The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted many of us in many ways. A lot of us lost our jobs and have to resort to other means to survive during this pandemic. During these dark times, it is important for us Singaporeans to help each other out. Our editor found this new home baker and decided to support them. We ordered their Lemon Tea Cookies and to our surprise, the taste exceeds our expectation! We got curious and order a couple more like their classic chocolate chip and Thai-tea pink salt cookies.

We can assure you that their tea infused cookies are something that you have never had before and it is a must try! Their chocolate chips cookies uses premium chocolate chips too which melts in your mouth!

They currently running a teacher’s day promotion! But sadly they did not include their tea infused cookies into the promotion. We highly recommend that you tried our their tea infused cookies because it is just so different from others!

If you wish to support local business do visit their website @ nomsssscookies.sg

Remember to use code: NOMSSSS10 to get 10% off your first purchase!

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For a lot of people, this is a terrible time as future jobs are severally affected, some businesses may also end their venture for good. For some other group of people, this may be a good time to upgrade themselves or relax their damaged and fatigued mind from work. We compiled a list of some activities that you might want to pick up, by the end of the circuit breaker, you might emerge as a better and more readied person to face the future.

1. Upgrading Yourself Through Online Courses

If you are one of the few people who complained that you don’t have the time to upgrade yourself because you are too busy, this period is the best time for you to start doing so. There are several online courses that you can attend, making yourself more competitive in the future. In NTUC learning club, there are several courses that anyone can participate to upgrade yourself. There are virtual live lessons categorized into “Adaptive”, “Technical” and “Technology” skill courses. You can even visit the Udemy portal to enroll even more courses, so many courses that you might even be learning something totally different from what you are working as a professional. You can even use your “SkillsFuture” credit to pay for some of the courses. If you want to have a little adventure, you might also be able to learn lessons from YouTuber on several career-related skills. Make full use of the time, you might even find a new field for you to shine in.

Online courses from NTUC Learning hub:

• https://www.ntuclearninghub.com/
• https://www.ntuclearninghub.com/udemy/2.

2. Catching Up The Time with Your Family

If there is anything that any elderly people told me about their regrets, “I hoped to have spent more time with my family” always comes out of their mouths. In a fast-paced society like Singapore, many parents do not have the luxury to spend time with their children, children do not have time to spend time with their aging parents if they are still staying with them. This is a time for many people that have been busy with their work to spend quality time with their family, do not leave any regret when this is all over.

3. Relax Your Mind with The Latest TV Shows and Movies on Your Streaming Platform

With the emergence of streaming platforms such as Netflix and HOOQ, there are a lot of movies and TV shows for people to dive into. However, because of the immense workload that we have on our shoulders, most of us are unable to spend more time to watch all the latest TV shows and movies. Since most of us are working from home, we can almost straight away dive onto our couch and start to watch the latest K-dramas and movies. I have been spending my time watching documentaries and movies on my streaming platform, and it is something I have been missing for a long time.

4. Work Out to Strengthen Your Body

As many doctors and healthcare experts already stated that a strong immunity is not only crucial in the fight against the COVID-19 virus, but it is crucial in our everyday activity against any form of illness as exercise helps to strengthen the immune system. Like all the suggestions above, most of us cannot use the “not enough time” excuse to not exercise during this period. Of course, we must adhere to social distancing during our workout. Do not exercise outdoor with anyone right now, even with your family members in the same household. You may also consider exercising in the comfort of your own home, your family can even join you during the home workout sessions, keeping everyone healthy.

5.Explore the Virtual World of Video Games

Video games exist for a long time and it has evolved into a mainstream entertainment giant in modern time. There are online video games that you can play with your friends across the globe, fighting enemies in a dungeon or just simply amaze at the world that only exist in a server. There are games that offer adventures to touches your heart, giving your mundane life a bit of excitement. There are also games that you can play on your phone that offers you to think critically to solve puzzles. Personally, I have been diving into “Final Fantasy VII Remake” and enjoying how the slums and towns in the game feel so lively. There is also a rise in the gamers’ average age group, older people are getting into video games to enjoy something that many other entertainments cannot offer. Let yourself go and indulge yourself in a game.

We Should Not Take Things for Granted

We are somewhat considered lucky if we are working from home during this circuit breaker period. We are working in a safe environment, at our own pace, or at least as much as we can control, without worrying that we may put any of our loved ones in danger. Essential workers do not have that luxury, especially for people working at the healthcare front lines, facing an unknown and highly contagious virus. Every single one of them worries if they might get infected and infect their families unknowingly while putting food on the table. Let us work hard to get through this pandemic and let us help our family and friends in the essential services by staying at home.

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The key to solving any pandemic is containing the outbreak, and containment is the first crucial step towards that goal. However, society and human behavior is often the obstacles in containment. Scientists wish to have realistic research data and not just simulation, but they cannot expect a real pandemic to happen every year just to research on human behavior in a pandemic. Lucky for many scientists, in 2005, there is a “virus outbreak” that killed millions, created chaos, able to provide realistic data to researchers and yet has done no damage to our world. Yes, it is a virtual pandemic and many of you might have guessed it, it is the infamous World of Warcraft’s (WoW) corrupted blood incident.

