A recent TikTok debate about morning showers in Singapore has ignited a heated discussion about personal hygiene versus public responsibility.
What started as a couple of TikTok videos has quickly swelled into a heated online debate, but should the case of morning showers even be a question at all? CNA TODAY's Loraine Lee gives her take. The age-old question of whether one should take or not take a morning shower is not new, but it has recently reignited a heated debate for Singaporeans on social media.
A TikTok user posted a video claiming that our public transport stinks in the morning because people do not shower before leaving home. Comments that came in were mostly supportive, until another TikToker posted a separate video asking people to stop asking Singaporeans to shower in the mornings because the few minutes in the bath could be better spent as a few more minutes of rest for a famously overworked population. This video threw open the floodgates, getting more than a million views since it was posted on Jan 22. It now seems as if online users are pouring out posts, comments and even articles arguing against one side or the other. On one side of the camp are those chanting “Mandi-lah Singapura” – both “take a shower, Singapore” in Malay and a play on our national anthem Majulah Singapura. TikTok users are creating fake MRT announcements that passengers would be kicked off trains for “being smelly”. A Malaysian musician even made a rap song shaming those who do not shower. Most said that the reason people need to freshen up before leaving the house is because of the smell of body odour on the MRT trains during their morning commute to work or school. TikTok user Steph Leong said in a video, adding in a gag for good measure: “You all smell like you have not washed your bed sheets in months and you have marinated in months of night sweat and hair oil.” TikTok influencer Runner Kao (jokingly) described the debate as a “serious matter”, adding that people who leave home without morning showers do not realise they smell and that it threatens the country’s well-being. Some said that having showered the night before, they usually wake up clean and do not need to wash up again before starting their day. After all, many people rely on air-conditioning to get through hot, humid nights, so doesn’t that enable them to go straight from sheets to streets without a shower? One TikTok user, saying that it is a waste of water, wrote: “I don’t really sweat at night, so there is no point in showering.” Others, such as the creator of the viral TikTok video with a million views, fervently agreed that the extra minutes of sleep were a much higher priority for tired Singaporeans. After all, we are so pressed for time that Cleanliness aside, there are proven benefits to showering in the mornings, such as shaking off the sleepy inertia and making you feel refreshed for a new day. Yet, underlying the furore over morning showers is not really strong feelings about soap and water. It is about the grey area where personal hygiene overlaps with public responsibility. Many in Singapore struggle to get a good night's sleep – and this is detrimental not just to the individual As someone who is not particularly tall, being hit by an odour bomb when a fellow commuter more vertically endowed than I lifts their arm to grab the handrail can ruin the hour-long journey to work. I am also hardly the only one who has been grossed out by the sight of oil left behind on a bus window by a sleepy commuter whose scalp is begging for mercy. As for the argument on lacking sleep, there is a curious irony to spending 10 minutes in front of the mirror putting on makeup or doing one’s hair, but forgoing everything else below the neck. No amount of concealer or pomade can camouflage the scent of your skin. Is there a point to looking presentable from a distance, only for others to catch an unpleasant whiff of you when you are an arm's length away? At what point do we start thinking seriously about It can be really unpleasant to be standing in a packed train next to people who have body odour and their armpits are aired as they hold on to handrails. (Photo: iStock)Admittedly, as someone who also has long hair, a full morning shower is troublesome, but basic hygiene is not impossible. Wash your privates, armpits and face before putting on some deodorant
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