The Singapore migrant worker who just went viral

Looking at the Humans of Singapore‘s Facebook or Instagram pages is usually one of the highlights of our week, with its consistent delivery of heartwarming and insightful stories and portraits of Singaporeans from all walks of life. But one story, about a migrant worker’s views on Singapore, kind of broke the internet yesterday. Here it is:

 

“Sunday my favorite day because that is the day I go watch movie. For workers, being outside is relaxing. When inside, got 12 man sleeping in one room, so not very comfortable. Sometimes before I going to sleep, I thinking.. should I leave to go to other country? But then I thinking – how does it matter? It will be same problem again. From outside, every country nice. You look on internet, you see pretty picture, and you think wow so great. So many beautiful building, so many beautiful people. But internet only showing you what is outside. It only showing you surface of city. It never showing you what inside. It never showing you the worker from Bangladesh working six days a week for few dollars to send home, and then crying himself to sleep because he away from his home and his wife for so long. At first I thinking – why not anyone asking. Why not someone worrying about us? But I thinking that people don’t asking these questions, because people don’t wanting to know the answer. People only wanting pretty picture, so they seeing pretty picture.”

A photo posted by Humans of Singapore (@humansofsingapore) on

Oct 12, 2015 at 9:11pm PDT

HoS Facebook posts average somewhere between 400-2,000 likes, but this one, as of this morning has gotten a whopping 9,100 likes.

If you’re interested in migrant worker issues, check out the work of some important Singaporean individuals and organizations: Cai Yinzhou, Adrianna Tan and Shivaji Das all have initiatives or you can volunteer at TWC2, HOME and Culture Kitchen to help.