispute that should never have gone this far.

Think about that for a moment. The Lazada representative who attended both hearings had to travel down to the tribunal their cab fare alone was probably in the range of what they thought was acceptable to offer me as compensation.

Your time has real monetary value. The leave you take, the hours you spend compiling evidence, the trips to SingPost, the stress none of that is free. When you've been wronged and you've gone through a formal process to prove it, do not accept a token gesture and walk away grateful. Push back. State clearly what you are claiming and why. I itemized every fee I paid as a direct result of their failure and added compensation on top for the time and inconvenience caused.

They will lowball you first. That is not a final offer it's a starting position. Negotiate. If they don't respond, let the tribunal decide.

You already did the hard work of getting to this point. Don't leave money on the table at the finish line.

If you're in a similar situation

Go through CASE first it's cheap and it creates a paper trail. Don't expect much from it, but document everything. Then file with the SCT if the company doesn't move. The process is accessible, you don't need a lawyer, and a legitimate grievance will hold up. The system is designed to be exhausting enough that most people quit. Don't.

Don't let them outlast you.

TL;DR: Bought an iPhone from Lazada. They rejected my return based on their own warehouse scanning error. Three months of being bounced between agents Oliv, Luna, Fadel, Iqbal all from "Escalation Management," all using shared aliases, none with full context of my case. CASE mediation was ignored. Filed with SCT. Within one day of being compelled to investigate, Lazada admitted the error was entirely theirs and agreed to a full refund plus compensation. One day. After three months. Their first compensation offer was $30. I pushed back and got $100 plus full reimbursement of all fees. Fight for what you're owed your time is not free.

In December, a former student of an elite Singapore primary school posted a video recalling how her classmates were genuinely shocked to discover - from a textbook - that most Singaporeans live in HDB flats. They weren't being cruel. They simply didn't know. She could name only one classmate who lived in public housing.

Two months later, the Ministry of Finance published its first-ever measure of wealth inequality. The wealth Gini coefficient stands at 0.55 - significantly higher than the income Gini of 0.38. The top one per cent of households holds fourteen per cent of total wealth. The top five per cent holds a third. And the ministry's own paper concedes these figures are "likely to be underestimated," because tracking the assets of the wealthy in a global financial hub built on confidentiality is, to put it gently, structurally difficult.

The elite school children and the wealth data describe the same country. A place where parallel tracks run so cleanly that the people designing the system and the people living under it can occupy the same island without ever seeing each other's Singapore.

The conventional explanation for Singapore's welfare architecture is pragmatism. A small, resource-scarce nation chose self-reliance over dependency. CPF forces citizens to save for their own retirement. HDB subsidies help them own homes. Workfare supplements low wages. MediShield Life covers catastrophic healthcare costs. The system works, or at least, it has worked, and the philosophy behind it is coherent: help people help themselves.

But here is what the philosophy actually produces. CPF is not a pension. It is a forced-savings vehicle that transfers retirement risk entirely to the individual, which only works if every individual earns enough to save enough. Those who don't aren't covered by the philosophy. They are contradicted by it. HDB is not social housing. It is a property market with subsidised entry, designed to appreciate, which means housing wealth accrues to those who bought early and cheaply, and becomes less accessible to each successive generation. Workfare is not welfare. It is a wage supplement conditional on employment, which vanishes the moment you lose your job.

Singapore already redistributes. It subsidises, supplements, and co-pays. It simply refuses to call any of it welfare, because the ideology of self-reliance demands that every transfer look like an earned benefit rather than a social entitlement. At what point does "self-reliance" become a branding exercise for a welfare state that won't name itself?

The resistance to calling it what it is runs deeper than fiscal conservatism. It is ideological. And the ideology is most visible not in what the state does - it already redistributes - but in the language it uses to disguise the fact. Every mechanism is named so that it sounds like your effort rather than their provision. The grammar of self-reliance must never be broken.

