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SINGAPORE – Baek Se-hee, the author of best-selling memoirs I Want To Die But I Want To Eat Tteokbokki (2018) and sequel I Want To Die But I Still Want To Eat Tteokbokki (2019), has died at 35.

It is not yet clear how she died. The Korea Organ Donation Agency on Oct 17 said she saved five lives through organ donations, gifting her heart, lungs, liver and both kidneys at the National Health Insurance Service Ilsan Hospital in Gyeonggi province, north of Seoul in South Korea, where she was born.

Baek’s younger sister said in a press release: “She wanted to write, to share her heart with others through her work, and to inspire hope. Knowing her gentle nature, incapable of harbouring hatred, I hope she can now rest peacefully.”

Baek was in Singapore in November as one of the guest stars for the Singapore Writers Festival, speaking candidly about how she navigated her struggles with dysthymia, a mild but persistent depression, at Victoria Theatre.

Her two books, translated from Korean into English by South Korean writer and translator Anton Hur, feature lengthy dialogues between Baek and her therapist. According to her publisher, they have sold about 600,000 copies in South Korea.

Hur wrote on Instagram that her organs have saved five people but “her readers will know she touched yet millions of lives more with her writing”.

“My thoughts are with her family,” he said.

As well as being a book world sensation, Baek’s two books are immensely popular in Singapore, collectively spending over 100 weeks on The Straits Times’ bestsellers list.

Speaking to ST in 2024, she said of meeting fans here: “I realised that we’re quite similar.

“I had an impression that Singapore was a great country so I thought that the culture would be really different. Related to our appearances or anxieties and related to the competition, the fact that we are all going through similar issues – even though my book was a bestseller, I felt sad for them as well.”

Helplines

Mental well-being

National helpline: 1771 (24 hours) / 6669-1771 (via WhatsApp)

Samaritans of Singapore: 1-767 (24 hours) / 9151-1767 (24 hours CareText via WhatsApp)

Singapore Association for Mental Health: 1800-283-7019

Silver Ribbon Singapore: 6386-1928

Chat, Centre of Excellence for Youth Mental Health: 6493-6500/1

Women’s Helpline (Aware): 1800-777-5555 (weekdays, 10am to 6pm)

The Seniors Helpline: 1800-555-5555 (weekdays, 9am to 5pm)

Tinkle Friend (for primary school-age children): 1800-2744-788

Counselling

Touchline (Counselling): 1800-377-2252

Touch Care Line (for caregivers): 6804-6555

Counselling and Care Centre: 6536-6366

We Care Community Services: 3165-8017

Shan You Counselling Centre: 6741-9293

Clarity Singapore: 6757-7990

Online resources

mindline.sg/fsmh

eC2.sg

chat.mentalhealth.sg

carey.carecorner.org.sg (for those aged 13 to 25)

limitless.sg/talk (for those aged 12 to 25)

Baek was the second of three daughters and loved reading from a young age. She was a young marketing professional at a publishing house in South Korea when she decided to see a psychiatrist, who allowed her to record their sessions.

Tteokbokki, a South Korean rice cake dish, was her favourite food, and she spoke to ST of the existential ennui of depression, which remains a taboo in South Korea and many Asian societies.

“I was thinking of planning my own death, but I got hungry and ate tteokbokki. I felt guilty thinking that I could still eat tteokbokki when I wanted to die, yet it felt like such a natural thing to do.”

South Korean author Baek Se-hee (seated) autographing her books at the Singapore Writers Festival 2024. PHOTO: MOONRISE STUDIO

In her first book, she elaborated: “I wonder about others like me, who seem totally fine on the outside but are rotting on the inside, where the rot is this vague state of being not fine and not devastated at the same time.”

Her books have been translated and published in more than 25 countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Poland, leading a wave of South Korean and Japanese cosy bestsellers in the global book market.

More On This Topic

Watch Tteokbokki author Baek Se-hee and translator Anton Hur’s first joint video interview

South Korea to permit organ donations after patient’s heart stops, amid nationwide shortage

I want to die but still want to eat teoboki

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Baek Sehee, Korean Writer Who Bared Her Struggles With Depression, Dies at 35

She turned recorded sessions with her therapist into a best-selling memoir, helping to normalize conversations around mental health in South Korea.

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A person with a book near a window looks into the camera.

Baek Sehee was best known for her memoir, “I Want to Die, but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki,” a deeply personal account of her struggles with depression and anxiety.Credit...Bloomsbury Publishing

Jonathan WolfeJohn Yoon

By Jonathan Wolfe and John Yoon

John Yoon reported from Seoul.

Oct. 17, 2025

Updated 9:37 a.m. ET

Baek Sehee, the best-selling South Korean author whose frank conversations about therapy and mental health helped her become a cultural phenomenon in her home country and beyond, died on Thursday at 35.

Her death, at a hospital in Goyang, west of Seoul, was confirmed by Kim Yunsik, a spokesman for the Korea Organ Donation Agency. He said her family did not wish to state the cause.