A Trip Back to The Past

Some years ago, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) is gaining its most iconic entry in the genre, World of Warcraft (WoW). WoW is a game set in the same world as Warcraft, developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released in 2004. WoW is one of the most popular and highest-grossing MMORPG of all time, with a record of almost 100 million registered accounts by 2017 and grossed more than nine billion dollars by 2017, it is very clear that gamers are in love with this game. I was one of the many players, until I broke my computer, gave me a reason to stop playing.

Corrupted Blood Incident

In 2005, Blizzard released a new raid, Zul’Gurub as an update. At the end of every raid, there will be an end boss for players to attempt battle, players will have to defeat the end boss in order to win the raid. In Zul’Gurub, the end boss is named Hakkar The Soulflayer and he is the main reason for this online epidemic.

At the end of the raid, players challenge Hakkar to a battle. Hakkar has a spell named “Corrupted Blood”, which will inflict upon players like poison, they will suffer a fixed amount of damage over time. To make the fight harder, “Corrupted Blood” is contagious among players. If any player is too close to the infected player, the spell will infect the next player, so on and so forth. Low-level players will be killed within seconds, while high-level players can sustain the damage longer, healing spells may also help to prolong the damage long enough of “Corrupted Blood” to subside. Thus, one of the strategies to defeat this boss is to constantly shift position and to ensure other players don’t get infected with “Corrupted Blood”, while healers continue to heal anyone that was infected with the spell.

Developers programmed the spell to be purely contained in the raid, either the infected players died in the raid or the spell goes away upon the end of the raid. However, like many other games, there are bugs or loopholes that developers may have overlooked. Classes such as “hunter” and “warlock” may have their pets out to assist them during the battle, and their pets may also be infected with “Corrupted Blood”. Hunters and warlocks can dismiss their pets into their inventory and continue the battle, however, this is the genesis of the epidemic. After being dismissed, infected pets still retain their status of “Corrupted Blood”, the timer will be frozen as well. When the infected pet was summoned into the world after the raid, the infection begins. Hunters’ and warlocks’ pets started to infect players in the cities and towns, even Non-Playable Characters (NPC) were infected as well. Many low-level players were killed within seconds before they even realized what was happening, the death of NPCs made submitted the completed quests impossible. Although deaths in MMORPG is not permanent, but the inconvenience proved to be a serious enough issue for Blizzard to fix the bug as fast as they can.

Epidemic Spreads Throughout The Continents

Many players were shocked that when they logged into the game, they were almost immediately infected with “Corrupted Blood”. With many low-level players dying left and right, high-level players thought it might be a regional bug that they are experiencing. They start to use teleportation spell to travel to other in-game cities. Unbeknownst to them, they are bringing the spell to other cities and infect even more players in that city, causing more deaths to players and NPCs alike.

Since this is a virtual epidemic with no real-world damage, there are players who are essentially “agents of chaos”. These players went to the infected cities, getting themselves infected, then travel to other cities to infect even more players and NPCs, spreading to even other affiliation or even safe havens. This act further created more chaos among players and developers are working hard on fixing the bug.

If there is a shadow, that means there is light. Some players decided to gather everyone that was infected with “Corrupted Blood” in a big city, while making sure those not infected stay away from the quarantined cities. As there is no known method for the players to fix the epidemic, unlike in real life, the only way to stop the spread is to allow infected players and NPCs to die off and respawn. It finally ended when Blizzard did a reset on the server and apply fixes to the bug, making pets to unable to get infected with “Corrupted Blood”. This epidemic lasted one week, despite not a real-world epidemic, the behavior of many players has made scientists take notice of this incident, reaching out to Blizzard in order to research this even further.

Implication on Real-World Human Behaviors

A virtual world epidemic, a bug in a game, normally only garners attention from gamers and anyone dabble in the gaming industry. However, the behaviors portrayed by the players caught the attention of scientists and researchers in the CDC and various agencies, as it provided a significant statistic data and research model for them to utilized to understand real-world problems.

In March 2007, an epidemiologist physician from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Ran D. Balicer, published an article in journal, citing the similarities between the Corrupted Blood incident and the recent SARS and avian influenza outbreak. Specifically, he is referring to the Corrupted Blood incident to a real-life epidemic. Similar to a real epidemic, it was first started in a remote and uninhabited area, through contact with human and animals, it was brought out of the remote area and start spreading among crowded communities. Just like in the real world, some of the infected people were asymptomatic and yet continues to spread the infection around the community. The infection is then finally taken notice by the authority and the people, but many times, it was a little too late to contain a widespread infection.

Once a community spread occurs, communities then start to quarantine the infected in a specific area and reject anyone else to enter the area until the epidemic was over. However, there will be people entering the quarantined area for various reasons, then get infected and bringing the virus out of the quarantined area, spreading it even further to any remain safe havens. In real life, some of these people may be members of the media reporting the epidemic in the region, or there are people with power and authority who enters to supervise the control. Not to mention there are records of people leaving the infected area while hiding their symptoms, so they can avoid being quarantined, unbeknownst that they are making the containment of the epidemic even more difficult than it already has.

