News this week included: SG and China sign nuclear tech MOU; SG and India sign telecommunications and food safety MOUs; Anwar irritates Taiwan by calling it part of China; over 2,000 people rally over Maju Forest & Gillman Barracks plans; HDB residents want yellow tactile tiles, a fall risk, replaced; the Competition and Consumer Commission warns bikesharing firms against attempted price collusion; LawSoc to release audit report on workplace and governance issues; new code compels social media platforms to verify advertisers’ identities; Zaqy Mohamad, new Muslim affairs minister, “deeply disturbed” by paedophilia at mosque; WA, Tele, and other messaging services face new anti-scam rules; CNA investigation into fake consulting firm trying to hire former diplomats; ST examines why so many preschools close each year; parents struggle to meet kids’ digital and mental health needs; luxury eldercare from S$8K a month; NEA defends new reverse vending machine recycling scheme; loosened nightlife rules for Boat Quay and Clarke Quay; LKY’s pen auctioned for close to S$500k; ST commentary on viral head-patting incident; woman sues NParks over alleged 2023 wild boar attack; 42 critically endangered hawksbill turtles released; SG’s sole dedicated BMX facility opens in Tengah; women’s netball team Asian champions again; and Singapore Lions beat Thailand in ASEAN semis but lose on aggregate.

Below are the issues we explore in depth: 

Society: Chilling in the tropics

Many early corporations created literal brands from their original business. American Express began in freight forwarding. The Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company was only later known as 3M. Crédit Agricole first funded French farmers. And in 1903, when an RI boy decided to open a frozen food storage and distribution facility, he called it—what else—Cold Storage. 

Our ancestors’ fondness for transporting the world to our doorstep saw, in 1854, Whampoa’s Ice House near Coleman Bridge importing ice from the US, part of a broader colonial trade. Blocks were cut from frozen ponds and lakes in Massachusetts, insulated with sawdust and, after months at sea, arrived here having melted by over half. In 1861 Singapore Ice Works on River Valley Road was our first manufacturer. In 1916, Cold Storage entered the business, which it’d go on to dominate. 

Then, in 1923, Cold Storage made Singapore’s first ice cream, which in 1937 was rebranded as Magnolia, and sold alongside pasteurised milk from the world’s first tropical dairy farm. (Imagine 800 cows at the foot of Bukit Timah in, well, present-day Dairy Farm.) It baked bread from 1930 and opened its grocery department, beloved from colonialists to today’s tai tais, in 1933. Then, as now, Cameron Highlands and South Africa fed Singaporeans through Cold Storage. The Japanese military ran Cold Storage as a butai (unit) during its brutal Occupation (1942-45). A highlight of its post-war growth was the popularity of the Magnolia Milk Bars, part of a wave of chichi cafes that appealed to an aspiring middle class. A meal—featuring ice creams, milkshakes, sandwiches, hot dogs, or hamburgers—cost $5 in the 1960s (versus 50 cents for a bowl of noodles). 

The most iconic of its milk bars was the one at Capitol, later renamed a snack bar. It was a social institution: teachers treating students, friends celebrating exam results, and love, of course. “Magnolia Snack Bar occupied an iconic place in certain rituals of dating,” wrote Yu-Mei Balasingamchow. “[T]eenagers often went out in groups for picnics or dances, after which a couple who fancied each other would go on one-on-one dates at Capitol and Magnolia. Another former customer aptly sums it up: ‘If I brought a girl there, it meant she was really special.’” 

The elderly still reminisce about it on social media: “My favourite dating place before. Always order chicken pie and banana split, wow .. superb”; “It’s an IN THING in the early years and every pay day will get a milk shake as a reward for me and my brother too”. A “Capitol Milk Bar” attempted to emulate it in 2019, but quickly failed, perhaps because the retro 1960s American style diner is so yesteryear for our current youth, obsessed by gastronomic experiences from Japan, South Korea, and, increasingly, China.

