An Australian tourist has drawn mixed reactions online after posting a video of himself walking through a residential estate in Yishun and remarking that it looked nothing like the glitzy Singapore depicted in Crazy Rich Asians, prompting netizens to explain what he was seeing.
Connor, who goes by @cozzau on TikTok, shared the 44-second video on May 3 with the caption, “This is how Singapore really is.”
“This is how most of the country I’m assuming lives. Not that Crazy Rich Asians type,” says Connor as the video shows the rear service area of an HDB block.
Based on the surroundings, Connor was likely walking around a residential estate along Yishun Street 72, near Northpoint City.
“Why do you need a clothesline when you have a heater?” he says, showing an air-conditioner compressor with laundry strewn over it, most probably slipped off from bamboo poles on higher floors. He then suggests it might have been left there by a homeless person.
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As he walks along the back of the block, he comments that the place is “filthy”, before saying: “You can tell by even the way people are looking at me like I am the first westerner to come through here in a while, especially with a camera, my god.”
The video then cuts to another scene showing Connor exchanging greeting with a staff member at a bakery and other members of the public. The reel ends with him saying: “Friendly people here.”
The reel was a snippet from one of Connor’s travel vlogs on his YouTube channel, in which he claims to have survived “Singapore’s most dangerous hood.”
