u/ClownLeong

every time george yeo drops another 2,000-word fb essay glazing beijing, this entire sub loses its collective mind. you guys immediately start foaming at the mouth, screaming about CCP shills and foreign interference.

but honestly? i’m just sitting here taking notes. the man is running an absolute masterclass in securing the bag.

he ate that 2011 aljunied loss, packed up his desk, and instantly monetized his geopolitical worldview. we're all down here sweating over 9% GST, monitoring BTO lottery results, and doing mental math to see if we can afford the fish at the cai png stall. meanwhile, george casually vacuumed up $2.1 million SGD in a single year as executive chairman of kerry logistics over in HK.

and his corporate board lineup is actually hilarious. you guys are fighting for your lives trying to claim $3 cashback on shopee; george is chilling on the board of pinduoduo. he literally chairs their corporate governance committee. oh, and he threw huawei singapore onto the resume just for the aesthetic.

then there’s the professional yapping circuit. event organizers are wiring this guy 20k to 80k USD a pop just to stand in front of anxious billionaires and spout the exact same shit your boomer uncle rants about at the kopitiam after downing three warm tiger beers. he is getting paid global CEO money to tell rich expats that the west is crumbling and they need to kneel to the motherland.

but the absolute peak of this hustle was his taiwan side-quest. bro flew straight into taipei, looked the locals dead in the eye, and told them to join a "chinese commonwealth." the taiwanese govt basically chased him to the tarmac with a broom and branded him a mouthpiece. do you think he lost a single second of sleep? he probably just chuckled into his champagne in SQ business class on the way to his next board meeting. minus 1,000 social credit from taipei, plus one million actual, spendable dollars to his UOB account.

the funniest shit is when the local geopolitics nerds scramble to defend him in the comments. "erm, actually, he isn't bought! he was saying these pro-china things 20 years ago as foreign minister!" yeah, no shit. that's what makes him a god-tier hustler. he used his MFA tenure as a two-decade free trial to build his portfolio. the absolute millisecond he became a private citizen, he ripped his opinions off the public domain and shoved them behind a massive corporate paywall. absolute gigabrain maneuver.

some journalist even tried to corner him in an interview a while back, asking if he was biased. most politicians would do the pathetic PR wayang. not george. he looked straight at the camera and went, "Me pro-China? I accept the label." pure, shameless, weaponized transparency.

so stop blowing your blood pressure reading his hot takes. you are raging on reddit for free, while somebody out there is wiring him offshore funds to write them. don't hate the player. respect the grind.

I cannot take another one of these "slow living" TikToks. You know exactly what I'm talking about. The lofi acoustic beat drops, some influencer does a slow pan over a knocked-down wall, a S$2,000 retro SMEG fridge, and a living room full of Taobao furniture—all while trying to gaslight us into thinking a 50-year-old resale flat with a decaying lease is the ultimate flex because they "prioritize lifestyle over ROI."

Spend your money how you want lah. But we seriously have to stop romanticizing this as some aspirational blueprint for younger Singaporeans. Behind the pastel Pinterest filters, this entire trend is just pure financial loss p**n dressed up with good lighting and a macrame chandelier.

The specific person I'm talking about is waffleflat She even got featured in an AsiaOne article recently where the media completely ate up her "home instead of asset" narrative. Go watch her yourself on TikTok_ — I'll wait. So let me walk you through the actual miserable reality behind this "curated aesthetic journey" they are trying to sell us.

First thing. She drops over $400k on the unit. Then blows another $30k hacking it apart to build her "forever home." And then—and I cannot stress this enough—she admits she still lives with her mom half the week because of "inertia" and loneliness. Filial piety is beautiful, sure, but let's be honest about what actually happened here: she blew half a million dollars and torched her retirement plan to create a highly aesthetic weekend staycation pod. That's it. That's the whole story.

And these people love to preach about ignoring ROI to "live intentionally." Cute. But they conveniently gloss over the brutal math hiding underneath all of that. The government literally looked at her 49-year lease and went, yeah, this flat isn't going to outlive you, and heavily pro-rated her loan because of it. She had to bleed out her own liquid cash savings just to cover the massive upfront shortfall. She willingly wiped out her bank account to hold a bag that will be worth exactly $0 the day HDB takes the keys back. Intentional living indeed.