Ms. Baek was best known for her memoir “I Want to Die, but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki,” a deeply personal account of her struggles with depression and anxiety.

The book, published in 2018, includes conversations that Ms. Baek had with her therapist, which she recorded, and essays that explored topics like sexism and self-doubt.

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The book was embraced by a broad audience that was drawn to its frank discussion of mental health, especially in South Korea, where stigma and family shame around mental illness persist. In the prologue, she writes: “I realized that opening the dark part in my heart was a very natural thing, just like showing the bright part of it.”

How The Times decides who gets an obituary. There is no formula, scoring system or checklist in determining the news value of a life. We investigate, research and ask around before settling on our subjects. If you know of someone who might be a candidate for a Times obituary, please suggest it here.

Learn more about our process.

“I Want to Die” was published in 25 countries and has sold over a million copies worldwide.

Ms. Baek told PEN Transmissions in 2023 that the inspiration for the book came from someone who had commented on her blog, where she was posting notes on her experiences in therapy. The commenter said they were experiencing similar emotions, and felt relieved to know someone else was going through the same thing.

“When they said it was like a light was shining into the darkness of their life, I was so surprised,” Ms. Baek said. “All I’d done was be honest in public, but here was someone comforted by that.”

Anton Hur, who translated Ms. Baek’s book into English, wrote on social media on Friday that she had touched “millions of lives” with her writing. As news of her death spread, fans shared personal testimonies on social media about Ms. Baek’s significance.

“Her book was the catalyst to one of the most profound discussions on mental health we’ve ever had,” one wrote.

In a statement, her sister Baek Dahee said that Ms. Baek “loved writing, connecting with others through writing and nurturing hope in other people.”

Ms. Baek was born in Goyang in 1990, the middle of three sisters. She studied creative writing at Dongguk University in Seoul and worked at a publishing company for five years.

During that time, she was diagnosed with persistent depressive disorder, according to the Korea Organ Donation Agency. She began attending therapy sessions at counseling centers and psychiatric clinics, experiences she recounted in her memoir. In 2019, she published a sequel, “I Want to Die, but I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki,” which explored her struggles with self-harm and suicidal thoughts. (Tteokbokki is a popular Korean dish of rice cakes in a spicy sauce.)

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Ms. Baek was modest about any influence she had on conversations surrounding mental health, particularly those in South Korea. In the PEN Transmissions interview, she noted that personal writing on mental health topics had become more common, adding that “it makes me glad that we are at least talking about it more.”

Ms. Baek is survived by her parents and two sisters.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.

Jonathan Wolfe is a Times reporter based in London, covering breaking news.

John Yoon is a Times reporter based in Seoul who covers breaking and trending news.

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divorce messy

SINGAPORE - Some divorcing couples think the best way to deprive their ex-spouses of more money is to splurge on themselves first, such as a man who went for a $32,000 hair transplant shortly before the split.

In addition to that costly patch-up work, the 47-year-old man spent about $8,700 to fix his teeth, over $30,000 for knee surgery and another $4,000 for physiotherapy as well as treatment for sports-related injuries.

He could afford to splurge on himself because he is a managing director at a multinational investment bank and earns a monthly income of about $37,500. His ex-wife, 43, also works in a bank and draws a monthly income of about $18,000.

But antics to deplete the matrimonial funds by going on an expensive and extensive spending spree will usually backfire and prove costly because all the aggrieved parties need to do is complain that they do not agree with the expenses that are not run-of-the-mill living costs.

If the court agrees that the expenses are not reasonable, the parties who splurge on non-essential items will be ordered to account for the amount spent, which will be added back to the matrimonial pool for sharing.

The total amount of $74,700 that the man spent on himself in this case was deemed as his personal expenses that would come out of his pocket to be shared. This meant that his ex-wife would be given a percentage of this sum.

How he spent a big bonus

The man’s expenses came to light because his ex-wife accused him of hiding his annual bonus, which amounted to more than $200,000. This was because on average, his monthly expenses would be around $24,000 and this meant that he would be able to save about $12,000 every month.

His bank statements recorded the monthly surpluses but not his annual bonus, which amounted to about six months of his salary.

The husband denied hiding anything because he said he had spent his bonus on personal grooming, medical treatment and other non-essential items. This caused his ex-wife to cry foul as all these expenses were done without her consent.

For instance, the husband made inquiries and booked the appointment for his hair implant treatment some two months before he commenced divorce proceedings. He then spent about $32,000 for the treatment when divorce proceedings had already commenced.

After he moved out of the matrimonial home, he also bought a piano for about $6,200. He claimed he needed a piano so that his daughter could use it when she spends time with him.

He had wanted to retrieve the existing piano from the matrimonial home, but he claimed his ex-wife refused to let him have it.

But the ex-wife said their daughter had discontinued piano lessons by that time, so he had no reason to buy the expensive piano, which was probably acquired for his own use. She added that she had not prohibited him from retrieving the current piano, which was worth only about $300.