Cold Storage’s corporate journey since has been hot and cold—expansion to Malaysia in the 1970s, acquisition by a Jardine Matheson subsidiary in 1992, and digital disruption and fierce competition from the likes of RedMart (founded in 2011). Last year Jardine’s DFI Retail sold the diversified retail group—which now includes Jason’s, at the upper end of the supermarket ladder, and Giant, at the lower—to Malaysia’s Macrovalue. 

It’s not quite clear why Cold Storage is celebrating this year’s anniversary with such gusto. A “123 Years: Where the World’s Best Come Together” promotion is on till September 2nd, and a “123 Anniversary Tote Bag Giveaway Event” is on this weekend at Great World and next weekend at Tanglin. Perhaps simple numbers, like names, are the ones that work best.

Society: Livestream lelong

Burning charcoal fumes, fragrant deep-fried foods, and bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceilings. Hair strands plastered to sticky foreheads while elbows haggled for space. Hot, humid, and hazy. Eurodance music blasted from speakers as uncles yelled “lelong lelong”, “buy two get one free!”. Before online shopping became the norm, the pasar malam (night markets) were the go-to places for good deals as long as you had either the charm to win over the vendors or skin thick enough to bargain with them.

Retail livestreaming transported the pasar malam experience to the palms of our hands. A tap on the “Live” symbol on TikTok and you can scroll through endless streams of content creators. From blouses and portable fans to “ramen corndogs” and high-end crystals—these livestreams thrive on lively, unscripted banter between curious viewers and their hosts. The pinnacle of shoppertainment. Some of these hosts are your average Singaporeans working as brand representatives with relatable qualities. Average body size, a similar office hours lifestyle, and a down-to-earth personality and meticulousness in addressing viewers’ queries—the perfect ingredients for a parasocial relationship with customers. 

In 2025 DBS projected that the social commerce market that year would reach USD3.17bn (S$4.03bn), with live commerce making up to USD1.3bn (S$1.65bn), thanks to its astonishing conversion rates. The actual 2025 numbers aren’t available yet but suffice to say that live commerce is now a behemoth. However, netizens have raised concerns about the predatory sales tactics deployed by some popular creators. Acting as opinion leaders, these creators use countdowns, bells, the threat of limited stocks and the theatrics of “arguing” with the “boss” for “best prices”, all to pressure viewers into buying. These tactics are similar to the “dark patterns” designed to mislead and manipulate consumers through artificial time and stock limits. 

A pair of influencers recently came under fire for abusing customers who apparently wanted to return highly sought-after items after the livestream ended. Another burst into fits of rage when viewers questioned the authenticity of the items he was selling. While recognising streamers’ labour, it’s important for consumers to be aware of their right to seek clarifications and return products, especially when the return policy allows them to. 

Since live commerce is a nascent industry, consumer protections and regulations are still lagging. One user raised the need for a specific law for livestreaming sellers beyond the current Protection from Harassment Act and Consumer Protection Act catered for traditional harassment and offline retail. Beyond hosts, she suggested that platforms be held accountable, to enforce timely takedowns, investigations, and sanctions for repeat offenders. 

Beyond pondering laws to protect consumers, it’s worth considering what we have lost in exchange for the convenience of online shopping. Unlike pasar malam, livestreams minimise viewers into easily replaceable numbers, and relationships become optional—stripping away yet another layer of human connection in an increasingly lonesome, ironically disconnected world.

Society: Picking pockets

Among the myriad nemeses Harry Potter faced during the seven-book run before his creator embraced the dark side was Vernon Dursley, his ruddy-faced uncle. Readers hated Dursley for many reasons including the fact that he forced Harry to stay in a tiny cupboard under the stairs of a spacious house. It may be time for a reassessment. Had he been anything like today’s landlords, Dursley would have let out the space to a rent-paying tenant instead of generously accommodating his free-loading nephew.