Oh but it gets better. Because she blew her entire reno budget smashing down walls and going to war with contractors over tiny "aesthetic" subway tiles, she literally had no money left for furniture. Her first housewarming party—the guests had to sit on the bare floor drinking wine because the only seating in the entire flat was a single S$630 Taobao sofa. Half a million dollar home. Floor seating. Let that marinate.

Beyond the $30k reno itself, the sheer unhinged nature of every single decision within it is what truly gets me. She paid a demolition crew to violently smash apart perfectly functional, high-quality built-in wardrobes—not because they were broken, not because they were ugly—but because a Feng Shui master told her the bed geometry was off. Fine, okay, some people take Feng Shui seriously, I get it. But then. THEN. She commissioned a custom mustard macrame chandelier specifically to physically hide the traditional wooden Feng Shui gourd hanging from her ceiling because it "clashed with the mid-century modern aesthetic." She is hiding her Feng Shui cure with a $400 handwoven art piece. I don't even know where to begin.

Because the whole "slow living" vibe on that page is completely performed for camera and the cracks are everywhere if you actually watch closely. Bolting fake glowing French baguettes to the wall as actual home lighting. Spending an entire day scrubbing heavy industrial glass blocks so she can glue them together into a jagged "brutalist" bedside table. Opening her prized S$2,000 SMEG fridge on camera only to reveal it is completely barren inside because she forgot to buy groceries. Tapao-ing $4 hawker food in a sweaty plastic bag and then meticulously, painstakingly plating it onto expensive pastel designer ceramics just for the gram. This is the slow living dream, guys.

And the "glamorous independent woman" facade completely screeches to a halt the moment the cameras keep rolling past the aesthetic B-roll. We are watching her i get physically trapped and genuinely fighting for her life inside a duvet cover because she lives alone and there is nobody to help. We are watching her frantically blow-dry spilled orange juice off a curated striped tablecloth in a total panic because the shot is ruined. This is what "living intentionally" actually looks like at 2am in your half-furnished $430k weekend pod.

But wait. The absolute cherry on top? The real reason she’s probably still living with her mom half the week? I just found her flat listed on Tagvenue. That’s right—this deeply personal "slow living sanctuary" that she boldly claimed to AsiaOne was a "home instead of an asset" is currently being pimped out for S$80 an hour as a commercial photoshoot location for up to 8 people at a time. She blew $430k, went post-reno broke, moved back in with her mom, and is now desperately trying to claw back her ROI by turning her HDB into a commercial hourly rental studio. You literally cannot make this up.

Look, I'm not here to tell anyone how to spend their money. But please, for the love of god, do not let AsiaOne, or anyone like her gaslight you into wiping out your entire life savings on a decaying 50-year lease just so your living room can look like a photoshoot set for six years before the whole thing collapses. When that lease hits zero, HDB is taking back the keys and you are going to be sitting on a Taobao corduroy sofa in your mom's living room wondering where it all went wrong.

cannot make this up honestly

one of the biggest tourist spots in sg, tourists everywhere, and this guy is at Gardens by the Bay in a thick dog collar with a metal chain barking, panting and lunging at the camera. then he ends it by saying “i am the dog” like this is a normal thing to do in public.

imagine flying here for holiday, bringing your family to take nice photos, and this is your first impression of singapore.

This isn't a callout post for drama's sake. What I'm about to describe is a pattern of behaviour that's been hiding in plain sight, and our community deserves to know about it.

There's a 47-year-old unemployed IT guy who's been booking young cosplayers — mostly 18 to 20 year olds — for what look like standard portrait shoots. He pays upfront, seems normal enough at first, and then once you're alone with him in a park somewhere, the whole thing shifts.

He has an openly admitted decades-long schoolgirl fixation. He comes prepared — Taobao sailor uniforms purchased in advance (clip), and in one case, a replica pleated skirt from a well-known local girls' school that he'd paid $35 to have express-ironed (clip). Mid-shoot, he asks the girls to swap into these. His own words: "If you ask me to choose between a bikini or a sailor uniform, I will definitely choose the sailor uniform… I am 47 years old now, but my heart hasn't changed."