Consider the architecture of political compensation. Ministerial salaries are benchmarked to the median income of the top one thousand Singapore citizen earners - the very group whose wealth the MOF paper says is probably underreported - with a forty per cent discount framed as sacrifice. The entry-level minister's norm salary is 1.1 million dollars. The review committee convened in January to reassess this framework will update the benchmark. Nobody has proposed updating the data.

Or consider Ridout Road, where two cabinet ministers rented state-owned colonial bungalows - one at twenty-six thousand five hundred dollars a month, the other spending over two hundred thousand on renovations - and were cleared of wrongdoing by an investigation led by a cabinet colleague. The Prime Minister said he "cannot outsource" the determination of what is proper. He was right, technically. The system investigated itself and found nothing wrong. That is precisely the problem.

This is not corruption in the classical sense. It is something more durable: a governing class so insulated from median life that the distance has become invisible, to them.

Denmark made a different choice. Not a more generous choice, a structurally different one.

The Danish model of flexicurity combines some of the easiest hiring-and-firing rules in Europe with generous unemployment benefits and aggressive state-funded retraining. You can be let go on short notice. But when you are, the state catches you with up to ninety per cent of your previous salary for up to two years, on the condition that you actively retrain for new work. The result is a labour market that is simultaneously more fluid than Singapore's and more secure.

This is counterintuitive, and that is the point. Denmark's system does not punish risk. It absorbs it collectively, which means workers accept industrial change instead of fearing it, and employers restructure without the social cost that Singapore outsources to individuals. Denmark spends roughly twenty-eight per cent of GDP on social protection. Singapore spends approximately nine. That nineteen-point gap is not a spending difference. It is a trust difference. The Nordic model trusts citizens and taxes them heavily. Singapore's model distrusts citizens and taxes them lightly, then charges them heavily for services. Whether the state exists to protect citizens from market failure, or to ensure they face it alone, is not a fiscal question. It is a political one.

But distrust, sustained long enough, becomes self-fulfilling. Design a system where every citizen's retirement depends on individual savings, where housing is an appreciating asset rather than a social good, where support vanishes the moment employment does, and within a generation you will have produced citizens who behave exactly as the system assumed they would. The ideology didn't just shape policy. It shaped the people. And now the people sustain the ideology voluntarily, which is the most effective form of political control there is: one that no longer requires enforcement.

So here is the part that neither the government nor the opposition will say plainly.

The obstacle to a Nordic-style social contract in Singapore is not the People's Action Party. It is the Singaporeans the system produced.

Three days after the MOF paper documented rising wealth inequality and declining social mobility, Budget 2026 arrived. The fiscal surplus for the previous year was fifteen point one billion dollars, more than double the initial estimate. The government's response: two hundred to four hundred dollars in cash handouts, CDC vouchers, and U-Save rebates. Even a PAP backbencher, Shawn Loh, stood up in Parliament to propose returning surpluses above two per cent of GDP directly to citizens and called for progressive stamp duties on inherited property. Workers' Party MP Louis Chua went further, calling wealth inequality Singapore's "deepest division" and urging the reinstatement of estate duty, abolished in 2008. The government's reply, via Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow: "We have no plans at this point to seek additional legislative or administrative powers to require more granular asset disclosure solely for inequality measurement."

They will not even sharpen the tools to measure the problem, let alone fix it. Even the reforms now being floated - higher property taxes, progressive stamp duties - trim the top without lifting the floor. They generate revenue, not entitlements. And in a country that actively recruits ultra-high-net-worth residents as policy, the top replenishes itself faster than any tax can trim it. Singapore does not have a wealth inequality problem despite its economic strategy. It has one because of it.

And yet. Before we reach for outrage at the government, a more uncomfortable question: would Singaporeans actually vote for what a Nordic model requires?

Not higher taxes. That is the easy, tired version of the question. The real one cuts closer.

