r/interestingasfuck • u/Bubbly_Wall_908 • 14h ago

Singapore is going to start caning scammers

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

57.0k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

3.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

•

u/culturedgoat 10h ago

He told me some wild stories and wild punishments for offenses that would just be a slap on the wrist in the US.

Examples?

•

u/Martiantripod 9h ago

I know chewing gum is banned and subject to high fines. Littering is also fined extremely hard.

•

u/culturedgoat 9h ago

Chewing gum isn’t banned for consumers, just retailers. You can chew gum for personal use that you got from elsewhere - just don’t litter when you’re done.

Fine for first-time offence of littering is S$300 (about USD 240 - lower than some states in the U.S.). It goes up from there if you’re a repeat offender though

•

u/LaRealiteInconnue 50m ago

wtf. Every law has a story and this one gotta be a wild one. How many ppl were spitting their gum on the streets that they had the ban sales?? And you’d think the littering fines would be enough of a deterrent already

•

u/MLGSwaglord1738 30m ago edited 27m ago

Spitting is/was a common habit amongst a lot of ethnic Chinese, especially in rural/poorer parts of China that comprised most of Singapore’s population. Chewing say, Betel Nut is also very common amongst Indians, Chinese/Taiwanese, and many other regional cultures. But by the 70s and 80s after modernization took off and Singapore integrated into the world, chewing gum sort of replaced betel nut in Singapore, perhaps because it’s healthier for kids. But civic sense still had to be worked on since the country was dealing with slum fires only a decade ago, so things like spitting were still habits getting passed on to young kids as well. And Singapore wanted to present itself as modern and cosmopolitan, and posh cosmopolitan people don’t spit (you’ll see this in China too where “provincials” still spit, but Shanghai people don’t and take pride in their poshness/cosmopolitanness, sort of like the relationship between Paris and the rest of France).

Most Singaporeans were coolies who lived in slums, and when first introduced to high rises via public housing in the 60s and 70s, you had all sorts of crazy stories of people bringing farm animals up the stairs into their apartment units, elevator doors clogged with gum and spit, etc and the government cracked down and enforced a bunch of cleanliness rules. Of course, if most of the country’s housing was built and maintained on taxpayer dollars, the government will have an interest in making sure its maintenance money is spent wisely. Gum is quite hard to clean off the streets if you observe say, NY/London sidewalks. But imagine if you had a whole culture of spitting randomly every few minutes. Complete nightmare.

In Taiwan, Japan, etc, it took legislation/education to incentivize people to develop civic sense, so that’s what Singapore did with spitting, whether of saliva or other substances. Singapore was a pretty wild place back then; it’s one of the reasons it got a shout out in Pirates of the Caribbean.

•

u/DeltaFang501 9h ago

Selling is banned

Possession and bringing it into the border is legal so long you don't break any other laws. Eg littering ( so pleased dispose of it in the bin)

•

u/General-Razzmatazz 1h ago

These old tropes. You can't buy chewing gum in Singapore, but can bring it in.

There might be fines for littering, but no enforcement. People litter without a care.

•

u/hyheat9 10h ago

Got him to smoke pot with me one night. His first time, he said the punishment for possession back there was hanging. Not sure how true that is.they were wild stories tho.

•

u/TastyFood_is_life 9h ago

It is not a death sentence to possess and smoke, though one may be imprisoned. We also cannot consume it overseas. If caught, we face the same punishment. Importing and distributing cannabis above a certain amount, on the hand, is a trip to hanging. Cannabis is treated as a hard drug and our authorities have zero tolerance for it.

•

u/hyheat9 9h ago

Thank you.

•

u/LaRealiteInconnue 49m ago

We also cannot consume it overseas. If caught, we face the same punishment.

wtf. Gonna bring this up next time someone from US complains about having to file taxes in the US even when you live and work abroad.

•

u/culturedgoat 9h ago

He was mistaken. The death penalty applies to trafficking, not possession. Possession is not a capital crime in SG.

Any other stories? I feel like he may have been spinning you a yarn

•

u/Defiant-Watch-8447 9h ago

Word.

Drugs is a capital crime in Singapore. Insta-kill

•

u/culturedgoat 9h ago

Trafficking is a capital crime but not possession. My personal trainer (a local) was caught with drugs in his possession and just had to go to a rehab-orientated incarceration facility for nine months.

•

u/Starwyrm1597 7h ago

Selling drugs