Singaporeans react after tourist says locals seem to ‘work a few hours and then sit around all day’

SINGAPORE: A tourist who visited Singapore for about two weeks last year said online that he wanted to move here after sharing his observations of what seemed like a relaxed work culture in the city-state.

On r/askSingapore, he shared his observations, saying it seemed like everyone was doing “a bit of work but chilling in social areas, game stores, cozy shops, a bit of gym here, a bit of climbing there, a little bit of coffee here and tea there.”

“I can only imagine how nice it is to work a few hours and then sit around and watch people all day in one of the thousand malls going from one mrt to the next,” he added, asking others whether Singapore really is “as chill as it looks”.

His observations, however, were met with mixed reactions from locals.

Some users strongly rejected his impression that Singaporeans “work a few hours a day”.

“The younger generation would call you delulu for claiming to work a few hours a day,” one wrote. Another said, “Singapore is one of the most sleep deprived countries in the world bruh,” while a third added, “OP, I am working overtime as I type this comment.”

Others questioned whether he had misunderstood what he was seeing, “mistaking tourists, rich people, and students on school break for an average Singaporean.”

One commenter explained that tourists often see people in malls, cafés, and leisure spaces, since they naturally go there on vacation, but the realities of locals are less visible.

“What you don’t see are the office workers who left home before sunrise, the delivery riders rushing between jobs, the nurses working 12-hour shifts, the teachers marking work late into the night, or the food sellers preparing for the next day….The cost of living is high, and many Singaporeans work extremely hard to maintain their standard of living. Some professionals take on side work. Some teachers tutor after school hours. Some elderly people continue working well past retirement age because they need the income,” he said.

“A two-week holiday can tell you what it is like to visit Singapore. It cannot tell you what it is like to live and work here,” he added. /TISG

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