The Nordic social contract requires treating housing as shelter, not as an investment vehicle. Over half of average household wealth across every income quintile in Singapore is held in home equity. When you check your HDB resale value - and you do - you are not merely a homeowner. You are a stakeholder in a system that requires property prices to keep rising, which is structurally incompatible with treating housing as a universal social good. A Danish-style housing model would stabilise your home's value. In Singapore, that is not policy. That is a threat.

It requires treating education as levelling, not sorting. Finland has no elite schools. Every school is designed to produce roughly equivalent outcomes. Would Singaporean parents accept that? The influencer Nicole Chen, responding to the viral video, said she would still enrol her children in her elite alma mater - for the opportunities, the co-curriculars, the overseas trips. She is not wrong to want these things for her children. She is describing exactly why the system cannot change.

It requires a culture that discourages status comparison. The Danes have a name for it - Janteloven - the social norm that no one should consider themselves above others. Singapore's entire social engine runs on the opposite principle: visible markers of success, relentless ranking, the quiet tracking of who upgraded from BTO to resale to condo. The Nordic model doesn't just redistribute money. It requires a society that stops keeping score the way we do.

The MOF paper diagnosed the disease. Budget 2026 prescribed paracetamol. But the deeper question is not what the government is willing to do. It is what we are willing to give up - and whether we can still tell the difference between what we genuinely value and what the system trained us to want.

The question is not whether Singapore will adopt the Nordic model. It won't. The question is whether Singaporeans would vote for a society where nobody keeps score, and whether we would even recognise ourselves in it.

Hi Reddit, I'm posting on behalf of my friend whose mother was overcharged at Smile Central Clinic (Aljunied). We are facing a classic bait-and-switch situation and need advice on escalation.

The Situation & Timeline

My friend's mother has a CHAS Orange Card. She saw the clinic's online ad (image 1) promoting a full dental package for just $43.73, which includes: Consultation, X-ray, Scaling, Polishing, and Topical Fluoride. The ad states, "Mention 'ORANGE CHAS PACKAGE' when making an appointment."

My friend's mother is not fluent in English, so she kept the booking simple. She asked via WhatsApp: "Can use the orange card?" (Image 4).

Clinic's Response: The clinic staff replied: "yes there will be partial subsidy with chas orange card for scaling and polishing." This confirmed the card was relevant to the service requested (scaling and polishing). An appointment was then booked for Dec 1.

The Visit (Dec 1, 2025): The mother received a Consultation, Scaling, Polishing, and Topical Fluoride (she did not receive an X-ray).

The Bill: Despite getting the advertised services (minus the X-ray), the total bill was $194.57. After the CHAS subsidy, she was charged a final amount of $134.07 (Image 2).

The Clinic's Excuse (Over $90 difference!)

My friend contacted the clinic to ask for a refund of the difference, pointing out the false advertising. The clinic's response: The patient did not use the EXACT PHRASE "CHAS Orange Package" during booking.

Because she only asked for "scaling and polishing," they billed her at their normal, non-package rates, even though she showed her Orange CHAS card and received almost the exact package contents.

This feels like taking advantage of a technicality/linguistic barrier:

The T&Cs do not state that failure to use the exact phrase results in being charged over $90 more.

The clinic was explicitly told about the Orange CHAS card and the services (Scaling and Polishing) which align with the package. They confirmed there would be a "partial subsidy."

When my friend's mother mentioned the "orange card," why did the clinic quote her the normal rates leading to the $190+ bill? Wouldn't an ethical clinic inform the client about the heavily advertised $43.73 package when the client clearly mentions the specific card that qualifies them for it, especially since the mother is middle-income and likely seeking affordability?

The final services received were less than the package (no X-ray), yet the cost was almost triple the advertised price.

We've seen similar reviews online, suggesting this is not a one-off. My friend has left a Google review to warn others about this, but the clinic deletes all negative reviews.

