Our picks
Society: Me so generous
Netizens are divided over a TikToker giving two migrant workers nasi lemak packets at his HDB block. “Bro your heart is good; other man very hard work, you understand,” praised one. “Things people do for content,” derided another.
For the longest time, social norms favoured quiet philanthropy. Do good, don’t crow. But social media rewards performative charity, where crowing is indistinguishable from doing. The American YouTuber MrBeast is perhaps the most well-known, doling out cars, yachts, houses and parlaying that outlandish generosity into shares, likes and a media empire worth US$700m (S$910m). Singapore has its own MrBeast replicas, like Kevin Wee of “Radical Kindness”, who gives out phones, food, and sometimes just cash to strangers on the streets—including the low-income elderly, rough sleepers, and migrant workers. And he does so very, very publicly.
Beyond a vague discomfort, an undefined ickiness that some feel—shaped perhaps by cultural norms of modesty—is there anything inherently wrong with performative charity? One objection is disproportionate benefit. A marginalised worker will still be marginalised tomorrow, and perhaps a shade more deprived because there won’t be a surprise nasi lemak coming their way. The Good Samaritan, doubling up as both narrator and PR machine, makes off with fungible social capital: mawkish giving videos clipped for virality attracting praise, engagement and, finally, money. Icky. But how is proportion mediated? And if a small gesture can make a vulnerable person happy even for a few minutes, then should we, the privileged, cavil? Especially if such acts inspire others too.
Maybe it’s that on Instagram and others, charity videos sit beside memes, pranks, and other fluff. “The medium is the message,” wrote the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan. We travel from deprivation to opulence, from giving to consuming, with a thumb-flick. Unlike good art or literature, both of which sometimes trade in deprivation too, social media rarely allows for meaningful engagement. The medium’s message is that a glancing relationship with injustice is enough, and that it’s fine to centre and amplify the self. If all absorbed this message, few would bother interrogating historical narratives, political systems, and cultural norms on which unjust edifices stand. Worse, a medium built for and sustained by spectacle can reinforce the very inequities we seek to address.
Valid concerns, though it may be alarmist and short-sighted to crimp philanthropy’s evolution. People are built differently. Some film themselves handing out bread; others question why hunger persists. There’s some overlap but exceptions should not be expectations. These are the expectations we should have: respect privacy, request permissions, don’t cheat, and call out the charlatans in the community. As long as influencers meet these, maybe we should leave them be.
Society: Eat well, age well
A bowl of bak chor mee or a plate of char kway teow may fill the belly and satisfy the tastebuds, but they often fail to meet daily nutritional needs. A number of Singapore’s hawker favourites are high on refined carbohydrates and empty calories, but short on fresh vegetables, lean protein, and other essential nutrients. Many older adults who regularly consume hawker food out of habit, cost, and convenience are at risk of malnutrition. The consequences are far from trivial. Poor nutrition can trigger involuntary weight loss, muscle wasting, fatigue, cognitive decline, and weakened immunity, which can cause falls, hospitalisation, slow recovery, and mood disturbances, among other issues.
Last year, NHG Health found that four in 10 hospital patients aged 65 and above were at risk of malnutrition, up from three in 10 in 2022. Dieticians identified two-thirds of patients at discharge as malnourished or at risk, an increase from just over half the previous year. In the wider community, 22 percent of adults aged 60 and above are at moderate to high risk of malnutrition.
Singapore is hardly alone. Globally, roughly one in five older adults is malnourished; more than 97.6m cases were recorded in 2022. It’s a major public-health threat in need of urgent intervention. Yet, what makes the local picture striking is that this is happening in a wealthy, food-obsessed country with seemingly endless dining choices. And it’s not limited to seniors. Lower-income households too struggle with access to affordable, nutritious food. And with one in four Singaporeans set to be 65 or older by 2030, failing to address malnutrition will likely further burden families, caregivers, and social-service agencies already stretched by rising healthcare needs and costs.