As a result, Justice Choo Han Teck said the expenses for the hair transplant and the piano would be returned to the matrimonial pool. The man also had to return about $138,000 in other expenses that were paid for with his bonus.

He had spent about $44,000 on treatment for his teeth and physical injuries, and $94,000 on his legal fees.

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Wife’s unusual fund transfers

After the divorce action started, the wife transferred close to $200,000 out of her bank accounts within two days.

One of the transfers was for $120,000, which she said was the balance of the sales proceeds of her father’s HDB flat. She said she had been holding this sum for him because he is “a compulsive gambler and spendthrift”.

As for the other sum, she said she had meant to give this amount as “allowances” to her father.

While Justice Choo found nothing untoward in the $120,000 transfer as there was the sale of her father’s flat, he did not believe the other sum was meant for the elderly man’s expenses.

In particular, the judge took note of the WhatsApp conversation between the couple that stated the wife had reduced her parents’ allowance from $650 to $200 a month. As such sums would not add up to $78,000, the judge ordered her to return all of it to the matrimonial pool.

The husband also accused his ex-wife of trying to stash $100,000 away by using a fake business deal with her friend.

The wife claimed she had a 50 per cent stake in her friend’s café and that poor business had left both of them with a loss of about $200,000. This meant that she had to cough out $100,000 as her share of the loss.

But there were no formal records nor transfer of shares that supported the wife’s claim.

Justice Choo found it odd that the wife and her friend did not put their equal partnership in writing to record the initial payment of the investment. That would mean that the friend essentially “gifted” 50 per cent of the cafe to the wife because if the business had made money, the wife would have received 50 per cent of the profits for free.

 The judge agreed with the husband’s view that the deal was “absurd”. Even if the transfer of $100,000 was a genuine investment, the husband did not want any share of the cafe.

So Justice Choo ruled that the wife had to return the $100,000 to the pool for sharing. She also had to return another $18,000 that was spent on renovating her mother’s new flat as this sum was spent without the consent of her ex-husband.

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Gifts between spouses

Gifts from spouses are usually not included in the split unless the items are worth a lot.

In this case, the husband wanted to add the $12,000 that he had spent on jewellery for his ex-wife to the matrimonial pool because gifts purchased during the marriage would usually be considered as matrimonial assets.

But the wife argued that the value of such items was insignificant when compared to their total assets of over $8 million. Moreover, the value of the jewellery would have dropped over time due to regular use.

She added that she had reciprocated such gifts by purchasing numerous valuable presents for her ex-husband during the marriage and these included expensive ties and a wallet.

In the end, all these gifts were not included in the split because the husband did not dispute that he had received presents from his ex-wife who did not ask for these items to be counted.

After considering the couple’s contributions to their marriage, Judge Choo found that the split would be done in the final ratio of 53 to 47 in the husband’s favour. He would receive about $4.2 million from the pool while his ex-wife would get about $3.8 million.

If there is a lesson from this case, it is that efforts by warring couples to squirrel away funds are usually futile because most financial transactions leave behind a paper trail that is hard to erase.

Ultimately, honesty is still the best policy simply because those caught dissipating funds can end up losing more as the courts have the discretion to award higher shares to their ex-spouses.

Check out Invest editor Tan Ooi Boon’s new book – Retire With More Money – at stbooks.sg

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Tan Ooi Boon writes for and oversees the Invest section of The Straits Times.

when sec school has finally finished

Dearest S,

Four years of secondary school have passed in a flash and you’re now at the tail end of the journey with the O-level examinations starting next week.

You sat your last major exam, the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), in the middle of a pandemic, wearing a mask and dealing with the uncertainty of school closure.

So much has happened since and you have had a fulfilling secondary school journey.

You made up for missing the National Day Parade National Education show in Primary 5 by attending the show with your friends when you were in Secondary 3.

Through the Art Elective Programme, you developed critical thinking and time management skills.

You sometimes spent 10 hours perfecting a drawing or sculpture, but that taught you to organise your schedule, juggle your work and stay disciplined.

You invested just as many hours on your dance co-curricular activity (CCA), preparing for the Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) Arts Presentation, among other performances.

You said it was stressful, and sometimes you dreaded practice, but I hope you see that you also gained from the strict and tiring regimen. You built resilience and strength, and learnt about the importance of honing a technique and the beauty of teamwork.

A bonus was making unforgettable memories with friends.

You spent hours and hours on your art and dance, but you might have spent just as much time on your schoolwork.

Mathematics and science were not your strongest subjects when you started secondary school, but with help from your teachers and tutors, and your own hard work, you are now doing reasonably well in them.

I hope you feel a sense of pride knowing that something you worked for has seen improvement. That personal satisfaction is something no one can take away from you.

When you look back on your secondary school years, you might be surprised that it won’t be the classroom lessons that you will remember, but the hours in the art room with your friends doing your coursework or the repetitive dance routines you worked on before the SYF.

In fact, when you hear certain songs in the future, it will bring you right back to the dance studio.

