Photo of girl playing Mastermind with foreign workers while they wait out the rain goes viral

Singapore—Discrimination, many people believe, is not present among the very young, but an attitude picked up later in life. A now-viral photo of a young girl passing some time by playing Mastermind with some foreign workers may just be wonderful proof of this.

The photo was posted on Facebook on Tuesday (Sept 22) by Yang Kaiheng, one half of the couple who was once behind The Real Singapore, now turned successful entrepreneur and owner of Takagi Ramen.

It has since been shared over 4,500 times.

Mr Yang wrote that he had recently visited the home of his aunt and had been happily surprised to see his young cousin playing on the floor with three foreign workers “while they waited out some rain.”

He added, “She was not influenced by the irrational but common fears many people have because of the high number of COVID-19 cases in foreign worker dorms.”

Mr Yang wrote that his young cousin did not hesitate to make friends with the workers, and the fact that they looked different from her bothered her not at all. What was important to the young girl is that the workers were friendly and wanted to play with her.

He added, “They laughed along happily with her as they played and I found out that one of the worker (sic) also has a daughter around her age back at home and that he really misses her a lot and my cousin really reminded him of her.”

For the past several weeks, the men had been working on a job at Mr Yang’s aunt’s house, he added, and the young girl has had regular interactions with them, “offering them drinks and playing board games with them during their breaks.” She knows and calls them by name, and “is always happy when they come to ‘visit’ on a rainy day.”

The young girls encounters and attitude toward the workers provided insights to Mr Yang, who wrote, “Although her friendship with the workers is something simple and inevitably transient, it reminded me that all prejudices we have about others are learned subconsciously through the media or our own experiences.”

He encouraged that kindness be taught to today’s generation of young people as this “will go a long way.”

“In our busy lives, we tend to turn a blind eye to even our neighbours. Many times, we forget or refuse to be gracious out of plain ignorance,” he added.

Mr Yang ended his post by expressing the hope that he will also have “the discipline to instill these positive values” in his own son as he grows up in Singapore.

Many netizens agreed that this is the best way for children to grow up.

-/TISG