Outside of medical and epidemic researches, there were even analysis conducted for terrorism. Charles Blair, the deputy director of Centre of Terrorism and Intelligence Studies, stated that the Corrupted Blood incident provided a new method of studying how terrorist cell group forms and operate, referring to the players who spread the “Corrupted Blood” around the virtual world of WoW. He mentioned that because WoW involved real people making real decisions while bound with a certain limitation, a realistic model for military intelligence analysts.

Despite all the various agencies using the incident and even the game as a research model, Blizzard stated and still maintains their position that WoW is a game, not designed to mirror the real-world or any aspect of the real world.

Connecting The Dots to The Current Covid-19 Epidemic

If any readers are up to date to the current reporting of the Covid-19 epidemic, the Corrupted Blood incident is scarily accurate to what has happened. The infection was first thought to be in a seafood market, where there were raw wild meat being sold, believed to be the origin of Covid-19. Although the identity is still unknown, patient zero then start to spread around the area, spread to more people around him or her, which then slowly became a community spread of the virus

When there was a community infection in Wuhan and various cities in China, the authority then went ahead to shut down the borders in various provinces and cities, only allow certain groups of people to enter and exit the area, in the effort to contain the virus. Coincident, the outbreak happened during the holiday period and before the Chinese New Year period, then there were asymptomatic infected people travel around the world, bringing the virus all over the globe. As of the time of writing this article, there are more than 30 countries being infected with Covid-19, with China having the most infected cases. There were even a few cases where people hid their symptoms so that they can continue with their holiday in foreign countries, but they were unknowingly spreading the virus out of their home country.

The human behaviors of the community, the authority and the rich, were all observed 15 years ago, not to mention it is still accurate to the finest detail.

Solving The Epidemic With The help of Everyone

Like the developers from Blizzard, the key to solving the epidemic is to develop a new and effective vaccine as soon as possible, while containing the infected patients in a quarantined space. It is quite lucky that we don’t need a “reset” to our world to get rid of the virus.

Unlike in a video game, there are no respawn if we die from the infection. Everyone should ensure that they are healthy and avoid anything that may endanger them to any infection, these are some of the guidelines provided by Singapore’s Ministry of Health.

• Avoiding eating and raw or uncooked meat.
• Avoid crowded areas.
• Avoid close proximity contact with people who are unwell or showing symptoms of illness.
• Practice good personal hygiene. E.g avoid sharing food or personal items.
• Frequent handwashing with soap.
• Wear a mask if you have any respiratory symptoms. E.g cough, runny nose.
• Seek medical help immediately if you are feeling ill.
• Defer any travel to Hubei Province, China
• Avoid any non-essential travel to Mainland China
• Avoid any non-essential travel to Daegu City, South Korea
• Avoid any non-essential travel to Cheongdo Country, South Korea

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• USA
• Copohengan
• Paris
• Dusseldorf
• Frankfurt
• Milan
• Barcelona
• Istanbul
• London
• Beijing
• Chengdu
• Chong Qing
• Guangzhou
• Shanghai
• Shenzhen
• Xiamen
• Hong Kong
• Hiroshima
• Fukuoka
• Nagoya
• Osaka
• Tokyo
• Busan
• Seoul
• Taipei
• Brunei
• Phnom Penh
• Siem Reap
• Bali
• Balikpapan
• Bandung
• Jarkata
• Makassar
• Medan
• Surabaya
• Yogyakarta
• Kuala Lumpur
• Penang
• Manila
• Yangon
• Bangkok
• Phuket
• Koh Samui
• Danang
• Hanoi
• Ho Chi Minh City
• Adelaide
• Brisbane
• Cairns
• Darwin
• Melbourne
• Perth
• Sydney
• Christchurch
• Dhaka
• Bengaluru
• Chennai
• Cochin
• Hyderabad
• Kolkata
• Mumbai
• Male
• Kathmandu
• Johannesburg
• Colombo
• Dubai

The reason being is due to the reduction of service on both Silk Air and SIA.

Singapore Airlines and SilkAir have made additional temporary adjustments to services across our network in response to weak demand due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

SIA stated that

“The SIA Group has taken swift action to mitigate the impact of Covid-19. We will continue to monitor the situation, and be nimble and flexible in adjusting our capacity to match the changing demand patterns in the market.

Singapore Airlines and SilkAir apologise for the inconvenience caused.

Affected customers will be notified and re-accommodated onto other flights.

If you have booked your tickets through a travel agency, please contact your agent for assistance. If you have booked your tickets directly with Singapore Airlines, please contact the SIA reservations team at (+65) 6223-8888 if you need any assistance.

As we are expecting large volumes of calls, we seek your patience and understanding that our customer service agents may take longer than usual to respond to you.”

You can view the complete list of the scheduled flight here

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It is a miracle that we survived those.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

Let us take a breather first before we talk about the big guns, and this is the most recent one that got everyone on earth to be more aware of epidemics in the 21^st century, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS. This highly infectious viral respiratory disease first broke out in November 2003 and ended roughly around July 2004, infected more than 8000 people and killed almost 800 of them, making the death rate almost 10%. There are several things that are scary about SARS, one of which is that it infects healthy and strong people, making our own immune system to attack ourselves, otherwise known as a cytokine storm, and eventually our death. This means that the healthier you are, the easier you will be infected. At the same time, it is highly infectious among the weak, so once your immune system is weakened, it will spread to the elderly and children around you.

