Singapore— Zeng Guoyuan, 66 who was more familiar to Singaporeans by the moniker ‘Parrot Man’, was discovered dead on Saturday night, November 16, at the foot of the Geylang Bahru block where he lived.
“A 66-year-old man was found lying motionless at the foot of (Block 68 Geylang Bahru) and pronounced dead at (sic) scene by a paramedic. Investigations are ongoing,” according to a spokesman for the police, the Straits Times (ST) reports.
The colorful figure was best known in Singapore as a political candidate both in 2011 and 2015, but his candidacy did not go forward in either of those years.
Suffering from nose cancer, which he was diagnosed with in 2014, Mr Zeng had blamed his pet parrot for his legal troubles, which earned him the nickname ‘Parrot Man.’
The surgery he underwent for his cancer, however, led to facial deformities. Mr Zeng later also had surgery to cut away a portion of his large intestine, after his cancer had spread, which left him using a colostomy bag.
In a media interview in 2015, he said that doctors had told him his cancer was terminal.
Mr Zeng spent the last few years of his life begging and selling tissue paper, at times at the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple at Waterloo Street.
He ran afoul of the law, as well as the management of Ngee Ann City mall in 2017 for selling tissue from his wheelchair in an underground path that led to the mall, with police being called over 30 times in a six-month span. The management of Ngee Ann City shopping mall also put up signs on its premises warning the public not to give money to Mr Zeng.
The colorful figure was arrested twice last year, once in August and again in October.
TISG reported on October 15 last year that he was “arrested on Saturday, October 13, for causing a disturbance by demanding money from the public and for voluntarily hurting police officers.
At around 11:30 am (that day), police received a complaint call from the then 65-year-old Mr. Zeng, who was demanding money from the people around him at 1 Geylang Serai.
When the police arrived and questioned him, Mr Zeng proved difficult and uncooperative, refusing to listen and to comply with officers’ instructions despite being repeatedly warned.
He reportedly became disruptive and violent when officers were trying to arrest him. Mr Zeng hurt two officers in the process.
He was arrested in August 2018 after allegedly verbally abusing a man in Orchard Road. The man, a busker, said that Mr Zeng was demanding money from the busker’s crowd. It was apparently not the first time that he had caused a disturbance of that kind.
The nickname “Parrot Man” was given to him in 2008, when he blamed his pet parrot for getting him charged and arrested for using abusive language on two police officers. He was fined S$2,500.” -/TISG
Read related: ‘Parrot Man’ apprehended in Geylang Serai after becoming disruptive again – two police officers hurt
‘Parrot Man’ apprehended in Geylang Serai after becoming disruptive again – two police officers hurt