Heck knows how many times we’ve had to report about how Singapore’s passport is one of the world’s mightiest documents. Taking over the position traditionally held by Western nations, the Little Red Dot rose quickly over the past couple years to currently hold the strongest passport on Earth, with visa-free access to 180 destinations across the globe. We’re fortunate people, we suppose.
One well-traveled Singaporean man, however, strongly believes that it’s just too bad that the world’s most powerful passport belongs to his fellow countrymen.
Unleashing his opinions on travel blog A Girl & A Bald Traveller, the aforementioned bald individual took the time to explain (aggressively) that Singaporeans aren’t using the privilege their passports grant to embrace new cultures and experiences overseas enough. Why? Apparently, because he believes that:
- Most Singaporeans have a cultural diversity bias.
- Most Singaporeans are ignorant and skeptical.
- Most Singaporeans prioritize careers over everything else.
- Most Singaporeans are too afraid to take risks and travel to more “dangerous” places.
- Most Singaporeans are Instagram whores.
- Most Singaporeans are sheeple.
- Singaporeans are generally “behind the times” and won’t travel to a place because it’s not popular.
- Singaporeans often complain about having not enough money to travel. (FYI: The blogger’s day job is a banker, so of course he has the money to travel)
It’s a bit of a long read — the original blog post has since been taken down — but the man’s main gist is this: Most Singaporeans are too ignorant to visit lesser-known destinations such as Paraguay, Bangladesh, Ukraine, the Middle East, or Albania because these places aren’t mainstream enough. Ergo, Singaporeans are wasting the full potential of their passports.
A bald traveler and a problematic post
Some points the blogger brings up are pretty noteworthy and seemingly true to a certain extent, like how Singaporeans prefer to visit tried-and-tested holiday destinations instead of walking on the wild side. It’s just too bad that his tone of “look at me, I’m better than you because I’ve traveled to lesser known places” is pervasive throughout the whole article.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that — it is the man’s personal blog after all. But it doesn’t help that the man boasts about having visited nearly 70 countries and “has never quit his job to do so”, as well as having bougie hobbies like collecting luxury watches and driving expensive cars.
Though the article might have resonated with some, it’s his holier-than-thou voice (and strong, negative assumptions of Singaporeans) that attracted a huge backlash. Others believe that it’s just an attempt to bait clicks, views, and shares on social media. He responded to the criticism by saying that it’s his opinion and it’s just his style of writing for his own blog.
The biggest takedown of the blog post arrived by way of one netizen who published it all on Instagram Stories before putting them up on Facebook.
Presumably overwhelmed by all the flak that his piece received, the man decided to take down the blog post (temporarily) so that “those of you who don’t enjoy this won’t be offended by it.”
“The post will be available for my usual readers who missed out on it the first time around after I am back from my vacation end of the month,” he informed Coconuts Singapore in an email. We’ll update this article once we hear more from him.
