My husband, daughter and I have been visiting Singapore for the past 2½ months. We have some family here, and it has been a delight to get to know them better. 

We’ve learnt a lot about Singapore during our visit and deem it nearly infallible – from working on eradicating dengue, to blanketing the country with foliage, to the many services available for citizens, essentially a lack of homelessness, amazing medical care, continual reminders towards racial harmony, access to nearly anything, and continually looking towards the future while taking care of its past.

I could go on, but there’s one anecdote I want to highlight.

I unfortunately had some medical appointments during the week my mother-in-law was visiting from Australia to celebrate my daughter’s 11th birthday. I called for a Grab to take me home from a hospital appointment, and I lucked out with the driver – a lovely, chatty woman whom I’ll call Mrs 32.

We chatted about kids, hometown culture, her 32nd wedding anniversary the next day, how lucky Singaporeans are to live here. I then realised I was supposed to pick up a cake for my daughter that evening. I asked Mrs 32 if it might be possible to make a little cake stop. She knew just the right place. It was out of the way, but she didn’t mind. She insisted on parking the car and walking with me to the cake shop.

When I saw the sign “PayNow Only”, my heart sank (visitors cannot use the PayNow system, one of the very few problems I noticed).

Mrs 32 immediately paid for my daughter’s birthday cake, saying: “It’s only $26, it’s nothing! Plus it’s my Hari Raya month. I’m happy to do something for someone in need.”

She simply asked me to pay the favour to someone else.

We have only two more weeks in Singapore, and will be very sad to leave. We will take away many wonderful memories and many lessons from our time here – on racial harmony, drinking more water, planting more trees, strong family ties – but none so important as “Be more Mrs 32”, which we have adopted as our new family motto. 

I also wish Mr & Mrs 32 a very happy anniversary.

Sara Rawlinson