'If I don't collect cans, I will not have food'

Karung guni woman refuses to give students her empty cans
Genevieve Jiang, The New Paper 14 Aug 08;

IT was all over a drink can. And an empty one at that.

The debate: Who should have it?

It began when a group of students went out to look for empty drink cans for a TV challenge.

Their task was to collect at least 8,500 empty cans so they can be painted and stringed together to form a gigantic Singapore flag.

The aim was to get into the Singapore Book of Records, by breaking the last record of 8,470 cans set in 2006.

Groups of students from Fuhua Secondary, Hwa Chong Institution, Innova Primary and Townsville Primary fanned out to look for the cans.

Their search was filmed in last Tuesday's episode of The Records Challenge on Channel 8.

Students from Fuhua were filmed asking a karung guni woman for some empty cans, but she refused.

Later, the students also had to give up some empty cans they had found to the woman.

One of the students cried.

Some viewers said it was wrong of the students to ask the woman for the cans.

A 31-year-old business development manager, Foo Tze Wei, said: 'To the students, the cans were to break a record. But for the woman, every can contributes to her three meals.'

Housewife Lee Yew Huang, 63, agreed, adding that it was insensitive of them to ask the woman for the empty cans.

She said: 'They must realise that it's not easy for old people to make a living this way. It was not justified for the student to cry just because she couldn't get the cans.'

But another viewer, a 24-year-old undergraduate Darren Tan, did not think the students did anything wrong.

He said: 'The students were just trying to complete their assignment. And it's not like they snatched the cans from the woman or were rude to her.

'I think it's commendable that they gave up the cans that they found to her, and even gave her some money.'

The programme's host Pornsak also defended the students.

He told The New Paper that the students had gone to several coffee shops before finding the empty cans.

Pornsak said: 'It was a weekday afternoon and there were very few customers at the coffee shops and hawker centres. The students were doing this after class, so they could have been tired.

'One of the students had set herself a target of 500 to 600 cans within an hour. She thought it was going to be an easy task at first, but it turned out otherwise.

'She could have wept out of tiredness and disappointment.'

He added that the students, together with the filming crew, even bought noodles for the woman.

During filming, students from Fuhua were scouring a Jurong hawker centre for cans when a male student saw the woman, in her 50s, collecting cans.

He asked her for some of her cans but she refused, saying that she depended on the cans for a living. The students then continued their search within the hawker centre.

When they finally found some empty cans, the same woman approached them and asked them to let her have them.

The woman said: 'Can you let me have the cans, please? Have a kind heart. If I don't collect enough cans, I won't have food to eat today.

'You are still young and can continue to hunt for cans. And there are so many of you, whereas I'm alone.'

When contacted, a spokesman for Fuhua said: 'The students gave away the six cans they found to the old woman.

'Before the students went out to collect cans, they didn't know how hard it was for these elderly people. Now, they do.'

Chinese evening daily Lianhe Wanbao interviewed several karung guni women and they said that collecting cans was a difficult living.

A 80-year-old woman, who wanted to be known only as Madam Feng, collects cans at the Chong Pang market every afternoon.

She said she works seven hours a every day, but earns just between $10 and $20 a week.

Another woman in her 70s, who sources at Sengkang, said she sometimes has to compete with students and other welfare groups who are trying to raise money or collect materials for recycling.

Madam Feng said: 'These young people are strong and energetic. How do we compete with them?'

- Additional reporting by Veena Bharwani