We got this one close friend in our clique—let’s call him Ah Huat—but recently we all renamed him “Chicken King” because this guy’s addiction to Geylang is actually out of control.
At first, we thought he just had a very specific craving for Geylang Lorong 9 frog porridge or the beef hor fun. Every weekend, without fail, if you ask him in the group chat, “Eh bro, where you tonight?”, his reply is always: “On the way to Geylang.”
Then slowly, the truth came out. It’s not the porridge he’s hungry for. This guy is literally doing a weekly inspection of the entire red-light district.
Bro knows the lorongs better than the LTA traffic planners. You give him any Lorong number—even, odd, dual-digit, single-digit—he can instantly list out:
- Which side street got what “country of origin”
- The peak hours and crowd density
- The average “rates” down to the dollar
- The exact walking route to avoid the police patrols
It has gotten so bad that whenever we hang out for normal drinks at a coffee shop, he will somehow pivot the conversation back to his “market research”. We can be discussing the rising HDB resale prices or the latest BTO launch, and this guy will suddenly say, “Actually ah, $150 in Geylang now very hard to find good quality already, inflation hit them also.” Bro, who asked you?! We are talking about 4-room flats in Yishun!
Last week, we went to a late-night supper place, and he showed up looking exhausted. We asked him if he OT at work. He straight up looked us in the eye and said, “No lah, I just walked Lorong 12 to 24 twice to do price comparison.” Man is treating Geylang like he’s doing a FairPrice Grocery Price Index report.
We tried to tell him to go on Tinder or Bumble to find a proper girlfriend, but he says dating apps are “low ROI” because you need to spend money on expensive cafes first without any guarantee, whereas his Geylang visits are “instant settlement, high efficiency”. His logic is totally skewed, but he says it with so much confidence that sometimes we also don’t know how to counter him.
Any of your cliques also got one ultimate “Chicken King” like this, or is my friend genuinely eligible for a Geylang Tourism Board ambassador award? How to save this guy before he spends his entire BTO downpayment in Geylang?