After racking up almost 5.3 million views for its pre-Christmas ‘sadvertisement’ on how phubbing almost ruined ‘Ah Ma’s Christmas‘, Singapore telecommunications company Singtel is back pricking the social conscious of Singaporeans again with ‘Mr Lim’s Reunion Dinner’.

Revolving around ‘Mr Lim’, a widower with a son and a daughter who both live and work overseas, the almost six-minute-long ‘community service message’ focuses on preparations he is making for the traditional Chinese New Year reunion dinner.

Following the same predictable theme as its December 2017 ‘sadvertisement’, ‘Mr Lim’ remains dignified and stoic as his two children individually inform him just days before the scheduled event that they won’t be home for the traditional family reunion — the demands of 21st century work and life and all of those sort of day-to-day things conspiring to ruin their best intentions.

As with its previous tear-jerking production, just as people start reaching for the tissue box (toilet roll) as ‘Mr Lim’ sits alone and desolate with a table full of food before him and overlooked by a photo of him as a young man on his wedding day, ‘Mr Lim’s’ Chinese New Year dinner is saved when, while shoveling food into his mouth like a man who hasn’t eaten for a week, the children and grandchild arrive. Good cheer and happiness fill the room like a ray of sunlight penetrating a crack in a roof and everyone can feel warm and fuzzy, instead of choked up and angry at the self-centred Singaporean ‘children’.

Singaporeans Acknowledge Self-Absorbed Message

Now whether the decision to repeat a similar themed ‘sadvertisement’ so close to the earlier one is a result of Singtel mining the vast data that crosses its network every minute and finding children aren’t phoning or visiting their parents often enough; purely because the last one racked up so many views; because somewhere inside Singtel there’s an elderly person whose children never come to visit; or because Singtel have a lot of lonely elderly customers who phone operator services when their children don’t come home for special occasions therefore stopping them from going home to visit their parents we don’t know.

But the casual Singapore observer will be forgiven for thinking that the average Singaporean Millennial is a self-centred, uncaring, self-absorbed, inconsiderate, narcissist with little regard for their elders. And they wouldn’t be the only ones. Singaporeans apparently see a lot of themself in the production too.

According to the company, ‘Mr Lim’s Reunion Dinner’ has set a record for its branding videos, racking more than one million views on Facebook in its first two days, and more than 150,000 views on its YouTube channel.

Lian Pek, Singtel’s vice president for Group Strategic Communications and Brand said ‘Mr Lim’s Reunion Dinner’ had been shared more than 20,000 times in the first two days after uploading.

“I think this is testimony to how, despite being swept up by the digital age and a faster-paced lifestyle, we all still hanker after the simple things – the warmth of traditions and slowing down to be with family. You could see from the comments, there was a real outpouring of feelings not just about going home for reunion dinner, but treasuring dad and mom, and just general longing for family traditions and good old times.”

Borrowing from the time-honoured message of telecommunications globally on special occasions of ‘phone home for [insert your favourite event]”, Singtel’s latest ‘sadvertisement’ trails out with the message ‘Family matters. Stay connected to home’. The ‘festive’ short film will be aired on Singtel TV and various social media channels from January 19 to March 2.

If you are feeling depressed help is at hand. In Singapore phone Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) 24-hours per day on 1800 221 4444

To all of our readers who celebrate it, we wish you gong-sshee faa-tseye / gong-hey faa-chwhy

Update: This story was last updated at 11:33 on January 25, 2018:

Contact details for Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) were added.

Feature video Singtel

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