Between poses, he monologues. He's been jobless for over a year because of a knee injury — specifically, a 0.5cm hole — which he claims prevents him from riding a PMD (clip). His solution was to fly to Incheon Airport and then London Gatwick to apply for refugee status because he couldn't find IT work in Singapore. He waited five days at a Korean refugee centre before being sent home. He also tells the girls he's $1,500 behind on his HDB rent — yet in the same breath mentions he recently spent $370 on a one-hour Rent-A-GF session (clip). Make it make sense.

Every few minutes he announces his camera settings aloud like a malfunctioning robot — "Sony RX10 Mark IV… shutter speed 1 over 50" — then uses his camera's exposure zebra function to methodically scan the girls up and down on screen, narrating as he goes (clip 1), (clip 2), (clip 3): "Face got no zebra, hand got no zebra, blouse got a little bit of zebra line, skirt is okay." They are being scanned like items at a supermarket checkout.

This is where it stops being "awkward" and starts being a genuine safety concern. The personal information extraction is systematic. She mentions a bar she likes — he makes her spell it out letter by letter, then immediately asks for the exact location (clip). She mentions a Bali trip — he repeats it back multiple times, "And you're planning to visit Bali in December?", pinning down exact dates (clip). In a single session he's extracted her primary school, secondary school, and regular weekend hangouts (clip 1), (clip 2) — then digs into family structure, whether she's an only child, where her parents are, and somehow ends up on what mobile provider she uses and whether she's on 4G or 5G. He grills them about other people in the community too, fishing for drama and mapping out social circles. He asks about "ero-cos" services in detail — cheek kisses, lap dances, anything "more daring" — and once tried to invite a girl to share an Airbnb with him in Japan (clip). He even uses celebrity stalking as casual conversation, explaining how he uses fan tracking groups to rush to celebrity locations and asking whether heavy security would physically stop him from getting "up close and personal."

When she politely declines a third song request, he completely ignores it and immediately pivots: "Can you do a short dance move? A short short dancing." (clip) Boundaries simply don't register.

Here's the kicker with the videos. He records everything — continuous 4K, completely unedited, hours long — and only asks for consent to post it at the very end of the session. After an hour-plus of exhausting interrogation, she's already spilled everything on camera and just wants it to be over. Of course she says yes.

The one thing that visibly rattles him is a third party showing up. In one video, a cosplayer's friends unexpectedly arrived mid-shoot and he got audibly flustered: "Hey, just now I saw you only had one friend, how come suddenly a second friend appeared?" (clip). The entire method depends on isolation. Bring a friend. Keep them visible the whole time. That's genuinely all it takes to throw him off.

One last thing about his character. Jasper Tan — a well-loved Lion City Sailors and Arsenal supporter — passed away at 34 in December 2025. This guy used Jasper's death as an opportunity to publicly resurface an old court complaint he'd filed against him (clip). Dragging a dead man for petty score-settling isn't justice. It just tells you exactly who you're dealing with.

Stay safe, tell your friends, and if you've run into him at AFA or any local events, the community wants to know.

TL;DR: A 48-year-old former SME boss with a UK law degree ruined his business through pure ego. Now he drives Grab 12 hours a day to clear his massive debts, putting on a "zen" influencer persona online while literally hiding his face from ex-clients in real life.

Was going down a YouTube rabbit hole and stumbled across this local channel called "LazyCabbie". It’s this 48-year-old GrabCab driver who vlogs his 12-hour shifts and preaches about the beauty of living a "simple, zen life". His comment section is basically a giant circlejerk praising his resilience.

But if you actually listen to his life lore? Bro isn't an inspiring underdog story. It’s a massive reality check on ego, financial stupidity, and premium copium. Everyone loves to complain about the SG system, but sometimes people really just dig their own graves.

The "High SES" Downfall

The guy actually had a wild start. First off, he's not even originally from SG—he was born in a kampung in Johor, Malaysia, before his family moved here. Went from odd jobs—like literally skinning dead horses in a bloody slaughterhouse to feed eagles at the Bird Park (wtf)—to hustling his way to a UK Law degree. But when he came back, his ego couldn't stomach starting at the bottom as a paralegal making $2k/month.