I know because I went through the same journey, and I miss my Chinese orchestra CCA practices on Saturdays and hanging out with like-minded friends from secondary school.

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Teenage angst and more

You sometimes joke about being an angsty teenager, and I’m glad it remains a joke, mostly.

This is especially so because when I did not allow you to have access to social media in Secondary 1, I was worried that the decision would affect our relationship.

I felt guilty and wondered if you would resent me for not allowing you to have what most teenagers have. And whether you would go behind my back and get the apps anyway.

Four years on, I’m thankful I persevered in explaining the dangers to you when you were younger and in making sure we have time daily to chat about anything and everything.

I had hoped that by building our relationship first, you would be more prepared for the ills of social media if and when you used it.

So imagine my surprise when I checked in with you after two, then three years, asking if you would like to have Instagram, and your answer was no, you didn’t see a need for it yet.

You are probably one of the rare 16-year-olds without a social media presence.

You are blessed to have friends who, in attempts to show you a TikTok or Instagram video, take video screen recordings to share with you.

I’m proud that you have held your own and for leading the way at home, especially at the dinner table, reminding everyone, including your papa and me, to put our phones away before dinner.

A friend asked me what you do during revision breaks without social media.

I told her that you would be curled up somewhere comfortable with your phone, on your reading app, devouring one of the fantasy novels you love so much.

I’m glad that you are still so excited to delve into a good book, that you remember your childhood favourites and are so eager to share them with your nine-year-old sister.

I think we made the right decision for you to take seven subjects in school, rather than eight like most of your friends.

This has meant you can focus on art and other subjects, and have more time to rest without spreading yourself too thin.

You are discovering your strengths and interests. That is important in life. Knowing what you love and what you are good at stands you in good stead as you graduate from secondary school.

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Effort and character matter more than results

I hope your results will commensurate with your effort, because you have been working so hard.

But know that how I feel about exam scores has not changed.

It is never about how many points you get. You have worked harder in the last two years than you have ever had; your effort and attitude have already made you a winner in my books.

I know it is hard to look beyond the looming exams, but no matter your results, the values you have picked up in the last four years will guide you as you journey through life.

You know what needs to be done and you get it done, even when I know you would rather be doing something else.

Even when you ask me how this maths formula or how that scientific information will be relevant to your life in the future, you make sure you understand it anyway.

I’m thankful that you still love sharing about your day and that you ask about my day as well.

When you were in the middle of your preliminary exams, I mentioned I would be having numerous meetings one day. I was touched to find a note you left in my notebook, saying: “You can do it, mama. The day will not be as long as you think. Love you lots.”

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve done enough as your mum, but knowing your heart is in the right place reassures me I’m on the right track.

I’m excited for you as you progress to the next chapter of your education. Continue to strive for goals you set yourself and derive joy in working towards them.

It’s the last leg before the exams. Keep going and know that papa, kor kor, mei mei and I will always support and love you.

Love, Mummy

Jane Ng is a senior correspondent who covers parenting and education. She writes a regular column, Minor Issues, where she mulls over her own parenting dilemmas.

us general

For one moment, it looked like the security of the entire world was about to be upended. With no forewarning and no explanation, US War Secretary Pete Hegseth suddenly ordered virtually all of his country’s top military officers – those ranked one star and above – to return to the US for an urgent briefing.

It is hard to overestimate the sheer scale of this operation. With approximately 1.3 million active personnel, the US military has around 800 generals and admirals, spread across the globe. To have them all fly back home is a massive undertaking, entailing the global movement of thousands of high-security staff and costing millions of dollars.

The US military has highly secure video teleconferencing facilities, designed precisely for such last-minute gatherings. So, if these facilities were not good enough for Mr Hegseth’s emergency meeting, there was only one conclusion: the event in Quantico, Virginia, was of such importance and of such a high security classification that only a face-to-face meeting was considered acceptable.

And the reality? The United States’ top brass, convened in one vast auditorium outside Washington, DC, on Sept 30, was treated to a banal speech about “warrior ethos” from Mr Hegseth, who zig-zagged across the speaker’s platform and waved his arms about in the manner of a young Ted Talk lecturer.

This was followed by a long, meandering monologue from President Donald Trump, who publicly wondered at one point why his generals and admirals were so quiet. He even joked that if those in attendance did not like what he had to say, they could leave the room – but “there goes your rank, there goes your future”, he added.

The initial speculation about the super-secret nature of the occasion came to nothing – the entire spectacle was broadcast live to the world.

If this were just the latest example of “entertainment” from a US presidency famous for offbeat drama, nobody outside the US should care. Sadly, however, what has happened at this meeting does affect many other nations. For it is a harbinger of how the administration intends to run its military.

Warrior ethos

Mr Hegseth is the first US defence secretary to have no experience of the Cold War; by the time the Soviet Union collapsed, he was just 11 years old. For America’s current top military official, the key reference point is not the Cold War confrontation in which the US ultimately prevailed, often by refraining from using its military might, but rather the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past quarter of a century. The two conflicts in which he served also happen to be the two conflicts into which the US poured enormous resources, but ultimately lost.

