American lifestyle site The Zoe Report misidentified Singapore as part of Malaysia

Photo: Chen Hu / Unsplash
Photo: Chen Hu / Unsplash

Even after getting propelled into the world’s spotlight last year via the spectacle of Crazy Rich Asians and Crazy Rich Head Honchos, some people still can’t get Singapore’s exact location right.

But hey, at least we’re not misidentified as a part of China again.

The Zoe Report — a “trusted destination made for and by women who live and create personal style” — recently came up with an article listing the most expensive cities in the world to live in. Sure, they correctly pinpointed The Lion City as one of the costliest places to live in (accurate). Alas, The Zoe Report’s Angela Melero made the unfortunate error of stating that Singapore is a “Malaysian island city-state”.

The Zoe Report has since corrected the piece, but for a good 14 hours or so, Singapore had been reunited with Malaysia once again.

Screengrab from The Zoe Report
Screengrab from The Zoe Report

Though Singapore has long been expelled from Malaysia (for over 53 years, if we’re counting), the piece makes the same slip-up as the US State Department did last year during the Trump-Kim summit. It too stated “Singapore, Malaysia” — an imagined location where US top diplomat Mike Pompeo was supposed to deliver some remarks.

Photo: @ByChunHan / Twitter
Photo: @ByChunHan / Twitter

Singaporeans may not be the only ones who could be pissed off about The Zoe Report’s piece, though. In the very same story, Hong Kong is labeled as a “booming Chinese city”, but it’s a bit more complex in reality.

Yes, Hong Kong is a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China and has been so since 1997. But Hong Kongers (a huge portion of them anyway) would very much prefer that Beijing stays out of their beeswax, and they’re proud about having their own national anthem, flag, passports, currency and parliamentary system.



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