So he starts an IP agency and his ego completely takes over. Bro bought an Audi he didn't even need and burned $10,000 over single weekends on convention booths just to stand around in thousand-dollar shoes cosplaying as a "big boss" flexing on the locals. To fund this wayang, he signed as a personal guarantor for SME micro-loans. Instead of managing his business, he got heavily addicted to World of Warcraft to escape reality and totally neglected his family.

When tech disrupted his industry, his business tanked. Instead of pivoting like a rational adult, he genuinely believed his "luck battery" was low. He wasted time doing elaborate temple rituals to charge his luck instead of fixing his business model. Boom. Debt trap.

The Massive Plot Hole

He now pulls 12-hour shifts as a Grab driver to earn about $3.5k–$4k. He surrenders ALL of it to his wife, pays $2k straight to the banks every single month for his past mistakes, and survives on a $400 allowance. He actively skips an $8 Subway sandwich just to eat cai png.

Here is the biggest plot hole though: The guy has a UK Law degree.

Even if he didn't pass the SG Bar, he could easily get a stable corporate job in compliance or contracts. But he chooses to drive 12 hours a day with zero CPF and zero MC. Why? Pride. He’d rather be "his own boss" in a Grab than swallow his pride and work a 9-to-5.

And his ego is still painfully fragile. He admitted that when he accidentally picked up an ex-client in his Grab, he slouched down to hide from the rearview mirror and put on a fake deep voice for the entire ride just so he wouldn't be recognized. He'd rather suffer in a cramped driver's seat than admit he failed. Siao.

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

On his channel, he complains endlessly about gig economy struggles, but his financial decisions are basically self-sabotage.

When an $8 fare evader tried to run, he locked the guy in his cab and drove all the way to the police station. Wasted 2 hours of prime surge driving purely out of spite, only for the cops to tell him it's a civil matter. Another time he found a tourist's dropped phone. Instead of just dropping it at a police post, he drove all the way back to their hotel for free. Burning his own petrol and missing peak fares while literally owing the banks 2k/month. Make it make sense.

And to lose his Grab-uncle belly without hitting the gym, he spent a fortune on premium extra-virgin olive oil, drinking a capful every morning to "bio-hack" his hunger. He unironically claimed walking to the car park was his "exercise"—a delusion so ridiculous his own mother-in-law openly mocked him.

Stop romanticizing the copium

Online, he acts like this enlightened "Dump Truck" therapist absorbing his passengers' trauma. To cope with having zero savings at 48, he compares himself to the ancient Chinese concept of the "Ugly Tree"—a tree that lives long because it’s too useless to be chopped down by carpenters.

But this zen act is total BS. During his downfall, he admitted to being a "coiled cobra" with explosive rage episodes. He’d scream his lungs out at his kids just for spilling water, nearly ending in divorce.

Let's call it what it is. You don't get to cosplay as a high-roller boss, emotionally abuse your family over spilled water, hide from ex-clients using a fake voice, and then pretend you're an enlightened "Ugly Tree" just because you're forced to drive a cab to pay off your bad debts.

What do you guys think? Is the gig economy just a trap for former high-earners whose egos won't let them work a normal office job?

TL;DR: Mediacorp documentary paints local girl as empowered digital nomad in Chiang Mai. Her own YouTube channel tells a different story — cockroach-infested flat, toxic smog, and a step-by-step guide to faking addresses on Thai immigration forms.

Was scrolling YouTube and the algorithm fed me this Mediacorp documentary (Gen Z Crash Course — watch here) hyping up a local XMM (Valerie/Fuari) who moved to Chiang Mai to escape SG's "toxic hustle culture". Very inspiring right?

Except state media clearly does zero background checks. If you actually go to her personal YouTube channel, the contrast is pure comedy. Mediacorp sent a whole production crew to paint her as this empowered remote-work pioneer, but her own vlogs are basically a masterclass in gentrifying Southeast Asia, living in squalor, and gaming immigration loopholes.