Judging by his book, The War On Warriors, published last year well before Mr Hegseth knew he’d be tapped to run the Pentagon, the culprits for the Afghanistan and Iraq disasters are obvious: left-wing politicians in Washington, cultural “Marxists”, “social justice saboteurs”, all aided by what he calls “feckless generals” who mindlessly followed political directives, shackling brave young men – yes, they were invariably men – with all sorts of rules and regulations that were impossible to follow and led to many avoidable deaths.

US soldiers were “busy killing Islamists in shithole countries”, Mr Hegseth writes, only for them to be “betrayed by our leaders”.

The answer, Mr Hegseth claims, is simple. Under his leadership and that of President Trump, there will be no more gender- and race-based promotions.

“For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons – based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts,” he told his audience in Quantico.

The days of “social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage” are over, Mr Hegseth promised. “No more identity months or dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship, no more division, distraction or gender delusions.”

The “fat generals” now sitting “in air-conditioned offices” will either have to slim down or get out. Constant training – not diversity and inclusion programmes – will be the rule. And all soldiers will concentrate on what they do best: kill people with maximum lethality.

Nor are these just words. Shortly after President Trump came to power, several senior military officials were fired, including the commandant of the US Coast Guard, the chief of naval operations, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Many were women or black.

Mr Hegseth likes to believe that his observations about what ails the US military are somehow refreshingly original. Far from it.

In reality, whenever a US war ends in defeat, the military accuses politicians of being responsible for the failure. US generals claimed that the Vietnam War could have been won if only President Lyndon Johnson had let the armed forces do what they wanted. And conversely, many argue that the first Gulf War – that of 1990-1991 that led to the liberation of Kuwait – was such a success precisely because President George H.W. Bush left the military to do exactly what they wanted.

Nor is this phenomenon of blaming politicians for military failures limited to just the US. The most famous example of the same behaviour in Europe is that of the German military after World War I. It blamed its defeat on betrayal by Germany’s political class, allegedly ruled by Jews and other limp-wristed liberals. The so-called “Stab in the Back” myth was very influential in the Germany of the 1920s and 1930s, and contributed to the rise of Nazism.

Sometimes, the charge against politicians is not unfounded; US President Jimmy Carter’s micromanagement of military operations – invariably with disastrous results – is one such example. But very often, the “stab in the back” argument is designed to absolve the military of responsibility for failures, and that’s the danger that the Pentagon now risks.

It is noticeable that nowhere in Mr Hegseth’s latest book or in his angry speech to America’s top brass was there even a mention of old Pentagon diseases such as chronic turf battles between the military services, a bloated civilian-military bureaucracy, or super-expensive procurement projects that invariably end up both late and over budget. For Mr Hegseth, it seems, the real enemies of the military are only “liberals” and desk-bound “woke” generals.

US War Secretary Pete Hegseth speaking to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia on Sept 30. PHOTO: REUTERS

Who get to be warriors?

Military establishments everywhere also worry about the physical fitness of their soldiers, and about how representative their armed forces should be of their societies at large. Far from being original on this point, Mr Hegseth’s arguments are familiar to all military planners.

In Europe, for instance, there is a lively debate about the reduction in the number of hours devoted to physical education in schools, which means that either physical requirements have to be lowered for those accepted to military service, or the military needs to do more to get its recruits to meet its standards. There is also an active debate about the question of how inclusive the armed forces should be of women, ethnic minorities, or those of various sexual inclinations.

And, yes, there are constant accusations that Europe’s militaries are also playing their own games of political correctness. In Britain, for instance, critics frequently joke that, seemingly by sheer accident, a soldier of black or Indian descent is always placed in the front row of any British military parade, conveniently close to the TV cameras.

Clearly, the military cannot be a precise representation of society as a whole. Soldiers are expected to give up many personal freedoms that others take for granted and to do extraordinary things, such as to kill, if necessary. So, it would be silly to argue that recruitment and training standards should be lowered in order for the military to faithfully represent the nation it serves.

Yet at the same time, there is plenty of research indicating that the recruitment of people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives and skill sets is increasingly crucial as militaries deploy in new strategic environments. Emerging technologies also mean that physical capabilities are less important than they once were, so that gender distinctions may matter less.

And there are real risks in encouraging a “warrior class” which is increasingly distinct from the nations from which it recruits. The danger is that they may become a particular caste that speaks its own language, adheres to its own separate ethos and is therefore incapable of understanding the country it serves, let alone the enemy it is supposed to fight. It is hard to believe that as late as the 1990s, a top US admiral referred to female pilots in the US Navy as “go-go dancers, topless dancers or hookers”.

The key task is not to eliminate diversity programmes as Mr Hegseth is suggesting, but to make sure that no capable individuals are excluded based on irrelevant characteristics, while maintaining high standards essential for military effectiveness.

