Tag: Singapore

The Cost Of Disposing Durian Husk During Durian Season

Durian season is in full swing and this year’s bumper crop means booming business for durian sellers. However, stall owners face hidden costs, as they have to fork out more cash to dispose of the durian husks.

Every day, workers at a stall in Geylang fill up four huge bins with durian husks. Each bin can accommodate about 120 kilogrammes of durian husks. Having extra bins during peak season means the stall pays about S$1,300 each month to have them disposed of – three times what it usually pays for waste collection.

There’s no way to avoid such costs, especially when most customers prefer to have their purchased durians opened and packed before they take the fruit home.

“We cannot force them to take the whole durian,” said the owner of Fruit Stop 1, Mr Teoh See Yong. “If they drive here, we suggest to them to take the whole durian home, rather than having the meat put in Styrofoam boxes.”

Typically, durian stalls are charged more for waste collection, based on the number and size of the bins needed.

It is a similar situation for one durian stall owner in Katong. He has been paying between S$600 and S$1,000 each month to get rid of the durian husks. During non-peak season, he would typically pay slightly more than S$100.

“If everybody takes durians with the husks, it will lower our costs,” said Mr Wong Yew Loon, the owner of stall 227 Katong Durian. “It will save our time, save our labour and save the price that it costs to get people to throw away the husks. It’s good to have everybody bring back the whole durian.”

SembWaste says it sees around 30 per cent more durian waste during the peak season of May to July, both from households and commercial stalls.

Member of Parliament Edwin Tong, who oversees part of Geylang, says there has been a noticeable increase in durian waste recently, particularly in the common bins near durian stalls.

However, he pointed out that, as the increase has not been overwhelming, the town council has been able to absorb it.

Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

July 13, 2015
Singapura: The Musical Shuts Down Abruptly

Less than a month after the $2.72 million Singapura: The Musical extended its run till July 19, the production has abruptly folded.

A staff member at the Capitol Theatre’s ticketing counter informed The Straits Times on Sunday that the musical had closed last week. Attempts to book tickets online at the musical’s website were also unsuccessful.

A Singaporean member of the crew who was involved with the production and asked not to be named said that his contract had been delayed and that he has not been paid.

Attempts to reach the musical’s press relations team for comment over the weekend were unsuccessful.

The story is developing and The Straits Times is contacting people involved in the production.

Rumours of financial trouble and dissent among the crew had plagued the blockbuster production,which features a predominantly Filipino cast, in the weeks leading up to its opening on May 19.

But in an e-mail sent in May to The Straits Times, composer and musical director Ed Gatchalian had dismissed these and said: “The musical is ready to go. There are nasty people spreading so many inaccuracies and even lies about us.”

Directed by American Greg Ganakas and written by Filipino playwright Joel Trinidad, the production debuted at the newly refurbished Capitol Theatre to mixed reviews. The Straits Times’ theatre reviewer Corrie Tan said that the play felt unfocused, lacked nuance and suffered from technical problems.

It was originally slated to run till June 7, but Gatchalian had announced an extension a fortnight ago, and said that there are discussions for Singapura to travel to other parts of the world such as Australia and the United States.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

July 13, 2015
Malay Single-Mother A Hero To Old Chinese Couple

Single mother Noriza A. Mansor gets only one day off a week from her job as a bedsheet promoter.

Most would use that day to rest, but she spends it looking after an old man she met by chance as he stood in a Toa Payoh supermarket soiled by his faeces.

Ms Noriza, 49, made headlines last October when she stepped forward to help Mr Tan Soy Yong, 76, who had soiled himself while buying groceries with his wife, who was in a wheelchair.

Others had recoiled from the old man and his stench. But Ms Noriza not only bought him new shorts but she even knelt to wipe the dried faeces off his legs – an act which moved a bystander to tears.

Since that day, she has made it a point to visit Mr Tan for at least six hours a week at his Potong Pasir three-room flat.

Mr Tan has lived there alone since the start of the year, when his wife, Madam Lee Bee Yian, also 76, was hospitalised for cancer.

During her visits, Ms Noriza cleans up Mr Tan, who cannot control his bowels, and washes his soiled laundry. She also mops the floor and tidies up the flat, while chatting brightly with him in a mix of Malay and Hokkien. Some days, she will accompany him to visit his wife in hospital. On other days, she will take him out in his wheelchair to the hawker centre to eat his favourite wonton noodles.

Said Ms Noriza: “I only wish I could see him more often. Sometimes if I finish work at 8pm, I will go to see him. But I don’t always have the time.”

She often works 12 hours a day, taking home around $2,000 a month. She has three sons and two daughters aged 11 to 26. Four of them still live with her.

Yet she has no qualms about making time for the old couple. “In my life, I am never tired,” she said.

Mr Tan told her he has a son and a daughter, but Ms Noriza said that, according to social workers, the couple have no children. She thinks they have a niece and a nephew living in Singapore, but has been unable to contact them.

Ms Noriza believes Mr Tan was sent into her life by God, as she lost her parents when she was 21.

Her father succumbed to cancer and her mother wasted away in depression eight months later.

She said she treats the couple as “my own father and mother”.

Mr Tan once asked her if she had a passport. “I said yes. He said when his wife is discharged, we can go on holiday together as a family.”

She smiled wistfully. “I know this kind of thing is very hard, with their conditions. But of course I told him we would. He’s so sweet.”

Source: www.straitstimes.com

July 13, 2015
Meet The Malay Football Coach Who Risked Life To Save Others From Fire

When a Choa Chu Kang Housing Board flat burst into flames and terrified residents fled en masse, one man ran in the opposite direction.

