Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Honest and Kind Singaporeans

A few days ago I lost my cell phone. I was very sad about this, because I have a fancy smart phone which cost several hundred dollars, and through my carelessness had basically thrown this money out the window.

BUT...all was not lost. A young Singaporean guy contacted me via Facebook, to let me know that his mother had found my phone and was holding onto it for me. Apparently they found the phone, which was all out of batteries. They bought a new charger, charged the phone enough to turn it on, found my name on the phone, used the name to search Facebook, and sent me a private message once they recognized my picture (as there are a lot of people with my fairly common name on Facebook; luckily my phone has a background photo of me with little R). Wow. 

I went to their apartment (out in Jurong West for those familiar with Singapore geography, which is a relatively poor neighborhood) and picked up the phone, just as good as new.

I am so grateful to them for taking all that trouble. It was truly kind (especially for a stranger who they'd never met!). I mailed them a thank you card and Starbucks gift card (since I had their address from picking up the phone), but honestly there is no good way to repay them. What nice people.

They were exceptionally kind, but their honesty and concern to do the right thing are very typical in Singapore. Violent crime is almost non-existent here, but petty theft and other types of property crimes are also very rare (especially among local Singaporeans; the theft that occurs tends to be committed by immigrants from elsewhere). Singaporeans may be a little bit rigid, but they definitely have a high standard of morality (to my great benefit). I can't imagine this story occurring in the United States (and as for China, the very idea is completely ridiculous). 

10 comments:

  1. I'm impressed! How nice of them to go to so much trouble to find you.

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    1. I know! It really was nice: I don't know if I would have taken so much trouble, to be honest

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  2. I love stories like this. Once in college some guy backed into my car and broke a light/dented the end of my car. The guy stayed in the parking garage, waiting over an hour for me to come out to my car. After I spoke with him, two other guys approached me, because they wanted to make sure he was honest with me. I love experiencing random acts of kindness, so I try to perpetrate them as often as I can! lol.

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    1. It restores your faith in humanity, you know? I've had the opposite thing happen (car dented by hit and run driver), so your story is so nice to hear.

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  3. What a miraculous experience. Seriously!

    Your story reminds me of something that has been on my mind. There is a large number of Christians I have encountered (largely LDS because that is my culture) who convey to me that their inherent goodness, or moral compass, comes from their belief in God. Stories like yours shows that morality isn't part of being part of a certain belief system, it's part of being human.

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    1. Yes, you are totally right. I want to write about this, because so many people seem to think that without religion, humans would start eating each other or something similar. I actually find this perspective very depressing, because then it's assuming humans only behave themselves through the threat of punishment (ie, "God is watching you"); I prefer to believe in a world where people do the right thing because they feel like it, not because they're scared of eternal damnation.

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  4. Wow, that was really nice of them! I don't know that I would have bothered to buy a charger; that's super resourceful of them!

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    1. Especially because they were relatively poor, so spending the money on a charger was a bigger sacrifice (I did insist on paying them back for the cost of the charger, although it took some arm-pulling).

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  5. That's so cool that the went through all of that to get your phone back to you. That sounds like a wonderful place to raise a little girl :)

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    1. You know, that's true. One of the nice things about Singapore is how child friendly it is: since crime is so low, it's a lot easier to let children take the bus by themselves, etc.

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