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The enemy within

Probably the most disturbing argument put forward by both President Trump and his War Secretary at the unusual gathering of top brass is that the US military should concentrate on what Mr Trump called “the invasion from within”, by which he meant US cities run by Democrats, which could become “training grounds” for the deployment of troops.

US law explicitly prohibits such deployments in anything but emergency circumstances. Yet Mr Trump has now turned his initial deployments to Los Angeles and Washington, DC, into a new strategy: Instead of confronting foreign foes, the US military will now be expected to act as an extension of the President’s domestic political agenda.

If he persists in the objective of transforming the Pentagon into a battering ram against domestic opponents, Mr Trump will quickly discover that his most significant opposition will come from the military. There is nothing that demoralises a military and renders it less warrior-like more than the idea that it is used mainly for domestic repression.

Either way, for US allies around the world, this week’s Pentagon developments are deeply worrying for the signals they send about the shift in norms and values as well as the focus of its attention. And they indicate a US administration determined to personalise power to an unprecedented extent.

One is almost tempted to ask: With allies like these, who are the enemies?

Jonathan Eyal is based in London and Brussels and writes on global political and security matters.

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For hawker stall owner Fikri Rohaimi, it’s not all about business, but making a difference in the community, too.

The 25-year-old’s eatery, BlackGoat, sells steak and burgers. But every year during the Islamic month of Ramadan, Mr Fikri – a former assistant chef with two Michelin-starred restaurants in Singapore – gives away food to those in need, regardless of race or religion.

Kindness can go hand in hand with the practicalities of running a business, and embodies the kampung spirit that helped forge Singapore.

In a divided world, kindness is often the middle ground that opens dialogue and soothes tension. It makes collaboration possible. This doesn’t arise by accident. It requires people to choose humility and grace. 

Kindness is not merely courtesy or consideration, but courage, too – to see past assumptions, to disarm conflict with empathy, and to offer grace when it is not easy. In truth, kindness is an active, intentional stance. It is a choice to see the other as human first.

Yet, there is a common misconception that kindness is passive; a soft virtue ill suited to the rigours of modern life. In an era of algorithmic outrage and incentivised division, kindness must not be seen as weakness.

While globalisation has brought people of different cultures closer together, making our cities, workplaces and online spaces more diverse than ever, it has also resulted in more tension and misunderstanding. Global events further exacerbate divisions.

We do not have to look far for examples of where kindness is seen as weakness, and how this approach backfires.

Kindness in the community

In parenting, we find clear lessons. According to Unicef, studies show that strict parenting methods such as yelling may lead to desired short-term outcomes. But they often lead to anxiety, low self-worth or aggressive behaviour that could spell trouble in the long term. Children are less likely to process their emotions healthily, making it harder for them to build trusting relationships.

Kindness in parenting is not weakness. Positive parenting encourages a growth mindset and builds confidence. It is correlated with higher self-esteem in children, better academic outcomes and better mental and physical health in the long term.

Some may be quick to judge parents who take a “softer” approach, but words of kindness result in better long-term outcomes. Children who grow up in such environments are better-adjusted, more confident individuals.

At the recent International Conference on Cohesive Societies in Singapore, I discussed how kindness lays the foundation for shared values, allowing us to build cohesive, resilient societies anchored on a spirit of openness, learning together and mutual accommodation.

It begins with the recognition that our world view is not the only one. This, in turn, needs to be sustained by curiosity, empathy and the courage to reappraise our own biases.

Crucially, it requires listening. Not the kind of listening we do while waiting to speak, but real, active listening that seeks to understand context, history and lived experience. 

There are many opportunities to foster kindness in our daily lives. This could involve simple acts like greeting our neighbours, offering help to someone in need, or taking the time to listen to a colleague’s perspective.

In our diverse communities, we can make an effort to learn about different cultures, participate in community events and engage in respectful dialogue about our differences. It’s something we should nurture in our youth from a young age through educational institutions as well.

Kindness at work

Similarly, we need to look at how working adults view kindness in Singapore. 

The breakdown in kindness often shows up in everyday interactions at work, where colleagues are told off, bosses are blunt or employees feel sidelined. This often translates into a toxic work culture, where people neglect the warm gestures or kind words that can make a difference for someone.

If we were to let toxicity take root and fester in an organisation, that could lead to detrimental consequences. According to a study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, a toxic workplace environment negatively impacts employee engagement.

Additionally, organisational support increases employees’ engagement with their work, as well as with the organisation. Organisational support, in some ways, is also a form of kindness: letting employees know that their voices are heard, feedback is acted on and tangible change is observed.

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We often talk about cultural appreciation and diversity training at work, where they tend to be seen as one-off events, isolated from the reality of daily life. Shared understanding, which is the bedrock of kindness, must be a continuous effort.

In short, kindness allows employees to thrive.

In Australian company Moddex, the Thrive at Moddex programme was designed to allow direct input from employees to meet their needs. The programme covers financial and personal well-being, including mental health resources. Initiatives like these are relevant and impactful, in the way Moddex actively listens and responds to employees.