If you thought that is the scariest thing about SARS, the next one should cripple you. There were no vaccines developed that are effective against SARS as of 2020, and how did the SARS epidemic end? It simply disappears, like many other virus outbreaks in the past.

The silver lining about this is that the SARS virus is also a strain of coronavirus, which is also the same kind as the novel coronavirus. With SARS, the world is more prepared against the novel coronavirus, although we still have to make sure to be on our toe on preventive measures.

2) The Spanish Flu

Now, the big ones are coming. First, we have the Spanish Flu, or also known as the 1918 influenza pandemic. This is the first H1N1 virus pandemic, the second influenza pandemic happened in 2009. The Spanish Flu first reported in January of 1918, close to the end of world war one. This virus infected around 500 million people around the world, roughly around 27% of the world’s population of the time. The death toll was estimated at around 50 million, or even 100 million at the high end of estimation. It has infected people from all over the globe, even in remote places like the Pacific Islands and the Arctic. The pandemic finally ended roughly around December of 1920, depends on the region. Similar to the previously mentioned SARS, there was no known treatment or vaccine for the Spanish Flu, because it simply disappears after the second death wave. There was theory suggested that the virus mutated into a less deadly strain, but there is not enough data to back that up. Still, thinking that the novel coronavirus is scary?

3) The Third Plague

One of the most devastating pandemics in history is the bubonic plague pandemic, and the third one is one of the worst among them. It began in 1855, in Yunnan China, during the Qing Dynasty. This plague spread throughout all continents and infected millions of people. It is unclear of the exact number of infected patients, but the recorded death toll was more than 12 million in China and India, as the plague is largely confined in the Asia region. The main carrier of this plague was fleas and rats, while they were transported around trade routes on both land and sea, bringing the plague across the globe and infected many people, similar to the two predecessors of the bubonic plague pandemic, which we will talk about in the next one. Fortunately, according to the World Health Organization, the plague was active until 1960, and we have effective medicine to treat this virus now.

4) The Cocoliztli Epidemic

This is a bit of a rarely mentioned epidemic, but it also claimed millions of lives between 1545 and 1548 in Mexico. There were a few more Cocoliztli outbreak throughout history, but one of the worst happened in 1545. This disease was highly infectious and very deadly, infected patients generally died two to four days after infection, and it was a very graphical and horrible way to go. In a span of four years, it had taken around 5 million to 10 million lives. Luckily for the rest of the world, this epidemic was contained in Mexico. If it were to be spread out with the trade ships, there will be even more deaths around the globe.

5) The Black Death

This is the biggest gun among all big guns, the worst pandemic ever hit humanity, the infamous Black Death, and some called it the black plague. This plague is the second outbreak of the bubonic plague, along with a combination of other forms of plague, making it one of the deadliest pandemic. It is thought to have originated in Central Asia and East Asia in 1346, peaked in Europe from 1347 to 1351. The Silk Road is believed to be the main transportation route of this plague. According to Norwegian historian, Ole Benedictow, the death rate could be as high as 60% of the entire European continent. Although there are no exact numbers, that means the Black Death killed 75 million to 200 million people in Europe, making it the deadliest pandemic in history.

Like many pandemics mentioned in this list, there was no cure to Black Death, it simply disappeared and scientists are still baffled at the disappearance.

The only positive outcome of Black Death was it caused a huge religious, social and economic upheaval, some historians even believe that the Black Death jump-start the scientific research field and reduce the influence of religion in scientific practice.

We are not in the clear yet

There are still many diseases in the world that can cause a pandemic, this list simply mentions some of the deadliest one in history, and we survived through those. This novel coronavirus may not be the one to ultimately end us, we should still practice good personal hygiene and make sure we exercise enough to maintain the strong immune system. At the time of writing this article, there are already more than 40000 infected people of the novel coronavirus, but it is still well contained in each region.

Let us work hard and work smart, show more care for people around us, in the midst of a virus outbreak.

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1) Forest Fire Everywhere

2019 is one hot year, figuratively and literally. There are many wildfires around the world and some of them happened in the weirdest place of all. In the United States, the California Wildfire took many lives and houses along with natural habitat. The end-of-year wildfire in Australia devastated many people and wildlife alike, and the tundra and snow forests in Alaska and Siberia respectively were also on fire. Those are some of the high profile wildfire incidents that were reported widely, at the time of writing this article, there are more wildfires in the Africa region and South America region still burning as of now. Think again when you take in oxygen, they may be scarce if these burning continues.