Authorities have expanded nutrition care and early detection efforts, complementing existing social support schemes. EatWise SG, for instance, trains community providers to spot nutritional dangers and connect seniors to assistance. But international examples suggest room for other interventions, such as long-term care insurance; universal screening for malnutrition across hospitals and primary care; embedding dieticians in community settings; and national standards to ensure food aid for seniors are nutritionally adequate rather than merely charitable.
Closing the gaps also means leaning into our social tradition of eating together. Consider ideas like community dining clubs, subsidised “senior tables” at hawker centres, or incentives for neighbourhood kopitiams to host supper gatherings that echo Japan’s “shokuiku” model, blending nutrition education with social connection. We all grow old. Finding cost-effective ways to protect health, independence, and dignity in later life isn’t just a policy choice for today, but a collective investment in our future.
Society: Code for fun, funds to code
Besides English and mother tongue, what other languages does your child know? Python? Javascript? HTML? As more schools and enrichment centres offer coding programs, we’re seeing a generation of “trialinguals” who can speak to both humans and machines. From cryptic lines of chevrons and slashes, coding has evolved into a sandbox activity suitable even for preschoolers. Since 2020, a Ministry of Education (MOE) and IMDA tie-up has offered students modules like “Code for Fun” or “AI for Fun” as brisk ten-hour samplers on computational thinking, coding, and introduction to AI. In 2023, MOE released its EdTech Masterplan 2030 to leverage technology as a “critical enabler of learning.” Today, classrooms tinkering with Micro:bit to test out games they’ve coded on Scratch have become an increasingly common sight.
Now, as AI and automation proliferate, parents see coding and robotics as an effective way to future-proof their children. So in true kiasu Singaporean style, they’re sending them for extra training. We’ll see the fruits of their labour later this month, when nine-year-old Elon Chan and 11-year-old Skylar Chua represent Singapore in the Elementary Future Innovators category at the World Robot Olympiad. The duo have designed RoboBuddies, a contraption of Lego parts, a camera, 3D-printed materials, wires, and wheels, to help users keep a healthy distance from their device screens and also remind them to take regular breaks. They are mentored by Tribal Studioz, a private education institution that specialises in robotics.
Of the three other Singaporean teams at the competition, two are from the School of Robotics (sor). Sor offers robotics and coding courses for children ranging from preschoolers to secondary school students, as well as training for direct school admission (DSA-Sec) and competitions. The fees are hefty: S$576 to S$912 for 12 sessions and nearly S$3000 for competition training. Meanwhile, only 51 out of 182 primary schools offer Robotics as a co-curricular activity and a mere handful have robotics-related enrichment programmes. Costly access to advanced robotics and coding training gives some children an early edge that compounds: opening doors to selective secondary schools; paving access to prestigious higher education. One study showed that graduates from elite universities are slotted into “high-skilled” roles as they’re perceived to be more suited for complex tech jobs while others are nudged to “low-skilled” roles, making them more susceptible to job displacement.
Singapore’s flourishing shadow education industry has long played this role—polishing abilities while widening achievement gaps. As we celebrate the tenacity and creativity of our young inventors, we should also question societal privilege and parity. Who gets to compete, and who is left out?
Society: Sexual prowlers, chapter one
What do aspiring female musicians in Singapore have to allegedly contend with? Ken Lim, producer, invited one to his house and promptly showed her porn. At Hype Records, the studio he ran, he asked another if she was a virgin; how she pleasured herself; and whether she could really write songs without sexual experience. He charitably offered to be her first sexual partner. About a decade later, with another woman at the Hype Records carpark, he didn’t bother with the rigmarole. “What if I have sex with you right now?” he straight-out asked, after the obligatory virginity check. Age and power, as Dominique Strauss-Kahn and many others have shown, prompts men to dispense with formalities.
