“Bring your shoes in, they’ll get stolen.” Before CCTVs were installed at the staircase landings and corridors, that was my mum’s standard greeting to guests to our rental flat. Over the years I’ve had my rollerblades (thrifted from Cash Converters), a knockoff Yeezy hoodie, multiple pairs of shoes, and even an umbrella, stolen. Before this unit we were living in a three-room HDB flat in Bedok but—in a story familiar to others, I’d later realise—multiple financial missteps forced us out of our home and into the public rental flat system. My memories of the move are hazy, I was nine. Scavenging cardboard boxes. The noisy shredding of masking tapes. The rallying of help from extended family members. I remember sitting at the back of my uncle’s lorry, alongside some chairs, several boxes, and foldable mattresses. The journey took 25 minutes and once everything was unloaded, I sat in the new living room playing Purble Place.

Before she moved out, my sister and I used to share the same bed. Our bodies negotiated inches and my mornings were greeted with her drool on my pillow. Outside, in the living room, my parents sleep on single mattresses unfurled in front of our TV console. My father’s snores carry through the flat, cutlery clanks at midnight as instant noodles are prepared, the sounds of the bathroom tap running echoes without restraint. Sound moves easily here, crossing the short distances between rooms.

As a Malay rental flat dweller, it’s hard to not feel like I’m living the stereotypical Malay experience—one that is shaped by prejudice and misrepresentation. Online, you’ll see forums or videos associating Malay identity with a litany of social ills: teen pregnancies and marriages, health deficiencies, deviances, and dysfunctional families. The typical “type M” behaviours. While scholars have problematised such reductive views and called for a more structural and empathetic understanding of the “Malay problem”, the caricature still persists even in mainstream media reportage and national speeches.

Meanwhile, intra-community tensions are sometimes captured through the phrase “Melayu makan Melayu” (Malay eat Malay). It’s a colloquial expression that describes the sabotaging tendencies of envious individuals towards more successful counterparts, often through gossip. Variations exist elsewhere: crab in a bucket mentality, sour grapes, and the more local vernacular of “sinkie pwn sinkie”. But uniquely, Melayu makan Melayu adds a layer of race to this zero-sum mentality. The lack of Malay representations in successful positions (through official statistics) and the caricatures of “Malay failures” (through informal online commentaries), serve not only as “proof” of racialised community failure but also convey the illusion of scarcity—there are limited number of spots for Malays who need to fight among themselves to secure one. Those at the top must do their best to maintain their position, those at the bottom must use whatever means to climb up. This is the narrative I grew up with. Through interviews with 12 other rental flat dwellers—some identified below through pseudonyms—I’ve tried to unpack and situate it within the context of their aspirations as well as their lived realities.