Recently, I did an experiment to see if I could live in Singapore without using money and without going home. My eventual goal is to be able to do this indefinitely. After all, if you can live in Singapore without using money, then you are free from all fear such as job loss, business failure, losing your home, etc.

One of the things I needed to obtain was shelter for the night. I needed a place where I could be protected from rain, where I could close my eyes and go to sleep without fear of losing my possessions. Fortunately, Singapore is rather safe, and the 3 main interruptions I faced were:

• Police officers patrolling
• Passers-by talking
• A really hard floor or bench

I discovered that lying in a secluded corner, on a piece of cardboard solved most of the problems. Except for police officers patrolling, because it seems they know all the secluded spots.

Secluded spots are where you will find the homeless sleeping at night. Or in the day. That is why you hardly see them.

Homeless people walk beside you on the street. Homeless people sit near you at fast food restaurants, because while churches turn them away and ask them to leave their premises, fast food restaurants welcome them to sit, eat leftovers, and sleep. Homeless people sit near you at food courts and hawker centres, watching you, waiting for you to finish eating before swooping in to eat your leftovers.

Homeless people sleep at Changi Airport at night. Not everyone who sleeps at Changi Airport is a weary traveller. There are about 20 homeless persons there. They have all their possessions on an airport trolley.

One of the best way to spot a homeless person is by the cardboard that they sleep on.

Visit Bras Basah Complex at night, especially the McDonald’s restaurant there. You will find homeless persons.

Visit Sungei Road at night. With the flea market closed, the homeless who used to sleep there at night have nowhere else to go.

Chinatown. Toa Payoh Central. These are all places where homeless people stay at night. In my neighbourhood there are two homeless persons that sleep at the void deck. You don’t see them if you are there too early.

There are homeless persons in Singapore. Be kind to one when you see them

Source: Quora post by Daniel Tay

 I would like to offer the other side of the story since I was on the bus and happened to witness the incident when it occurred. As mentioned in the news report, it started off with a fare dispute between the father and the driver near Khatib. The driver mentioned that the kid has passed the height limit which entitles for a free ride and requested that he should make the payments.

The father refused and insisted the driver to communicate with him in English. Seeing the situation, one of the passengers actually offered to help translate what the bus driver is saying for the father, but the father told the passenger not to translate and it’s the driver’s job to communicate with him. I then decided to alight as the whole situation is holding up my time.
From what I have observed like many comments here were pointing out, the driver should have been better trained in his English proficiency. However, I think that’s where the driver’s fault end. By turning down other passenger’s offer to help him translate what the driver is trying to convey, the father was obviously trying to be difficult. If he had really wanted to solve the issue, he would have tried to communicate properly with the driver through the help offered, but he didn’t.
Personally, I also think that the driver is just doing his job, and has the rights to refuse to continue with the journey in the event there is a fare cheat. And in this case, I do not know whether the father tried to cheat the fare, but one thing for sure is that this issue will be resolved faster should the father have co-operated and not try to be difficult and holding up the time of all the other passengers onboard.

Source: FB post by Jian Wei

For causing hurt to a person in endanger personal safety a Chinese national was given a 24 days prison sentence. Chang Lihui, 33 couldn’t get her boarding pass at the airport flung a signage at a Singapore Airlines (SIA) ticketing staff to vent her anger.

On 11/6, it was reported that she wanted to collect her SIA ticket at Changi Airport which she used a family member’s credit card to book. Ms Sharin Chan Suet Gek,30 noticed that details on passport didn’t tally with details on credit when Lihui passed her passport and her family member’s credit card.

When questioned who the holder of the credit card was, Chang responded that it owner’s was a family member in Beijing, China. She could not authenticate who the person was nor confirm whether the owner had agreed to the buying. She could also not reach the holder of the credit card, as she said that she did not have a mobile phone to call the person.

When told courteously by the kiosk staff that she cannot get her boarding pass as she cannot validate the holder of the credit card, she became furious and started flinging rude words towards the SIA staff. She got a male colleague to enlighten the condition with Chang, but she continuously throw abuse at them. When told that a reimbursement would also take some time to procedure, Chang became even more furious, and threw a “Counter Closed” sign, gauging 26cm by 6cm, at the victim. It smash the victim’s face and she shrieked in pain. She was bleeding from cuts on her left eye brow and nose bridge.

Chang was arrested at her hotel the next day. As she has already been in remand since 1 July, Chang can already be released.

One day, a known sleazy guy came up to me with his Windows 10 laptop and told me that it had recently been running really slow, showing a lot of ads and that it seemed his storage was becoming less and less available, though he did not download or install anything.

This sounded like a computer that was riddled with viruses and other malicious files. I told him that Windows needed to be reinstalled (using one of the handy Windows 10 flash drives I carry around with me), and asked him if there were any files that he needed off of the computer.

He said yes, and showed me where the folder he wanted to be recovered. I told him I would email him the files, or upload them and send him the link if they were too large to send in the first way.

The folder turned out to be one chock-full of images and videos, the size exceeding 4 GB. So I started uploading them.

When I upload photos, each shows up on the screen in full-size until it is done uploading, and then moves on to the next one. Because of this, I learned really quickly that each every item in this folder was some form of p*rnography.

And it wasn’t all women. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (Anyone know what I’m referencing here?)

And keep in mind, this was all taking place at school, so I couldn’t just leave this thing out in the open and let it finish uploading it without looking at it. I had to keep it close enough to me that nobody else could see it. I proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes holding a laptop with thousands of adult images flashing across the screen as close to me as possible, all while trying not to look at them.

Once they finished, I closed the folder as quickly as I could, wiped the hard drive clean, and installed a fresh copy of the OS.

Later, I went and found the owner of the laptop to return it to him. At this point, he, with a worried look on his face, asked me, “Out of curiosity, did you, uh, look at any of the stuff in that folder that I wanted you to save?”

I just shoved the laptop at his chest, gave him a pissed look, and walked away. I think he got the message.

That was not a fun day.

Source : Quora Post by Julian Frank