In early January of this year, I hosted my cousin who had just arrived in Singapore from Mainland China. Little did we know, just a few days later, the world would be set into a state of frenzy by what is now a global pandemic. At first, what frightened me about the novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) was how little information medical professionals have about it. However, I soon came to realise that human nature is far more insidious.

On one of the days during my cousin’s visit, she was at a convenience store where she approached the store’s manager for help. To her shock, her distinct Chinese accent was met with the judgemental gaze of another customer who then proceeded to exit the store hurriedly. 

My initial reaction to her recount of this incident was to brush it off as an anomaly. Surely, I thought, the bigoted action of one individual would stand in stark contrast to the views...

Gone to Waste
In the dead of night, a man foraged through Singapore’s trash. His name is Daniel Tay. He identifies himself as a “freegan”, a person who seeks to reduce waste and refuses to be a participant of consumerism. A financial advisor by day and a dumpster-diver by night, Mr Tay is one of the leaders Singapore’s dumpster-diving community. He frequently organises “veggie hunts” with other freegans to supermarket outlets, during which exorbitant amounts of discarded but still edible food are collected.
In fact, the community that Mr Tay is a devoted member of is a global one, and one that has brought to attention an ugly side of the world’s food industry: food wastage. It is estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) of the United Nations (UN) that every year, a third of the world’s food produce is lost or wasted along the food production chain, most of which occur in developed nations. In such countries,...