These incidents allegedly occurred in 1998-2013, during which time Lim became a familiar face as a judge on Singapore Idol (2004-09). We learned about them after the most recent (known) incident. On November 23rd 2021, a full four years after #MeToo revelations against Harvey Weinstein—aka that Western, leftist, anti-men conspiracy—Lim molested an aspiring actor on their third meeting. After she reported it, the others came forward. All were 18-26 at the time, and were either looking to work at Hype Records, pursuing a career in music, and/or working with him in some capacity. Lim was acquitted last year in the first of seven charges across five trials—the carpark incident—after the judge said she did not find the testimony of the alleged victim to be “unusually convincing”, the legal baseline for establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
At the second trial this February, involving molestation, we learned that the victim had already been subjected to much before the assault. Lim had asked if she would perform a sex act on a director and have sex with someone “to bring about change”; had mentioned “five traits” needed for success in the entertainment industry, including “sacrifice”; and had said he’d like to tie her up. He moved from chair to sofa and asked her to kiss him. She did, but looked disgusted. More passion, he demanded. That’s when he groped her breast. In September Lim was found guilty—the judge called him “an unreliable witness willing to make bald claims to defend his own interest”—and this week he was sentenced to 13 months in prison. The prosecution has withdrawn the remaining five charges, though can revive them if Lim’s conviction is set aside on appeal—which his team intends to pursue.
“The size of your ego is as big as your voice,” Lim, with his Cowellesque scowl, had once told a Singapore Idol participant. If only somebody had drummed that into him when he was young.
Society: Sexual prowlers, chapter two
Alas, not only on the casting couch must we, as a society, confront seduction, sleaze and sexual crime. In August, we learned of the human trafficking case against Achraf Arjaouy, an Italian man who’d tricked a Singaporean woman he’d met on Tinder here in 2021. Believing he was a wealthy Qatari who wanted to marry her, she followed him to Dubai, where he allegedly subjected her to “physical and psychological torture”, including “humiliating and invasive sexual acts”. He said that she needed US$10,000 of her own money to travel to Qatar for nuptials, so she finally relented to his demand to do sex work in Dubai. He pocketed her earnings, till she had to stop, because she contracted a sexually transmitted disease. The woman returned from Dubai in November 2021, and Arjaouy was arrested here in November 2023 for an unrelated offence.
He’s been out on US$100,000 bail. Until this week. The courts revoked it after a fourth police report about him assaulting his bailor, his current girlfriend. In May 2024, she told the police her life was in danger. She’s been to the hospital twice since, after Arjaouy slapped, punched and choked her. The last two police reports were made by third parties. On October 17th, two days after her last hospital visit, she applied to be discharged as his bailor, but withdrew the request on October 29th. This week, she addressed the court in person, saying he didn’t intend to hurt her, and was willing to remain as his bailor. The court disagreed, and revoked his bail. Such is the magnetism of a predator, who’s thankfully in remand now with the verdict due on January 16th next year. If convicted of recruiting a person by deception for sexual exploitation, Arjaouy could face up to: 10 years in jail, a S$100,000 fine, and six strokes of the cane. The heavens, speaking through his victim, have already judged him: “You choose [sic] to abandon me when I was in Dubai. I was in deep s***, you just torture me. I will not forgive you. Whatever you did was a sin.”
History Weekly by Faris Joraimi
On Facebook earlier this month, Sari Kartina Abdul Karim, a woman living in the Netherlands, posted an open letter breaking “50 years of silence”. She is a significant chapter in the interrelated histories of gender and religion in South-east Asia. In 1974, Sari Kartina, then 26, became the first Malay woman to undergo gender-affirming surgery and the first Malaysian trans woman to be married with the authorisation of an Islamic religious official. Before transitioning, she worked as a hotel receptionist in Singapore when she met and fell in love with Abdul Razak Othman, a canteen stall owner. Abdul Razak fully supported her intentions to undergo what used to be called “sexual reassignment” surgery. In the 1970s, Singapore was Asia’s leading hub for the procedure, pioneered by the famous obstetrician and gynecologist SS Ratnam. Because Sari Kartina was Muslim, Ratnam first sought approval from Singapore’s mufti (chief Islamic jurisconsult), who interviewed her at his office and greenlit the operation at Kandang Kerbau Hospital. “Congratulations, Miss,” said Ratnam upon her waking up from anaesthesia—a memory she cherishes to this day. After she recovered and got her family’s blessing, Sari Kartina and Abdul Razak were married by a kadi (judge) in the presence of the deputy mufti of Johor. It took the jurists three hours to determine that the marriage would be permissible and valid under Islamic law, which required medical proof of Sari Kartina’s sex—in the form of a letter by Ratnam—as well as her swearing an oath in God’s name that she was not coerced into becoming a woman.