2) Impeachment of Donald Trump

Exactly one week before Christmas, one of the biggest holiday season in a year, Donald J. Trump, the 45^th President of the United States of America, was impeached by congress and now facing trial for the removal of office. This means Donald Trump is the third US president to be impeached in history. While what he has done that led to the impeachment is too long for this discussion, this impeachment will send a ripple around the world. Being one of the biggest and strongest country on earth, the impeachment could cause a lot of distress towards the US, especially towards their ally. The result of this trial and impeachment is still yet to be observed, but it is nonetheless one of the biggest event of 2019

3) Hong Kong Demonstration

Another political driven event that took up a lot of column space on newspaper (do people still read them?) and our social media page, but it is a serious issue that we should look at. The origin of the demonstration started when Hong Kong people were displease with the extradition bill proposed by Carrie Lam, the chief executive of Hong Kong. The demonstration is still ongoing at the time of writing this article and it has heavily affected many people around the region and Hong Kong citizens. Businesses pulling out of the island and small medium businesses embracing a nose dive in their revenue. While the motive and moral of the event is subjective, the demonstration definitely left a mark in history.

4) PMD ban in Singapore

Let’s bring things back to our home ground, Singapore, what happened in our Lion City? PMD, Personal Mobility Device, are banned in Singapore in November, the ban will then enforce on 1^st January 2020. This has affected hundreds and thousands of food delivery riders, as PMD is their main form of transport without forking out a lot of money for a motorbike, which is the cheapest option other than PMD. This PMD ban passed, due to the multiple collision cases throughout the years, there are some cases where elderly people died from collision injuries. Voices were loud, calling to ban PMD as many claims the riders are too much of a threat on the road. Even though many riders adhere to strict regulations and maintaining a safe speed, they are also affected by the ban, rendered many PMD worthless.

5) The End of Eras

2019 is also a year where many legends come to an end, many eras wrapping up and saying good byes. The Marvel Cinematic Universe ended the “Infinity Gauntlet” saga with “Avengers: Endgame”, many fan beloved characters like Iron Man and Captain America ended their stories and passed baton down to the next generation of heroes. Another big movie franchise also ended their latest saga, “Star Wars” ended what their fans like to call, the sequel trilogy, with “Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker”. According to Kathleen Kennedy, the current president of Lucasfilm, the Skywalker saga has ended and all is possible in the future. Another fan favorite film series also ended just a little before Christmas, Ip man. Ip man series ended the franchise on the 4^th entry in the series and it ended with a bang, breaking box office record everywhere. Ip man series is so popular that it even beat Star Wars twice in box office with Ip man 3 and Ip man 4. Fans may be disappointed that Donnie Yen, who played as Ip man, announced that “Ip man 4” is his last Kung Fu film and he would focus on other various projects.

2019 sure is a huge and eventful year, not all were good and pleasant events are few and far in between, yet it still gives us something to look forward to in 2020. Let us all march forward and make 2020 the best year for us.

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No Successor

For many decades, we have enjoyed local food at our fingertips. Sometimes, we may also enjoy it with our parents and our children, spanning across generations. Not only that, there are many hawker stalls that are more than 50 years old. However, many parents taught their children, and still do, to be highly educated in order to have higher-paying jobs with very little physical work required. This resulted in many children having the wrong impression that hawker is not a worthy career to even consider.

As of right now, many hawker owners are getting older, some of them are in their 80s, yet they are still operating today. Many of them are not retiring due to some very simple reasons, some of them reflected me that either they do not want to end their business and spend the rest of the day doing nothing or they are hoping their customers can get to enjoy good food as long as they can.

It does shine a very sad light upon the future of our hawker culture, as many famous hawkers ended when their culinary skills and recipe did not get passed down to the next generation.

Increased difficulty in operating a hawker.

In contrast to many people’s prejudice, operating a hawker stall is not as simple as it seems. A hawker owner will have to adhere to many examinations and criteria before they can start their business, they have to attend hygiene course as a requirement from NEA, ensuring all operators are able to produce food in a hygiene manner. Not only that, each stall will be graded based on the standard of hygiene, if it is too low, the owner may not be able to continue to operate their stall. Although it is extremely important to the operator and hawker patrons, it does prove to be an obstacle for any potential hacker to start a new business.

All of us enjoy having our favorite meals in a hawker center, or a name is commonly known by older generations, “Kopitiam”. Roughly translated into “Coffee shop”, they exist throughout history and lasted to this day. Now, these coffee shops are facing the biggest obstacles of all, rental. As Singapore constantly developing its own infrastructure, the rental of each stall is also getting higher. If the location is good enough, the rental will reach a ridiculous price. Many operators wanted to maintain a low-priced hawker food, but the high rental fee proves to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, resulting in many operators to fold up their business for good. Rubbing salt in the wound, many large corporations also required the owners of the stall to pay 10% to 20% of their weekly avenue on top of the rental, this is not helping to preserve and prosper the hawker culture.

Change in eating habit

People’s eating habit changes every now and then, but they are mostly following a trend. A few decades ago, people looked at the taste and price of their food, which is the attraction of hawker food. In the last decade, people are looking for healthier food, low carbohydrate, salt, sugar or even trans-fat free food are the key components. Hawker food of the old cannot provide or very little healthy choice for patrons. Thus so, many patrons decided to avoid hawker food to pursue a healthier lifestyle.

Hawker food also faces the challenge from celebrities’ restaurants and cafés, eating places such as these offer food and creative dishes patrons won’t be able to find in hawker food. As such, many younger foodies will favor such restaurants and cafes. Some of these places even offer food at a lower price too, thus more attractive to younger foodies.

