Couple of weeks back, I decided to get rid of some old newspapers.

Then since my helper is on vacation, I decided to take my mother out for a quick meal of spicy Nene Chicken at a nearby mall (but this story is not about Nene Chicken...although it's really crazy spicy! Here's a photo...)

Anyway, I just kept the bundle of newspapers outside my HDB flat, locked the house and went off. Couple of hours laters when we came back home, the newspapers were still there. The Karung Guni man hasn't come yet, I remarked. Hearing that, my mom said, if this was India, these newspapers would've vanished by now. I thought why not conduct a social experiment and see how people react in a situation where they are giver relative freedom in Singapore. I mean we all know that Singapore is a safe place and relatively crime free etc, but then there are also people like Jover Chew and clan who spoil the name of our country right? So I decided to let the newspapers remain outside and added a note to them:

Not many newspapers I know, but like I said, just an experiment to gauge behavior of humans who are given relative freedom and for whom small money matters too.

And this is the shoe box:

And then, I locked the door and waited...And as soon as I sat down, I heard a sound outside. I tip toed to the door, squeezed one eye shut and pressed the other eye on to the door peephole...only it wasn't the Karung guni man, just our neighbour opposite house. I saw him take a cursory glance at the stack of newspapers which was obviously crossing to his side of the boundary too, then stop a few seconds to read the note, let a faint smile play on his lips and then lock his door and walk away. More waiting and then some more...and finally! I heard the "toot toot" of the Karung guni man's hand horn and his lusty and throaty cry of "Karrrrrrung guniiiiii, Poh Zhua gu sa Kor, pai leh-lio, dian si ki..."

Never been so happy to hear the sound of a rag and bone collector man!



By the way, I'm Indian and don't know a word of Chinese (except Hokkien cuss words of course) so I asked my 13-year old son, who is studying Mandarin and is in Sec 1, to tell me exactly what the Karung guni man usually says. He had to take his friend's help and they came up with this line above...I hope it's correct.Anyway, I waited with baited breath. How will my experiment fare? What behaviour will this man exhibit? I tip toed again to the door, swiftly shooing down my mother's possible protest on missing out her favorite afternoon TV program when I switched off the TV so the Karung guni man thinks there's no one inside the house.



Tick tock...tick tock...10 minutes later, I quietly and gently opened the door just a bit and peeked...no one outside...has he gone? I opened the door, stepped outside and saw that the newspapers were...still there! :(



So fast forwarding a bit. Cut to the next weekend, the newspapers were still there, the pile bigger as I added the week's worth of papers to it. Midweek, I wondered why haven't the papers been picked up yet? What am I doing wrong? Maybe my message is not clear? Ok, so I took my son's help and added a Chinese word on the message:

On Saturday morning, the newspapers were still there, untouched. "Ah well, this is a failure"... I thought, while adding even more newspapers to the pile.



Sunday morning, a day of relaxation and rest. But not today :) Have to go watch a movie (Ant-Man) at GV City Square. Said goodbye to the pile of newspapers, locked the door and took my kids for the movie. Later that evening, while approaching our unit, I saw something that I didn't expect to see. I saw...nothing! YES, there was nothing in front of my door! The newspapers were all gone!!



I half (actually 3/4) expected that I wouldn't find anything on the shoe box. I was just happy that the newspapers were gone finally! BUT, imagine my shock and surprise and glee and racing heart beat when I saw this:

YES! Not only were the newspapers gone, but there was money on the shoe box as well! And look how much were those newspapers worth!

Wow! That is amazing Singapore for you! It took a few days, but the experiment was successful!!



Happy SG50 everyone!