Pocket-sized rentals are a small but growing phenomenon in Singapore, where landlords are renting utility rooms, bomb shelters, storerooms and—as CNA informed readers with neither comment nor criticism—“rooms originally meant for domestic helpers”. Other home owners are embracing “fractional renting”, dividing and sub-dividing living rooms, dining areas, and other spaces to maximise the number of tenants and wring up to twice the rental yield they’d get from putting the entire unit on the market. That they can do so is partly thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, when a confluence of factors led to housing rents rising by up to 40 percent between 2021 and 2023. Even though the public and private housing stock has increased rapidly since, rents have not receded to pre-pandemic levels. Lower-income individuals and students on tight budgets are being forced to take up rooms that border “on being a bit inhuman”, said a senior executive of one property platform. Still, things could be worse. They could be forced to sub-let their beds, like some youngsters in China or risk homelessness, like so many older women in Australia. 

If there is a silver lining on this depressing cloud of late-stage capitalism, it is that at least some are exercising their agency—opting for tiny spaces as a way of minimalist living. For others confident of bouncing back financially, these are a valuable rung on which to regain their footing. These groups are part of a larger, proactive reorientation in Singapore’s housing market. Many young Singaporeans—singles ineligible for housing until they’re 35, as well as couples waiting for their Build-To-Order (BTO) flats—are availing co-living properties under a newly launched independent living initiative. This initiative is mostly a stepping stone towards outright ownership, which remains the dominant desire as well as policy thrust.

But a smaller subset is shrugging off conformist notions of home-ownership as a measure of self-worth. For them, co-living offers flexible leases, and communal events that make it easier to meet others, vital in an increasingly atomised society. Besides, with no guarantee that house prices will continue rising swiftly and indefinitely, there are better investments out there.

Here too, Singapore isn’t alone. Cities like London and New York are seeing a similar change in living patterns, driven by rising prices, and people—both young and old—increasingly eager to stray from predetermined tracks of modern life that go: school-college-job-marriage-house-children-retirement-death. As long as people are eschewing any, or indeed, all of these, out of choice, it’s to be celebrated. (Last week, Jom wrote about people choosing pets over children.) After all, there’s a world of difference between rejecting the housing ladder and being forced to room in Harry Potter’s cupboard for S$700 a month.

Some further reading: In “Yearning for a place to call our own”, we meet some of the young, single Singaporeans moving out in search of freedom and independence.

History weekly by Faris Joraimi

The month of August is a regional birthday marathon, with three South-east Asian nations achieving sovereignty in one form or another. Singapore observes its separation from Malaysia on August 9th 1965, the Federation of Malaya (now West Malaysia) marks its independence on August 31st 1957, whereas Sukarno’s proclamation of Indonesian independence took place on August 17th 1945. The last event began a four-year conflict as the Dutch clung to their archipelagic colony through a British-backed military campaign. For Indonesians, this National Revolution was decades in the making, led by Dutch-educated elites who’d read Western political theory, while armed youth volunteers did the fighting. But against superior Dutch tactics and resources, the struggle was also aided by international pressure. A weakened Europe and the tide of anti-colonialism in Asia and Africa made return to the pre-war status quo unpopular. The Dutch only relented in 1949, with a formal transfer of sovereignty to the Indonesian government following a Round Table Conference. Other countries sympathetic to the revolutionary cause had already recognized Indonesian independence, however. In that chapter of the story, Singapore had a little-known part.

The first foreign power to recognise Indonesia as a sovereign nation was Egypt in 1947, which had won its own independence from Britain in 1922. In the pre-fax and e-mail age, documents still went on their own winding odysseys, including the critical document signed by Mahmoud El Nokrashy Pasha, then-Egyptian prime minister declaring his government’s de facto and de jure recognition of Indonesia. The Indonesian delegate tasked to take the document back home was Abdurrahman Baswedan, journalist, nationalist, and member of the prominent Arab diaspora in South-east Asia. He journeyed from Cairo to Bahrain, Karachi, Calcutta, and Rangoon (Yangon), before landing in Singapore, where he ran out of funds to make the final, decisive crossing. Though he was far from out of luck, and family connections: there had been an Arab community in Singapore since the days of Raffles, and their relatives were spread across the region’s port-cities. Baswedan approached the Baobeds, who had ties to his own mother-in-law in Semarang, to keep the Egyptian recognition papers somewhere secure. Syeikh Awab Baobed and his wife Siti Aisyah Basharahil agreed to place them inside a metal safe at their home on No. 7, Lorong 35 Geylang Road.