First, the whole narrative Mediacorp pushed is a lie. The documentary claims she left SG to escape "societal expectations" and burnout. But in her own vlog, she trauma-dumps that she actually ran away to Thailand because her ex-boyfriend turned out to be gay and she has severe anxiety. She literally has a video titled "moving abroad will NOT fix you", which Mediacorp conveniently ignored.

Then there's the whole "aesthetic slow living" facade. Mediacorp shows her doing pottery and living in this dreamy $500/month condo. What did she leave out? In her vlog, she deadpan admits her first 3 days were spent fighting 20+ cockroaches because the unit was vacant for so long. The tap water is undrinkable so she relies on carton deliveries. Worse, she is living there during the Chiang Mai burning season (where the AQI hits purple/hazardous). She even posted a whole rant about the pollution — flexing her slow cafe lifestyle while casually mentioning she is blowing literal black soot out of her nose and breaking out from toxic smog. Aesthetic living indeed.

But the most jialat part is how she exploits visa loopholes. Digital nomads love to act like they are superior expats, but her vlog is a step-by-step tutorial on how to bypass strict embassy checks:

• She openly admits she doesn't have a business registration number to pass the SG Thai Embassy checks. So what did she do? She intentionally flew to Vietnam just to apply from there, explicitly telling her viewers that Vietnam has a looser approval process to get the "Muay Thai" backdoor visa.
• To get around the paperwork, she screen-records the official Thai e-Visa site and tells her followers: "What I like to do is put random condo names... just copy the address because you probably don't have a place to rent yet."
• Mediacorp hyped her as an "established professional", but she couldn't even write her own corporate cover letter for the visa. She literally tells her audience: "Ask Chat GPT to write you the cover letter. That's what I did."

Imagine the absolute meltdown in this sub if foreign tourists or CECA posted tutorials on how to put fake random HDB addresses on their ICA arrival cards to bypass our immigration. But when a Singaporean does it in Thailand, it's an "aesthetic digital nomad hack."

Not to mention the random cringe. She eats a 10-baht street sausage and starts moaning so loudly her own friend gets repulsed and calls her out on camera ("Can you don't mmm... sounds like orgasm... That sounds fake"). Then she goes on a defensive rant shadowboxing imaginary haters calling her a "spoiled rich girl."

Mediacorp really saw a girl exploiting immigration loopholes, faking addresses on government forms, relying on ChatGPT to explain her own job, and inhaling toxic smog in a roach motel... and thought, "Yes, this is the perfect Gen Z role model for our documentary."

The absolute state of our local media. Wait till Thai immigration finds her vlog sia.

Top-Level Takeaways:

• Our favourite notorious Yishun WWE wannabe actually thought someone booked him for an outcall, but walked straight into a masterclass troll trap.
• He lugged a massive trolley bag 1.5 hours across the island, waited 45 minutes at the gate, just to get completely ghosted and mocked on a doorbell cam.
• The wildest part? The guy was literally days away from his court date for his revenge p*rn case, has a wife and kids, but was STILL pulling stunts like this. You really cannot make this up.

---

• Bro really thought he was a premium g*golo: Look at the leaked screenshots. He's using his Locanto alter-ego "mattlee104" and negotiating cndom usage and SD checks like a high-end entertainer. He booked a 10 AM slot and genuinely thought he was getting a payday.

• The Joo Koon to Balestier walk of shame: Imagine waking up early to commute 1.5 hours from the far west for this. The CCTV shot of him waiting at the gate is pure gold. As the chat logs show, he actually arrived early at 9:30 AM and just stood there with his giant luggage looking completely lost. Someone in the leaked chat group perfectly described the vibe: "See this instant erectile dysfnction."*

• The epic 45-minute chat meltdown: He stood there spamming question marks all the way until 10:18 AM. When he finally realizes he got played, the rage texts are legendary. He curses them out ("F**K U LI THIS STUPID IDIOTS"), tells them they will get "Karma & Retribution", and suddenly declares a new business rule out of nowhere: "Next time I will ask ppl put deposit $50 already 2 prevent prank." Honestly, who on earth is paying you a deposit?

