When you ride the MRT, you meet a lot of unusual people, such as a woman sleeping on the seats, sexual harassment involving both women and men, young girls vaping and eating Maggi, and so on. On Sunday (September 25th), @w4yne3 posted a video on TikTok of an older Singaporean man arguing with a young Malaysian man on the MRT in Singapore.
The young man appeared to be seated on a reserved seat for the elderly on the MRT, which became the source of the argument, according to the video. The Singaporean uncle had inquired as to whether the young man was a Malaysian citizen, to which he replied, “So what if I am?” The uncle then degraded the young man by saying “Go back to Malaysia! Don’t earn Singaporean dollars here. If you can, go back to Malaysia and earn money there!”
@w4yne3
The uncle continued to publicly shame the young man, accusing him of disrespecting the elderly by sitting in the reserved seat for senior citizens. In retaliation, the young man taunted the uncle and challenged him to hit him if he so desired. The uncle then told the young man to return not only to Malaysia but also to China. The young man said he would return to Malaysia soon and advised the uncle to be cautious when leaving his home.
Netizens took to the comments section to condemn the uncle’s discriminatory behaviour towards the young man. “Aiyo, if no one needed (that reserved seat), let the youngster sit (for) awhile la…why make things difficult?” a netizen wrote. “Uncle should not shout in (the) MRT like this and make disparities between countries. All human beings are equal regardless of which country you are from,” another netizen wrote.
However, there were some who supported the uncle in the debate, such as this netizen who commented, “Come to work in Singapore, (you) want to act.” A netizen also criticised both men for their actions, saying, “Reserved seats are intended for the elderly, pregnant ladies, and those that need it. Both are at fault, but this uncle shouldn’t create a ruckus here.”
At the time of writing (Wednesday, 28th September), the video had since obtained 312.4k views, over 4k likes, and more than 1k comments.
Neetashini Kanendran contributed to this article