With the help of Sayid Ibrahim Alsagoff, local Arab magnate and Muslim community leader, enough money was raised to get Baswedan his flight ticket out of Singapore, a month after he set out from Cairo. Ironically, it was the Dutch carrier K. L. M. that flew this vital piece of Indonesia’s diplomatic offensive to its provisional government, then headquartered in Yogyakarta under the local sultan’s protection. But it was still those old migrant kinship networks, spanning borders and territories longer than colonial empires and jet planes did, that reinforced the fight against imperialism.

Arts: Kitchen confidential

You’ve scored a seat at Nouri, the Michelin-starred establishment promising fine dining with a South-east Asian sensibility, where a 10-course tasting menu starts at S$328. Decadent dishes are magicked before you: everything from butter-poached lobster in sauce Choron to a lava cake anointed by caramel made from dried scallops. But you aren’t sitting at just any table: you’re at the chef’s table of chef’s tables, where culinary artist Ivan Brehm himself is regaling the story of his life. Spend an eye-watering S$412 (your Culture Pass won’t help you here) and you could be part of this exclusive dinner theatre experience presented by Checkpoint Theatre. 

Dinner theatre, whose American heyday was in the 1970s, is seeing a real renaissance here. It’s a tantalising prospect for theatre groups hoping to entice food-obsessed Singaporeans across the threshold from food culture to high culture. You could break the bank on haute cuisine, or go the gentler hawker route; at the recent Singapore International Festival of Arts, you could get a ticket to “Makan Culture” for S$20 and tuck into a homely bento box of fried laksa, achar, kaya sandwiches and pandan cake—while the show bemoaned the undervaluation of Singapore’s invaluable hawker culture. Most dinner theatre evenings, usually hosted by hotels, fall somewhere in-between price-wise. The Singapore Repertory Theatre’s “Fried Rice Paradise – The Makan Party” (starting at S$168) is making a return at Paradox Singapore Hotel after its premiere last year, where sisters Nancy and Fanny tussle over the inheritance of their mother’s restaurant. You’ll get to chow down on fried rice, of course, set to Dick Lee’s earworms. The familial feuding continues with “Choo’s Masquerade Party: A Buffet Of Hidden Agendas” by Dream Academy, where you could spend an evening gossiping about the corporate dynasties of crazy rich Asians in this theatrical sequel to “The Divorce Party!”, a show that shook up the assets of the same well-coiffed clan. Both affairs took place at The Capitol Kempinski Hotel Singapore, and attendees of this “company launch party” can mow through a buffet boasting live laksa and ice kacang stations (from S$148). 

But if such gastronomic extravagance (and expenditure) gives you pause, there are other feasts in the theatre that might better suit your tastes. In 2022, The Theatre Practice staged “Extinction Feast”, a collaboration with a local kelong that crafted canapes specially for the show, including one starring the green-lipped mussel, ordinarily an invasive species here. In the show, a young man struggles with helming his family’s seafood restaurant while confronting the damage their chosen industry does to the environment, from overfishing to food waste. The Theatre Practice followed up with “Pickle Party” last year, where audiences got to try their hand at pickling—peeling and jarring an assortment of veggies—while also going on a whistlestop tour of Singapore’s development from farmland to dense urban metropolis. The theatre company has committed itself to eco-theatre, a genre that prioritises climate justice and environmental advocacy, doing its best to make all of its productions as sustainable as possible, from repurposed sets to upcycled props. The Theatre Practice also runs Practice Tuckshop, where you can get three-course meals made from salvaged food by a rotation of enthusiastic home cooks and professional chefs, and pay what you feel is appropriate. Sure, we’re obsessed about food, but we should probably also be obsessed about where it comes from, those who’ve poured their life into it, and where it’s going.

Faris Joraimi, Abhishek Mehrotra, Sakinah Safiee, Corrie Tan, and Sudhir Vadaketh wrote this week’s issue.

Letters in response to any blurb can be sent to sudhir@jom.media. All will be considered for publication on our “Letters to the editor” page.

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