It is not all dark and moody

There are certainly a lot of factors that cause many hawker owners to end their business, some even put potential hackers at bay from starting their journey in culinary. However, there is still hope for our hawker culture.

There are some younger hawkers either started their business in the culinary world or taking over their parents’ legacy and continue on to bring good food to their faithful customers. We have mentioned quite a few times of the Delicious Boneless Chicken Rice, located in Katong Shopping center. As the first-generation owner was approaching their silver years, the future of their stall seems bleak. Until 2018, their son, Soki Goh decided to start learning their culinary skills and operations, so the first-gen owner can retire while the stall continues to the next generation.

Another stall that also successfully passed down to the next generation is “Teck Huat Coffee Roti”. The first-generation owner, Tony Soh, has passed the baton to his son, Alvin Soh, to run the multiple stalls around Singapore and seemingly operated with much higher efficiency.

Singapore government also implemented several policies to further assist hawkers to operate and keeping prices low. In 2018, Senior Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, Dr. Amy Khor, mention focussing on improving the Social-Conscious Enterprise Hawker Centre (SEHC) model that was already implemented into the seven new hawker center back in 2018. The SEHC is programmed to give support to stall owners to manage costs better, allowing better oversight for a regulator like the National Environment Agency (NEA) to take care of hawkers. Singapore even nominated hawker culture for 2019 UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, in the hope to preserve the hawker culture in Singapore for future generations.

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What is climate change?

Climate change is an observed phenomenon when the climate system of the earth changes over a period of time, which ranges between a few decades and a few million years. During this change, new weather patterns can be observed as well, such as frequent rainfall, stronger hurricane and longer droughts.

The difference between this climate change that we are observing right now, and the previous changes throughout the billions of years of the Earth’s history, this climate change is generally attributed to human activity.

Climate change over the years

Scientists from The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, has been recording and analysing the global temperature and the results are traumatising. According to the ongoing temperature analysis from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the global temperature of the Earth has increased by about 0.8 degree Celsius since 1880, majority of the warming happens after 1975, at a rate between 0.2 to 0.4 degree Celsius per decade.

It may not seem like much, almost 1 degree Celsius after decades, but let us use an analogy. Imagine boiling water from a small saucepan, it only needs a small cooking stove to bring the water to a boil. Now, we increase the amount of water and increase the size to a gigantic cauldron you see in a professional kitchen, now you need a big stove and strong flame to boil the water. This analogy is to demonstrate an understanding of the amount of energy required to heat up earth, it is incredibly huge to increase 1 degree Celsius across the planet. 

To put it into perspective, 1 degree Celsius increase melts the ice and increase sea level, 1 to 2 degree Celsius drop will put the Earth into a mini ice age.

To add to the credibility of such a claim, this graphic from NASA also shows other independent agencies’ record of the global temperature. The agencies are Met Office Hadley Centre/Climate Research Unit, National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) and Japan Meteorological Agency. What was scary from their 2014 record, as shown in the graph below, the results are terrifyingly similar to one another, proving that the increase of global temperature not only is a hard truth but also as urgent as it should be.

What causes this man-made climate change?

There are several causes of climate change, but most scientists agreed that human kind caused the current climate change. According to NASA’s website, the number is as large as 97% of the world scientists all agreed that climate change is real and it is the biggest crisis faced by humanity as of now. It is also quite agreeable to most scientists that the increasing usage of fossil fuel after the post-war era contributed to the increase of greenhouse gases. According to NASA, the usage of fossil fuel was 5% per year, accompanying the aerosol.

For many that are not informed about fossil fuel, it is the most prominent energy source, as of now, to power everything we are using right now. However, many people do not know about the effects of burning fossil fuel on the environment. Burning fossil fuel will produce carbon monoxide if burnt incompletely and carbon dioxide if completely burnt. Carbon monoxide is poisonous and is fatal if a person breathes in a large amount of it, Carbon dioxide is responsible for global warming as it traps heat on earth rather than radiating out into space, which will then lead to melting ice cap and more forest fire.

Not to mention the pollutant released as by product from mining and oil drilling, which further destroy the environment and livelihood of the people around the area.

Effects of climate change we witness right now

In August 2019, the Amazon wildfires shocked the world. Being named “Lung of the world” as it provides 20% of the oxygen on planet Earth, and it is on fire. Granted that it was a man-made fire to clear land for corporate monetary gain, there are other forests were or still on fire. Around the same period, Alaska tundra and Siberia forests were burning as well. For our readers’ information, these are some of the coldest places on Earth, and they are on fire. The plantations in these regions are not resistant to high temperature and so it burns rather easily if the temperature were to be higher than the norm, which also means wildfire will be more frequent than usual in the future.

Precipitation pattern will also change, drastically even in some region. This means that rain will be less predictable, heavier rains in some area and less rain in the others. Rain period will also lengthen and shorten in a certain region. We can already observe the increase of rainfall in Singapore and the effects of such event. According to National Climate Change Secretariat, or the NCCS, The average annual rainfall has increased from 2192mm in 1980 to 2727mm in 2014, a rather alarming data to be observed. The increased rainfall will cause our water drainage system to be overwhelmed and leads to flash flood. If the rainfall of that year were to be lower than usual, or a drought to happen in the region, it will severely affect Singapore’s water supply.