Predictably, Sari Kartina had little control over the public narrative. There was no forum for discussion over issues of gender nonconformity in those days, and she gave only one interview to Berita Harian. Clippings from those news articles resurfaced some years ago in digital media, where I first came across her story. But after all this time, Sari Kartina is telling the story her way to multiple outlets and is working on her memoirs. In addition to her admirable courage, I was drawn to what her transition and marriage implied for the practice of Islamic law. In a way, it’s unsurprising that the Islamic legal specialists of Johor and Singapore had no issues with it, though not necessarily because South-east Asian Islam is somehow more accommodating due to a supposedly fluid, indigenous worldview. Gender categories beyond the male-female binary have long existed throughout the Muslim world, with jurists debating same-sex desire and the place of intersex individuals or feminine-presenting men (khunthā’) in public life. In the 1980s, fatwas (non-binding legal opinions) issued by theologians in Iran and Egypt permitted gender-affirming surgery. But the principle behind this tolerance isn’t really “progressive”. Presumably, trans people can still replicate conventional reproductive relations and “pass” within straight marriages, unlike gay or lesbian couples. Those with same-sex desires, in other words, are offered a trans path to redemption.
That said, it’s important to note that Islamic legal reasoning is characterised by debate and disagreement, so the positions of Johor and Singapore’s muftis back then don’t represent a timeless and universal Islamic position. They do suggest the internalisation of some Enlightenment values that were typical of reformist Islamic bureaucracies from the early 20th century, which may surprise those who operate along a false binary of faith and reason. Syed Isa Semait, then-mufti of Singapore, refrained from commenting on Sari Kartina’s marriage, but deferred to Ratnam’s expertise on her gender. (In characteristic Singaporean caution, with respect to the late mufti.) Syed Alwee Abdullah, the Johor deputy mufti who presided over the marriage, was more direct: “Only those who do not follow scientific developments will not accept that she has become a woman. There are some people who still do not believe that Man has reached the moon.”
Arts: Performance anxiety
Sex. Thrilling, transcendental, and stressful enough in the privacy of your own bedroom to begin with. Now, imagine going through the motions on stage for hundreds; or on screen, distributed around the world to thousands, nay, millions, all reaching for the popcorn, a closeup on your quivering bum and sweaty forehead, with a scene partner who’s probably as nervous as you are. That’s where someone like Rayann Condy enters the picture. She’s an intimacy coordinator, the one you call for staging everything from a chaste peck on the cheek to bodice-ripping simulated sex. Her job is to help us wrangle the messiness of human intimacy, where our brains may distinguish pretty clearly between a rehearsed kiss and a real one, but our bodies and hormones may not. The Singapore permanent resident is our only practitioner to be credentialled by Intimacy Directors and Coordinators, a leading international body.
Not all feel the need for them. Hollywood A-listers the likes of Jennifer Lawrence and Mikey Madison, for instance, have declined intimacy coordinators. Madison, who got an Oscar for her portrayal of a feisty sex worker in “Anora”, decided that she’d rather speed through filming without adding more people to the process; Lawrence, with characteristic candour, declared: “I felt really safe with Rob [Robert Pattinson, her “Die My Love” co-star]...He is not pervy...We mostly were just talking about our kids and relationships.” But, Lawrence added, if there were any romantic awkwardness—“Does he think I like him?”—then she would have wanted an intimacy coordinator. “A lot of male actors get offended if you don’t want to fuck them, and then the punishment starts.” In situations like these, an experienced and sensitive intimacy coordinator can help leaven the power asymmetries that dominate film sets and theatre studios.
