We all know that Singaporeans are notoriously kaypoh. We pretty much poke our noses into everything.
Hear loud voices in the flat next door? Ask your neighbour about the fight last night.
Exam results come out? Compare results with your classmates until sian already.
However, during the Thai Cave Rescue, our good-natured kaypoh-ness was exposed on an international level.
According to Google Trends, Singaporeans searched “Thai Cave Rescue” the most frequently, as compared to the whole world.
Values onsite are calculated on a scale from 0 to 100, and the higher the number, the higher the percentage of the total searches. Singapore had a whopping score of 100, easily topping Australia and New Zealand, which ranked 2nd/3rd with a score of 61.
This means that from 1 Jul to 12 Jul, Google tracked many searches originating from Singapore for information about the rescue.
Compare this to countries like Malaysia (20), The United States (18), and the United Kingdom (18), and you can clearly see that Singaporeans were very interested in the miraculous mission.
Singaporeans have formed strong people to people bonds with the Thais.
About 1,028,077 Singaporeans visited Thailand in 2017.
So, almost 1 in every 5 Singaporeans visited Thailand, based on last year’s figures alone.
There is also a significant Thai population of about 47,700 that lives in Singapore.
In other words, we all have that one Thai friend who loves to take aesthetic pictures for your Instagram feed.
With such close bonds, Singaporeans are bound to care about what goes on in Thailand, especially when the story is this riveting.
With an unexpected premise, risk, tragedy, an Elon Musk cameo, and a happy ending, the cave rescue is fit to be made into a Hollywood movie.
So much so, that an American independent production house, Pure Flix, has announced its intentions to turn the rescue into a Hollywood movie.
Looking at the statistics, it is clear that a Singaporean release would do wonders for them.
Featured image from Royal Thai Navy.
Worse than your ah ma during CNY.
Singapore was not found on the list.
One man slammed a metal object repeatedly against the train doors.
A resident who lives next to the expressway complained of honking cars from 4am.
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She would even threaten her debtors with grave physical violence.