Despite what we can observe right now is terrifying, the scarier fact is that our next few generations will be the one that suffers the worst catastrophe that our planet has ever faced. It is the same reason why many young students conducted their climate change rally, they are afraid that they would not have a future if the planet is destroyed.

What can we do to help mitigate climate change?

Although a small country, Singapore can still contribute to fight climate change and save our planet.

According to NCCS, Singapore is working on sectoral measures to reduce carbon emission by 2020, despite some measures might extend further beyond the year 2020. The graph is as below.

As Singapore is a small island country, we have limited access to renewable energy and clean energy, but that does not mean we stop any measures to cut down the burning of fossil fuel. According to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s speech at the United Nation (UN) on 23rd September 2019, Singapore is working towards having 80% of all buildings in Singapore to “go green” and 90% of peak-hour commuting by public and/or shared transport, further increase the energy efficacy. Large solar panel and natural gas are also considered to provide energy outside fossil fuel.

As citizens, we can contribute by reducing and reuse materials as much as we can, especially materials such as plastic and any other non-biodegradable materials. We can also help to reduce carbon emission by using public transport more often, 20 people on one bus are better than 1 person in 1 car. Alternatively, you can also use a bicycle or other similar transport systems to traverse, you will be able to reach your destination and workout at the same time, and it is a win-win situation.

Although there are very limited things we can do to help combat climate change, but we can help to influence our neighbouring countries to do the same, not for any political agenda or benefits, but for the well-being of our next generations and our only home, Earth.

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Sushi

One of the most popular and iconic Japanese dish, eating with raw fish on top of vinegar rice. Introduced in the 8^thcentury, popularised during the Edo period (AD 1603 to 1868) and spread throughout the country.

Many of us may spend hundreds of dollars if not more on this dish, even though the quantity may be smaller than usual. There is a reason, the classic nigiri sushi was first made as a snack. Yes, it is a kind of fast food during the Edo period, made and sold on a mobile cart for patrons to enjoy on the go. So sushi was first made as a snack to enjoy on the go, we do not have the price of a piece of sushi 500 years ago, but judging that it was a snack, it should not cost much. Right now, you can pay up to 50 dollars in a restaurant for sushi, showing that Sushi has turned into an exquisite dish over time.

Lobster

Yes, this super expensive seafood was once considered cheap food. So cheap, in fact, it is believed to be as bad as eating a rat. In both European countries and North America, Lobster is considered a poverty food. All these are due to the ugliness of lobster and how hard it is to cook it, this only lasted till the 19^thcentury, when lobster is being widely appreciated for its taste. Although some still avoid eating lobsters as it is a taboo food in some religion. Not the Chinese culture though, Chinese people eat all sorts of thing.

Now, lobster is extremely expensive and many only get to have them during banquets. Depends on the grade, one lobster can easily get into the hundreds of dollars range.

Chocolate

Yes, everyone’s favourite snacks and definitely many lady’s guilty pleasure. However, many did not notice that the price of chocolate has been increasing over the years. Although the increase is not significant enough to feel the pain, and many consume chocolate on an impulse basis. However, the increase in price is due to the demand has spiked over the years and still raising. Adding fuel to fire, some scientists speculate that chocolate may go extinct in the next few decades as climate change and high temperature made growing cocoa more difficult by the year. So, you might want to enjoy this fantastic snack before it disappears, or decrease your intake so you can have it longer, it’s your choice.

Honey

Another favourite and healthiest food on this list, also the victim of climate change. Honey is highly regarded as perfect food as it is a healthier option of sugar compared to refined sugar, high antioxidant content and it tastes really good. However, because of the decreased of habitat due to human activities and climate change, bees population are decreasing as we speak, lower numbers of bees also mean less honey being produced by them too and so, it increases the price of honey. Now a jar of honey can cost anywhere between $20 and $100, depends on the kind of honey you bought.

Bak Kut Teh

For many local Singaporeans and Malaysians, this dish is not a stranger to our daily meal. For the convenience of our foreign readers, Bak Kut Teh is a dish where a pork bone broth is served to you with pork ribs dibbed in the soup. Although its origin is unclear, it is somewhat accepted by many historians that this dish is popular since the 1920s (almost 100 years ago, yes, it is that old), served to the labour workers as a quick meal to replenish energy, a thick oolong tea was also served to clear the fattiness of the pork ribs.

We know Bak Kut Teh used to be served to the labour workers, and the workers don’t earn much during the early days of Singapore, so the price of one Bak Kut Teh is extremely cheap, adding the fact that pork ribs were deemed cheap food as well since it contains very little meat compared to other parts of a pig and it is fatty. Right now, you can find Bak Kut Teh costs between the prices of 6 dollars to 15 dollars per bowl, raising the bar higher and into the ranch of casual dining.

Treasure what you taste, think of what you eat.

Food and cuisine has changed over the years and definitely will continue to change, but we cannot deny the fact that many of us like to eat good food. Remember that every bite you sink your teeth into, rethink that some of those food used to be almost dirt cheap and now it costs a limb for various reason, you might feel something different on your taste bud.