Condy herself was subject to some shocking behaviour as a young actor who didn’t know she could say “no” to nudity. Her male scene partner, bantering with another about female co-stars, bragged: “Well, I get actual breasts.” Condy was mortified. “I was so embarrassed that he would talk about that and say that so flippantly,” she told CNA. Personal history has catalysed her commitment to making the stage an empowering space for all. She’ll pore over scripts, bearing in mind that actors have different thresholds for various stages of undress: “Is it meant to be a steamy make-out session? Is the female actor’s back facing the audience? Should there be a sense that she’s naked?” Once, she observed a male actor wincing at, but obliging to, the request to shave off his chest hair for the part of a “vain” character. She raised the discomfort with the director, who readily agreed to find a different approach. Condy’s joined by a small blossoming of other groups, including The Consent Collaborative. It isn’t just intimacy that these specialists are coordinating; it’s also a broader culture of respect.
Arts: Pulling a stunt
Where intimacy coordinators break awkward sexual tension, stunt coordinators and performers break falls (and sometimes bones), so stars like Keanu Reeves or Liam Neeson don’t have to. But while there seems to be more than enough stage and screen work to go round for a handful of intimacy specialists; the same can’t be said for Singapore’s small pool of stunt schools. Sandbox Training Ground, set up in 2021, is facing the twin nightmare of bankruptcy and lease expiry. Its founder, 31-year-old action director Peps Goh, is also facing the end of a dream: “local action films standing toe to toe with our Southeast Asian neighbours”. Goh estimates that Sandbox has trained about 200 actors so far, including former Hong Kong TVB actor Alan Wan and Singaporeans Apple Chan and Tay Ying. In addition to begging for a “Singapore Bruce Wayne” bailout, he lamented the “crushing weight” of commercial rent, and that Sandbox lost “large-scale projects” to counterparts in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand “due to the disadvantageous exchange rate of hiring Singaporeans”. He also reflected on how the school might have done things differently instead of bleeding their hard-earned revenue dry on rent. But it seems that Sandbox might go the way of other arts and entertainment casualties, including indie cinema The Projector and brick-and-mortar bookstores, who aren’t eligible for subsidised arts housing and/or struggle to find a wider audience.
The well-established stunt industry has been a model for intimacy coordination; one advocates for physical safety, and the other for psychological safety, although their terrain often overlaps. And these safety structures for performers, once seen as ancillary, are now becoming the norm in more mature industries. In the United States, the pay of intimacy coordinators is roughly in line with stunt coordinators, who have minimum union rates of about US$1,500 (S$1,958) a day. In Singapore, they might be paid S$120 for the same amount of time. The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), the heavyweight labour union representing thousands of media professionals, has stated that productions “must make a good-faith effort to hire intimacy coordinators when necessary”, and also offers extensive resources for stunt performers tackling everything from their contracts to time worked. Goh, citing the South Korean government’s subsidies for stunt training, bemoaned the nearsightedness of an “immediate return on investment” when supporting local creative industries. “It’s not right to say that Singaporeans don’t like action—just see the top 10 highest-grossing box-office shows in Singapore,” he told The Straits Times. “Singaporeans love action; they just don’t watch Singaporean action.” Singapore will always be at a disadvantage when it comes to the affordability of its creative services in the region; that doesn’t necessarily mean we should be judging entrepreneurial artists who risk its intimidating commercial climate to figure out if the country may have an appetite for what they can offer. So it may take something larger than a publicity stunt to push Singapore’s film industry out of this painful—and perennial—puberty and towards professional maturity.
Faris Joraimi, Abhishek Mehrotra, Sakinah Safiee, Corrie Tan, Tsen-Waye Tay, and Sudhir Vadaketh wrote this week’s issue.
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