Workplaces need to be inclusive environments that celebrate diversity, encourage cross-cultural collaboration and connect people together. That’s when workers experience a shared sense of purpose and authentic belonging, where individual contributions feel meaningful within a collective mission. As a result, communication can become clearer, tasks can be completed faster due to clearer communication, and results therefore are better.

For a start, organisations can create an open and honest environment where feedback is viewed as means to improve, and not as criticism, which paradoxically impairs growth.

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Kindness as an indicator

We need to rethink how we measure societal progress. Alongside economic indicators, we should consider metrics that reflect the state of our social connections, the level of trust in our communities, and the degree of empathy for people who might be different from us.

Instead of just measuring progress by GDP growth, innovation milestones or technological breakthroughs, what if we also measured how well we treat one another? By how inclusive our communities are? By how often we choose kindness over convenience?

Take Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness, a development philosophy and measurement system. Holistic well-being of its people is prioritised over pure economic growth.

This is not to say economic growth is not important; rather, it’s about balancing economic progress with social, environmental and cultural well-being. Perhaps adapting from certain indicators from the measurement system could be included to better reflect the state of the country.

By making kindness and mutual understanding our priorities, we can create a future where technological advancement and human compassion go hand in hand.

It is a necessary path forward in our increasingly interconnected global society. 

Let’s not just build a smarter world. Let’s build a kinder one.

Michelle Tay is the executive director of the Singapore Kindness Movement, where she leads the organisation’s efforts to promote kindness and civic-mindedness in Singapore.

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Two weeks ago, I attended a symposium in Stockholm organised by a consortium of Singaporean and Swedish universities on the theme of artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on lifelong learning.  

The symposium was motivated by the idea that Singapore and Sweden have much to learn from each other, and indeed, conversations with Swedish researchers and friends provided grist for reflection. 

There is much to admire about Sweden. A country of a mere 10.6 million people – not even twice Singapore’s population – Sweden has produced an impressive array of global brand names, with H&M, Ikea, Volvo, Ericsson, Tetra Pak and Spotify, to name just a few. Thirty-nine Swedes have won the Nobel Prize, named after the Swedish inventor of dynamite. Notable Swedish innovations include safety matches, the gamma knife and Bluetooth. The popular games Candy Crush and Minecraft are also Swedish, as are global chart-topping bands Abba, Roxette and Ace of Base. 

Singapore may have had a shorter runway since gaining independence, but we clearly have a long way to catch up with Sweden in terms of world-leading brands, breakthrough innovations and cultural exports. 

Where Singapore excels is in governance and efficiency, which have seen our country achieve median worker incomes comparable to Sweden’s. But to keep progressing in the next phase of development, particularly in the age of AI, Singapore will require something different – the kind of innovation and creativity that Sweden is known for. 

Accounting for the innovation gap 

Sweden’s prodigious innovation output has been linked with the country’s strong investment in R&D, close ties among academia, government and industry, strong digital infrastructure and global orientation. These are factors that Singapore too does fairly well in.

Indeed, in the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo) Global Innovation Index 2025, Singapore does as well as or better than Sweden in areas such as human capital and institutions; however, we are ranked 15th in creative outputs, behind Sweden in second place.

The innovation gap between the two countries likely reflects deeper social and cultural factors. 

At the symposium I attended, Singaporean and Swedish universities shared ideas and findings on how AI is shaping education, work and society. Those of us from Singapore tended to be more task-oriented, focused on how to harness AI to improve learning outcomes and productivity at work. By contrast, many of the Swedish presentations were more philosophical and contemplative in orientation, reflecting on the place of AI in work and society. 

The symposium was perhaps a microcosm of the Singaporean and Swedish approaches when confronted with a new technology. Our instinct is to leverage technology to stay ahead of the competition; the Swedes have a more holistic approach centred as much on the humanities and social sciences as it is on the technology itself. 

However, an overly pragmatic stance may mean that our institutions and people miss out on insights that come from deep reflection, which could inform the foundations of human contribution and learning in the AI age. With AI increasing its cognitive lead over human beings, and user interfaces becoming ever more intuitive, human insights may turn out to be more valuable than technical skills in the longer term. 

While Singapore’s 15-year-olds topped the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) creative thinking test, the question is whether our test-taking smarts will translate into breakthrough innovation in the years to come.

Breakthroughs in the arts, sciences and technology often have to overcome significant hurdles before gaining acceptance – precisely because of their paradigm-shifting nature. This requires intellectual passion, independence of mind, self-confidence, an “outsider mentality” and many years of toil and perseverance – qualities that may be at odds with a pragmatic mindset that seeks quick results, recognition and rewards.  

For instance, the first Swedish Nobel laureate, Svante August Arrhenius, received a fourth-class degree for his doctoral dissertation on electrolytic dissociation, an idea which eventually won him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1903. Undeterred by his failure to impress his professors, Arrhenius sent his findings to scientists in other parts of Europe, eventually gaining recognition in his home country for his achievements.