• The savage fatality: The troll obviously knew who he was from the start, but gave the most brutal excuse just to rub salt in the wound. They straight up said they wanted to pay, but checked the camera and saw it was him (our famous Yishun Tianwang), so they backed out. They even explicitly brought up his infamous internet "BDSM mistress sht"* eating rumour to completely destroy his ego. The Telegram group members had a field day laughing at his misery: "Song rrr commute 1.5hr KENA PENNNN!!! HAHAHA"

• The crazy reality behind the meme: It’s hilarious until you remember his actual situation. Look closely at the troll's final message: "see you on 2nd April!!" They were actively taunting him about his court date for his Telegram revenge p*rn case. Instead of laying low with his family right before facing the judge, he was out here dragging a suitcase across the island trying to sell his body to strangers. Pure madness.

clearer chatlogs of Locanto alter-ego "mattlee104" --> https://imgur.com/a/Lzo3pXI

Anyone else getting this guy on their YT feed? Initially thought okay la, just another 40yo doing the whole FIRE thing, quitting corporate life to move his wife and 2 kids to Fukuoka.

Before anyone calls me a salty Sinkie stuck in a BTO: credit where it’s due. Guy actually had the balls to leave the rat race and execute the dream while the rest of us just complain on reddit.

But I got bored over the weekend and went down his channel and website rabbit hole. The lack of self-awareness is actually insane.

Dude spends hours preaching about escaping the toxic "default path" to live a slow, intentional life. But the moment he lands in Japan? He updates his website (sgdadjp.com) to offer paid "Life Transition" and "FIRE Roadmap" consulting. Bro, you've barely been in JP for a year and you are setting up a corporate hustle to charge people for expat coaching? Peak fake-it-till-you-make-it sia. He even quotes Alex Hormozi (the ultimate hyper-capitalist finance bro) to justify his "anti-hustle" lifestyle. Make it make sense.

He also just started an affiliate grift: If you look at his videos from the past 3 months, he's heavily pushing his Singaporean viewers to buy "Akiyas" (cheap, abandoned rural Japanese houses) and dropping lead-gen links for a Tokyo property company. The best part? He didn't even buy an Akiya. He bought a normal, ready-to-move-in house in a nice city because Akiyas are a huge headache. But he has no problem shilling them to his viewers for a kickback.

He brings up some valid points about SG’s toxic PSLE system and crowding, but then his mask slips. He tries to sound deep, but accidentally admits one of his breaking points for uprooting his family to a foreign country was getting annoyed by people playing TikTok out loud on the MRT. Like... just buy AirPods??

He also flexes that he and his wife "take pride in not outsourcing our kids", pulling the classic passive-aggressive "not trying to discredit anyone" move right before shaming dual-income SG parents who use a maid. Also randomly subjects himself to 2.4km IPPT runs in his free time just to depress himself over his timing dropping. Pure mid-life crisis Sinkie behavior tbh. (He also admitted he doesn't even know how to pronounce Fukuoka correctly despite buying a house there lmao).

But the instant karma is what really gets me.

His master plan was to game Japan's cheap "Business Manager Visa" (which only needs 5M yen capital) to run a chill 1-man show so he can semi-retire.

Well, Japan gahmen caught onto foreigners abusing this. They hiked the capital requirement by 600% to 30 MILLION YEN. And the kicker? You are now forced to hire a full-time local Japanese staff.

I know 30M yen is only around 240k SGD right now and as a FIRE bro he probably has that in the bank. The money isn't the problem—the employee is.

Back in August, he literally made apanic video talking about his "awkward situation". His 2-year solo anti-hustle plan was ruined before it even started. Now he has to burn his FIRE savings to pay a Japanese local's monthly salary, figure out JP employment laws, and actually grind just so he doesn't get deported.

Fled the SG rat race just to become a stressed-out SME boss paying employee CPF (or the JP equivalent) in a country where he barely speaks the language, while shilling abandoned houses to Singaporeans on the side. GGWP.

Anyone else following this trainwreck?

Siao lang really cannot stop seeking attention.

As part of his bail conditions, court already gave him a strict gag order not to talk about his NS case. But no, must strip half-naked, show off his chopstick body, and claim the gahmen is forcing him into the military when actually "HE is the military."

Encik hasn't even yell at him yet and he already self-sabo. SPF tracking his IP as we speak. 😂