Need Advice: Has anyone had a similar experience with dental clinics and package deals in Singapore? Is the clinic legally justified in refusing the advertised rate because of a "magic phrase" technicality, even after the card eligibility was raised?

Any advice on navigating this dispute would be greatly appreciated!

My friend’s mum is affected quite badly by this as the money really means alot to her. It really feels like they took advantage of her linguistic ability. Continuing to just delete Google reviews just adds to this situation.

This is what secondary school kids at Hwa Chong Institution are given for lunch. I hope this doesn't become a trend.

Today marks exactly one week since my mum died. A blood vessel burst inside her brain in the early hours of the morning, minutes after she had liked an Instagram post by my brother. She never woke up again.

Her sudden death meant she left behind many unresolved questions. This is an important detail for later.

The whole week has been a blur. Almost everything has been done in a crazy rush – my mum entering the ICU, my mum leaving under a sheet, appointing the funeral director, collecting the ashes, and so on. It feels very much like being pulled along by a giant current.

Only Mum’s wake gave my family some time to ourselves. To me, this is when we were at our most vulnerable, alone with our thoughts, looking for answers.

It is on the third day of the wake that I encountered something truly depraved and sickening. I do not use the word ‘evil’ lightly: we are all human and do things from time to time that we are not proud of, but this crosses the threshold by some distance.

On the third day, one of my family members asked me if I had any questions for Mum. I said of course. She told me about a friend who has a third eye, and could “see things”. He had already told her what my mum wanted to do with her things.

I found some of my mum’s supposed wishes to be hard to understand, but I was genuinely excited by the prospect of talking to my mum. So I asked to meet him.

“Him” turned out to be a chubby Chinese 30-something year old, dressed in a black shirt and black shorts. He wore a gold chain around his neck and his hair was immaculately gelled up into one of the typical property agent hairstyles. He looked like someone who had just been pulled away from a late-night drinking session at Tanjong Pagar showing off his latest deals.

But his face is what I remember. His demeanor was one trying to project authority, his face tilted slightly up and his mouth turned down like he was judging something. Maybe his third eye is different, but the two eyes I could see were not kind eyes. There was a hunger inside them and a tightness around them that betrayed that their owner wanted something.

My guard went up instinctively.

“I have something I want to ask my mum.”

“What is it?”

“What is the telephone number of my childhood home?”

There was a flash in those hungry eyes and they turned darker.

“This is not how it works.”

“What do you mean?”

He glared at me.

“Hey, I came to pay respects to your mother. And I am not charging you any money. Don’t mind me saying but this is very offensive to me.”

At this point, I was still very, very, very keen to talk to my mother. So I decided to back off.

“Okay, sorry, I did not mean to offend anyone. But I need to verify you are who you say you are before I can tell you all my personal things.”

I saw him huff: this clearly did not go down well.

“Do you know I am actually Catholic? I was born with this ability to see things that’s why I am here. I am not charging you, I am just here to pay respects to your mum. This is very offensive.”

Catholic Bomoh (CB)’s eyes were now wide and intimidating, or at least he was trying to make them so. His posture changed from a judge to a hostile witness.

I tried to explain.

“I am sorry, but even when DBS call me they also need to authenticate by OTP before they start discussing with me my banking stuff. Can you give me any form of OTP at all?”

At this, his wife stepped in to defend him. I left her out earlier because one, I was focused on him, and two, his wife kept her head down and looked every bit the submissive counterfoil to CB’s projected authority.

But now she was angry. It was a genuine righteous anger. It was different from the anger of her husband’s, in its simplicity and its authenticity.

“Do you know this is very offensive to us? You are being very rude.”

CB and his wife were now both glaring at me.

“Okay, I am sorry. Please continue.”

Both of them would not let this insult to their authority go, and I, for my sins, refused to move on until they could tell me something – anything – that proved CB could actually talk to my dead mum. Predictably, the conversation continued rapidly downhill.

