SINGAPORE: Unhappy with how he was treated by a woman on the train, a man took to social media to ask why people in Singapore can’t be more selfless and show more empathy.
A netizen who goes by Prime Opti on Facebook posted a photo of a middle-aged woman in a face mask on the popular COMPLAINT SINGAPORE group page on Thursday (Mar 28). The woman was alone but occupied two seats, one for herself and another for her plastic bags, which she had placed on the seat beside her.
In his post, he explained that he has a “joint issue” and asked if she could have the seat where her bags were.
“She rudely replied with hand ‘swiping’ up the sky ‘go find other places to sit!’,” wrote Prime Opti, who added that the plastic bags were not heavy, and neither did they contain food.
On his part, when he makes purchases, he said that he places them on the floor or uses a recyclable bag, which then carries on his shoulder or puts on his lap.
Prime Opti ended his post by asking, “Why can’t we have a selfless, ‘put ourselves in other pples shoes’ society. It’s disappointing we still have this type of selfish Karens here….”
The post has been widely shared and commented on.
One netizen advised Opti Prime to “Just remove the bags & leave them on the floor.”
And when another said they would “simply sit on” the bags,” a commenter recounted when a girl, who was feeling dizzy did just that. The girl asked an aunty to move her bag but when she was ignored, the girl just sat on the edge of the seat, making sure she wasn’t sitting on the other woman’s parcels.
Others told him he could hand the bags to the woman since he is in the right after all.
“We Singaporeans must look at ourselves in the mirror…. instead of pointing to foreigners and new citizens when something ugly happened here. Frankly speaking, we ought to be ashame(d) of ourselves. A small number of us have behaved ugly overseas too,” observed another commenter.
The Independent Singapore has reached out to Opti Prime for further comment.
Over the past few years, “Karen” has become shorthand for an entitled, mostly middle-class white American woman who uses privilege to get her way, usually by complaining when things are not up to her particular standards and demanding to “talk to the manager.”
This is not the first time in the past few days that “Karens” have been referenced, with US-based comedian Ronny Chieng recently calling Singapore “a country of small island Karens.” /TISG
Read also: Singaporeans say Ronny Chieng ‘isn’t wrong’ for calling Singapore ‘a country of small island Karens’