Organisational culture may also impact innovation. Swedish enterprises are known for their flat structure and culture of open communication, which fosters collaboration. In Singapore, where organisations tend to be more hierarchical, with greater deference to authority, those in junior positions may sometimes feel inhibited in expressing their ideas or challenging received wisdom. 

For innovation to flourish, it helps to have a research ecosystem that supports ground-up ideation and experimentation. On our trip to Stockholm, my colleagues and I visited the Research Institutes of Sweden, which impressed us with its one-stop suite of support for innovators through extensive public-private networks and test-bedding facilities.

Singapore, too, has a world-class research and innovation ecosystem, but tends to be more top-down in the setting of research priorities and may put researchers under greater pressure to demonstrate impact and relevance. While the Singapore approach generates quicker results in targeted areas, it may be less conducive to serendipitous breakthroughs.  

Singapore may lag behind Sweden in creative output, but we are progressing in the right direction. Today, more young Singaporeans are taking up intellectual and creative pursuits, encouraged and enabled by schools and public funding agencies. The Ministry of Education has sought to shift focus from testing to learning, trimming curriculum to free up time for exploratory learning. 

More Singaporeans are also making their mark in creative pursuits. For instance, artist Priscilla Tey recently won a top prize in the World Illustration Awards 2025, while writer Agnes Chew was named the Asia regional winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2023.

However, our societal milieu is still one that encourages a narrower form of competition. This is in large part due to the high cost of living and unequal economic rewards across sectors and occupations, which creates strong pressure for young Singaporeans to get ahead in the economic rat race. A more egalitarian society could relieve such pressure, encouraging more Singaporeans to indulge their passions as innovators, artistes and entrepreneurs. 

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Is the welfare state the answer?

Sweden’s egalitarian society is underpinned by a comprehensive welfare state, which provides generous benefits for all residents from cradle to grave. A pertinent question is whether Singapore should emulate Sweden’s welfare state to encourage Singaporeans to take risks and explore alternative pathways in life.

The answer isn’t so straightforward. The Nordic social democratic model, long admired internationally, is coming under increasing fiscal and political strain.

As a Swedish friend explained to me, Sweden’s welfare state is based on a strong sense of social solidarity and shared values. Of late, the foundations of this social compact have been rattled by immigration, which has seen the proportion of foreign-born people in Sweden increase in the 2000s from just over 11 per cent of the population to 20 per cent. 

While immigration has been an economic lifeline for Sweden, given its falling birth rates and labour shortfalls, some perceive that immigrants are milking the welfare system without contributing their fair share. This is because unemployment and poverty rates are significantly higher among immigrants. 

Just last week, the Swedish government announced that it would be cutting benefits for large families in its 2026 budget. By contrast, the Singapore Government is now giving additional benefits to families with three or more children under the Large Families scheme announced in Budget 2025.

Apart from immigration, demographics also do not work in Sweden’s favour. An ageing population leads to higher pension and social service expenditures, while shrinking the tax base. Despite Sweden’s emphasis on work-life balance and gender equality, along with generous childcare and education benefits, the birth rate is around 1.44, higher than Singapore’s but far below the replacement rate of 2.1. This in turn necessitates further immigration. The sustainability of the Swedish – and more generally, the Nordic model – is therefore questionable. 

While Singapore’s low tax system is very different from Sweden’s, it is worth considering what more could be done here to strengthen social support and assurance without overstretching the state’s coffers. 

A more egalitarian society – both in income distribution and respect for those who have chosen less well-trodden pathways in career and life – could be the secret sauce that unlocks Singapore’s creative potential.   

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Singapore’s strengths in governance  

In fact, combining this with Singapore’s existing strengths could be a potent recipe for success. Even advanced economies like Sweden admire Singapore’s policy coherence, public resourcing and coordination.   

In education, for example, Singapore’s national school system enables additional financial resources and good teachers to be spread out across a larger number of schools, offsetting the advantages enjoyed by students in the more popular or privately funded schools. This has led to high averages in educational outcomes, such that even our students from lower socioeconomic family backgrounds outperform the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) average in the Pisa tests.

Sweden, however, is grappling with growing disparities in educational outcomes within its decentralised system. While Sweden’s average Pisa scores are above the OECD average in reading, mathematics and science, the gap between the strongest and weakest students widened over the most recent period of observation from 2018 to 2022. 

Singapore has also been quick to develop a coherent national AI strategy, which has become a point of reference for countries seeking to develop their own AI technology roadmaps.

There is indeed much that Singapore and Sweden can learn from each other – not by directly transplanting policies and programmes, but through careful reflection, distilling what is worth emulating and adapting. I look forward to more exchanges with our Swedish counterparts as we navigate changes in education, work and innovation in the AI age. 

Terence Ho is deputy executive director of the Institute for Adult Learning. He is also the author of How Singapore Beat The Odds (World Scientific, 2025).

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