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Many have criticized Huawei to be ill-prepared for such promotion, some also deemed that it was a publicity stunt to garner some attention to the brand, which is our topic for today. There is a saying amongst the professionals, “There is no such thing as bad publicity”, but is it really the case? Let us take a look at some of these publicity stunts that went wrong.

Sticky situation

In 2005, Snapple attempted to erect the biggest popsicle to promote their new line of frozen treats. Snapple decided to bring in a seven-metre tall, weighing 17.5 ton Snapple juice popsicle and place it in the middle of New York City. However, Snapple did not expect the hot summer in June was so hot that the popsicle melted way faster than it was supposed to be. The melted popsicle then turned into sugary sticky juice and flooded the union square, causing the fire department to be called in and closed off several streets to do a thorough cleaning. Snapple may be able to attract enough attention to their brand, but they most certainly did not attract positive attention, caused more trouble than anything that they expected.

Circles.life cash giving machine

Let us pull back to our home ground, Singapore. What other publicity stunts caused more negative feedback, if not more? One such case is the “cash giving” publicity done by Circles.Life.

In February of 2018, Circles.Life placed a huge cardboard vending machine in the CBD (Central Business District) at Raffles Place. The event was easy to understand, people only need to insert $3 into the machine and a $50 note will be dispensed. Many people walked away with $47 extra in their pocket, but a large number of people trying to get a little richer caused quite a commotion. There were people falling and pushing, attempting to get their hands on free money. The stunts were cut short when police were involved and Circles.Life ran out of $50 to dispense.

It was a publicity stunt to promote Circles.Life’s new Unlimited Data on Demand plan, which allows the user to enjoy 4G+ mobile data by paying $3 on a daily basis. Public outcry is loud on the publicity stunt deployed, many voiced out that the number of people crowding around the vending machine caused disruption to the businesses around the area, the physical pushing and falling may also cause danger to the individual participating in the stunt.

Fake terrorist attack by CoD

In 2015, the official tweeter account of a famous video game franchise, “Call of Duty” tweeted a series of “News Report”. The so-called “News Report” reported that Singapore is under terrorist’s attack, follow up with more tweets that the Singapore government has established martial law and more photos of the destruction of the lion city.

Anyone that lives on the island, like me, did not see any attack nor any martial law. This was a series of publicity stunts deployed by Activision to promote their new game, “Call of Duty: Blac Ops 2”, which features the destruction of Singapore by the terrorists in the fictional year of 2065.

Netizens and citizens alike were enraged at such an irresponsible publicity stunt, for it may send the wrong message to the people living in Singapore or may even cause a snowball of the false event in response to the “terrorist attack”.

Rebecca Lim’s retirement stunt

In 2016, local actress Rebecca Lim announced on her Instagram that she will be retiring. This news came out of nowhere as Rebecca was at her prime and a rising star in local entertainment, many of her fans were shocked but still offers their blessing to Rebecca’s decision.

Over the weekend, fans realised it was a publicity stunt deployed by NTUC Income along with Rebecca Lim to promote the idea of planning early for retirement. On Rebecca’s Instagram page, there are no lines or any form of hints that it is a collaboration between the star and NTUC Income. Fans were enraged that they were fooled into the idea that their idol was retiring, calling it a bad marketing gimmick and slammed both Rebecca and NTUC Income on the publicity stunt.

Philip’s shaver launch

October of 2010, there was a video that went viral online that a bear ravaged through at a bus stop near Ulu Pandan. It caused a lot of safety concerns over the alpha predator lurking around the residential area, police were involved and multiple zoo personnel deployed to ensure the capture of a bear. To many people’s surprise, the bear was a man in a bear costume.

This viral video was a publicity stunt deployed by electronic group, Philips, promoting their new line of a shaver. Needlessly said, the public was angered by such publicity stunt, slamming them for wasting public resources for their promotion. Philips issued a statement and apologise for the publicity stunt.

Conclusion

There are several reasons why many people were tricked into such publicity stunts, but looking at the incidents stated above and the most recent Huawei incident, we can generally identify two reasons. One, we are emotionally connected to the subject matter. Two, we are greedy for the cheap and easy way for us to take advantage. Emotional connection is easy to understand, we as a human being are always concern about things or people that we care about. It is the same reason why Rebecca Lim’s fake retirement and the fake bear raised that many eyebrows, because we are concern about them, about the safety of everyone involved.

The second reason is, in my own opinion, the main reason why publicity stunt tends to work and still causes an uproar. We cannot deny the fact that humans are greedy, we yearn for things that are free or cheap, despite the fact that the items mentioned are not even that good, to begin with. In this case, we may not know that the Huawei Y6 Pro is a fantastic phone, but the fact that it costs $54 dollar for anyone above the age of 50 to purchase, is a good enough reason for thousands of people to line up and hope to get a cheap smartphone on their hands.

Although there is no bad publicity, not all can agree that it is ethical to fool and cheat the feeling of their patrons or fans. These are the group of people that offers their support to their favourite brand or celebrity, publicity stunts mentioned above not only toyed with their feelings but trust as well. So big companies should take such amount of trust into consideration whenever they attempt to execute publicity stunts again, it is to avoid the most recent Huawei Y6 Pro promotion incident.

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