Why Marie Kondo's techniques won't work in Singapore homes

Marie Kondo's new show on Netflix seems to be the top trending topic online right now, and everyone you know is busy re-folding their clothes and clearing their wardrobes right… wrong! Here are 10 reasons why this minimalist-living fad is not likely to last in Singapore…

10) Umbrella cannot throw…

Umbrellas are hard to store, simply because they come in long and short lengths, and seem out of place anywhere… but Singaporeans LOVE buying umbrellas, especially when the weather is often unpredictable. Every home is stocked with more umbrellas than there are inhabitants. Furthermore, with us being so forgetful it always pays to stock up on brollies.

9) Mobile phones must keep…

Singaporeans also love their tech gadgets, partly because they cost so much! Rummage through your drawer and you are bound to find an outdated mobile phone (or even pager) laying around. But much as they don't 'spark joy' anymore, they are just things you want to keep… plus, you never know what kind of questionable information you might have left in the device's memory despite putting it through a factory reset.

8) Torn shirts can wear to sleep mah…

That's what you'd tell your parents when they ask you to throw away those marathon finisher tees right.

7) They give free you can don't take meh?

You can bring a man out of Singapore, but you can never bring Singapore out of a Singaporean. Part of our kiasu mentality includes keeping freebies we get from pumping petrol or shopping at the supermarket, even though we have no use for a plastic mug or that ugly tissue pack.

6) Watsons 1-day sale, must stock up!

You'll probably know one of those people that fly to Watsons the minute they know there's a one day sale going on, just to stock up on cotton pads and other housebrand toiletries. The result is a cabinet full of cotton buds and whatnots.

5) The 不买白不买 mentality.

We also love a good deal, and when something goes on sale with more than 80 per cent discount, a Singaporean's natural reaction is to buy it first because, who knows, there's bound to be a time it will come into use. Of course, that time never comes.

4) You want me to throw away my Hello Kitty collection?

Good luck convincing a Singaporean who had to queue up (and sometimes fight) for the last collection of Hello Kitty dolls from MacDonalds.

3) Do you know how hard it is to find salted egg IndoMee?

There's bound to be a cabinet stacked full of instant noodles in every household. Can we finish eating them in our lifetime? Probably not, but it's always comforting to know there's food to eat if the food delivery apps break down.

2) My plastic bags how???

One of the icons in a Singaporean kitchen is the bottom drawer or under-counter area piled high with scrunched up plastic bags from NTUC or those plastic carrier bags with the Singapore lion logo. Having those on hand is pivotal to our housekeeping needs, because we'll never want to spend money actually buying thrash bags to keep our rubbish in.

1) Throw away my field pack? I also want.

Ask what sparks the least joy in a Singaporean guy's storage and his field pack and number 4 uniform will probably come up tops. Nothing like seeing the camou-green colour to bring back bittersweet memories of digging trenches and getting extras, and much as we'd love to shred them up and send them into a bonfire, it's actually a requirement to keep them in case (and touch wood) war breaks in the little red dot.

READ ALSO: Marie Kondo show sparks decluttering fever among Singaporeans