On discovering the February 2014 fire, football coach Faizaltulamri Noorali immediately ran from door to door to warn his neighbours. Racing up and down several flights of stairs, the 34-year-old saved two elderly women, two maids and a little girl. He even rescued a cat.

When The Straits Times caught up with him more than a year later, he downplayed his deeds. “I was just doing something a normal human being would do,” he said.

That morning, he had spotted smoke coming out of an eighth-storey unit. The heat made him hesitate, but the thought of somebody being trapped inside spurred him to break a window pane. Recalling the thick black smoke that billowed out over him, he said: “I had to squat down to avoid the smoke. I almost lost consciousness then.”

Despite inhaling some of the smoke, Mr Faizaltulamri went on to rescue others, including a 63-year-old housewife on the 14th storey. As she refused to leave without her cat, he had to search her flat and catch the feline.

On the 11th storey, he found a 76-year-old woman lying in the corridor, with her maid crying helplessly next to her . He carried the elderly woman down and, despite his fatigue, went back upstairs, returning with a five-year- old asthmatic girl in his arms.

His acts have got him recognised by strangers, not just in Choa Chu Kang but also in the new restaurant he is helping his friend manage, and even on one occasion by Singaporean tourists in Batam.

Mr Faizaltulamri said, however, that he did not always cut such a gallant figure. A rebellious youngster, he was even involved in a secret society at one point.

He said: “In the past, I didn’t think about other people. If this had happened 10 years ago, I would have been one of those bystanders taking a selfie with the fire in the background.”

His outlook changed after he met his girlfriend of 11 years, Ms Faizureen Ashiqkeen. “She’s my real inspiration,” he said.

The 32-year-old educator was not amused by her fiance’s heroics, though. Mr Faizaltulamri said she broke down on learning how he had risked his life.

The couple are getting married next month, and plan to move into a new flat five minutes away from Mr Faizaltulamri’s family.

Their first step on setting up house? “Get fire insurance,” quipped Mr Faizaltulamri.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

July 13, 2015
Racial Harmony Kampung-Style In HDB Corridor

About once a month, residents on the 14th storey of Block 591A, Montreal Link in Sembawang gather for a meal together.

There are five families living on this level and they take turns hosting the monthly gatherings.

During this period of the Muslim fasting month, the neighbours gathered again one Saturday evening earlier this month to break fast together.

One of them, Mr Jasem Rif’at Muhammed Effendi Arriola, 19, posted a photo of the gathering on his Twitter account and it went viral, with more than 2,800 retweets, much to the surprise of the neighbours.

The photo was shared more than 3,000 times on Facebook and was also shared on online sites such as Stomp.

The comments were overwhelmingly positive.

Some said the residents were bringing back the “kampung spirit.”

Others commended the fact that the mainly Muslim neighbours asked their non-Muslim neighbours along.

The neighbours had another meal on Saturday.

For one of the neighbours, Mr Syed Agil Syed Ali, 34, the attention was strange.

“We’ve always been doing this and we’ve always been posting these eating sessions on social media,” he said.

“This is the first time that a photo of one our makan (Malay for food) sessions has attracted so much attention,” said the information technology specialist.

For Mr Ang Cheng Bin, 49, joining his Muslim neighbours to break fast was not an issue.

“Since I moved in, they have always been so friendly to me,” he said.

“Plus, we’ve had these sessions before,” added the pastor of Bartley Christian Church.

Mr Ang moved in with his family in February and is the newest addition to the 14th storey.

Even before he moved in, his future neighbours’ friendliness was evident to him and his family to see.

“Before purchasing the flat, I came down with my wife to survey the area,” he said.

GOOD GUYS

“This is when I met Helmi, who invited me, a total stranger to enter his house to take a look at the view. That was when I knew that these guys were a bunch of good guys.”

That person was Mr Muhammad Helmi Azman, who lives in the unit across from Mr Ang.

Like his neighbours, Mr Muhammad Helmi did not think that his actions were out of the ordinary – he was just being friendly.

“Its good that we have this spirit,” said the 31-year-old nurse.

He and his wife, Madam Noraisah Zolkapli, 26, had moved into the unit beside Mr Syed Aqil’s in January last year.

Said Mr Muhammad Helmi: “My heart is at ease, knowing we have neighbours who are friendly and that our kids can play together.”

He has two daughters, aged one and two.

Mr Helmi’s neighbour, Mr Hafiz Yusoff, 25, told TNP that their children playing together was one of the reason why they have bonded.

He lives with his wife in the unit next to the Angs.

There are six children, aged between one and six, among the five families who live on the 14th storey.

“They play with each other, sometimes in the corridor, most of the time in each other’s houses,” Mr Hafiz said.

As the clock ticked closer to the time to break fast on Saturday, the mat where they would all sit and eat was rolled out.

Each household brought out the food they had prepared to share with their neighbours.

The main dish of the night was laksa cooked by Mr Hafiz’s wife, Mrs Nor Diana Mohamed, and his mother-in-law.

Mr Ang brought out fruits and otah-otah and Mr Helmi brought finger foods. Mr Syed Agil and his wife helped to prepare the drinks and prepare the dining area.

As the radio signalled that it was time to break their fast by playing the azaan, the Muslim call to prayer, all of them tucked in.

When asked if he hoped that this practice would continue, Mr Syed Agil said: “Of course. In fact, I hope that there are more of such scenes all over Singapore.”

Source: www.tnp.sg

July 13, 2015