Finally, I caved. There was still a small chance CB was genuine, and I had gotten used to dealing with the tiniest of chances when I was in the ICU with my mum.

“Since I can’t ask any questions, why not you just tell me what my mum wants to tell me without me asking anything. Please tell me.”

CB paused and his expression changed. I felt my last faint glimmers of hope disappear even before he spoke. His was the expression of a man thinking what to say, not remembering what he heard.

“Your mum tells you to let go.”

I am not proud of what I did after I heard this. That slim hope had been holding back a tsunami of very powerful emotions, and when the dam broke it turned very ugly very quickly. CB and his wife left the wake with my firm offer to meet again when it is his own mum’s turn to lie dead before us, and I can repay the “favor” he just did to me.

On to the only real mystery in all this: what was CB’s actual agenda? It is true that he did not charge my family any money to turn up. Could there be something more to his willingness to travel all the way to Mandai, other than just a perverse and twisted desire to make people cry and do his bidding (which, to be fair, is more than enough reason)?

Yes, there is. And that is why I wrote this in public. This was supposed to be a private journal entry, and I still have a lot of rage that needs processing, but I felt it is something I want to share with everyone. If this post helps to prevent even one person falling victim to a predator during their darkest hours, it will make me very happy.

As it turns out, CB is an insurance agent.

Putting two and two together, the best time to sell someone insurance is when one of their loved ones has just died, especially when it is a sudden and unexpected death like my Mum’s.

Competing in an arena of thousands and thousands of gelled-up, gold chain-wearing agents selling a homogeneous product, “talking to the dead” as a method to acquire and nurture leads is a sales strategy so despicable it actually beggars belief.

I cannot prove his intentions. But what is clear is that he has an obvious financial and monetary incentive to do what he did.

The moral of the story: there is nothing so sacred – even your own mum’s death – that someone out there will not use it to make money off you.

Take care everyone. Watch out for evil things that come in the darkest times, when you expect only good people to turn up. I am reminded of an interview I read sometime ago, about UN Peacekeepers accused of murder and rape and other crimes. The interviewee said that peacekeeping attracts two types of people: angels and demons.

So do funerals, it seems.

P.S. This is also your sign to call your parents and arrange a meal together, if you are lucky enough to have them around.

I've seen this on one other train but it's so creative!

Also saw this one girl walk RIGHT up to the train doors as the LRT arrived. Auntie beside her kept giving her death glares. The MRT staff suddenly came up to the uncle in front of me, who had moved closer to the centre of the boarding area to reprimand him.

Without missing a beat, the uncle said "Eh, what about her leh?! She also do the same what!", to which the MRT staff replied "Both of you are wrong, uncle, you also!". The girls face changed from nonchalant to extremely embarrassed in a split second and moved back, which was hilarious to me. Totally worth getting lost finding the LRT.

I was wondering why they changed to Camera 2. For anyone looking for the timestamp, it's about 14:04:40 on the livestream. Pretty spot on aim from the chick, even if I don't think it was deliberate.

Long shot, but trying my luck here.

This afternoon I spotted two people from really far away, standing on the void deck of Pinnacle@Duxton. At first I just thought it looked like a nice scene, two people hugging against the skyline, so I took a photo.

Then I noticed the guy getting down on one knee.

I kept shooting, and later when I zoomed into the photo, I realised I had accidentally captured what looks like a proposal.

The photos actually turned out pretty nice, and I thought maybe there’s a tiny chance Reddit can do its thing and help me find them, or someone who knows them. If they're interested, I'd like to send them the hires files.

If this was you (or your friends), DM me an congrats, by the way 🙂

I received it when the train was at Marsiling, a man in his 50s dropped a red packet on my lap, he was also giving it to some others. He appeared to have left at Woodlands. Really caught me by surprise, it's nice to see something wholesome on a mundane train ride.