then close down la

After receiving multiple news of the death of Hokkien mee and char kway teow hawkers and stalls closing down, Mr Ang Chip Hong decided to set up his own stall in hopes of preserving the dying trade. In Nov 2024, the 53-year-old set up Wok AI at Margaret Drive Hawker Centre. But for someone who spent over 20 years in A*Star and and was a land IoT (internet of things) director at SMU, what would he know about Hokkien mee? In the beginning, Mr Ang encountered difficulties in hiring staff, describing it as almost impossible despite offering wages higher than average. “I was offering as much as $4,000 to $4,500," he told The New Paper. "Meanwhile, a chicken rice stall would have a line of applicants when the pay was $3,500.” Help unexpectedly came to Mr Ang in the form of a machine. His friend from Wuhan in China had a fried rice machine, which Mr Ang used to cook Hokkien mee and char kway teow. “But it cannot replicate the wok hei, which is a very robust component of Hokkien mee," Mr Ang revealed. "My 1.0 version of the dishes was nice but very flat.” He spent a entire month trying to perfect the recipe and launched his stall in November 2024. His search for the perfect taste continued as he gathered feedback from customers. When TNP visited Wok AI on Jan 13, Mr Ang was testing three different plates of Hokkien mee, his version 8.0 that took three months to develop. Alongside Mr Ang was Mr Lim Ye Sen, co-founder of Faesol, a local food technology and manufacturing company. Faesol produces smoking salt, which replicates the smokiness in food and was described as the missing piece to Mr Ang’s “flat” Hokkien mee. With this major milestone, Mr Ang is looking to open more stalls this year. A second stall at Timbre+ One North will open in February, offering both Hokkien mee and char kway teow. Mr Ang will open a third stall at NUS in April, its menu to include cai tao kway, and a fourth stall in the west in May. Also in the pipeline is Halal Wok, which will focus on Malay food.  “I wouldn’t say I have the best Hokkien mee but I will keep improving it and I will try my best until I am fully satisfied,” said Mr Ang.

For about 10 years, a man had been living with a landlady and her family as a tenant in Singapore. Unbeknownst to them, the Malaysian man had been secretly filming the 45-year-old woman and her 10-year-old daughter in various states of undress. The daughter was as young as three years old when he started filming.   Caught red-handed   On Dec. 30, 2024, the 40-year-old pleaded guilty to two counts of voyeurism and one count of insulting the young girl's modesty. A gag order is in place to protect the identities of the victims. Court documents reveal that the man's offences came to light on Apr. 8, 2024. At the time of the offence, the man was a work permit holder and employed as an aerospace machine operator in Singapore. At about 10am, the man was home alone with the 45-year-old landlady. The man realised the landlady was showering when he heard the sound of water running. He went to take his mobile phone and squatted outside her toilet, using his phone to film her through a gap between the door and the floor. Engrossed in his act, he did not notice when the victim finished showering. When she opened the door, she screamed as she saw the man and his phone, which was recording. The man dashed back to his room while the victim immediately called her husband. The police were called by the husband at 11:22am, and arrived at the unit within seven minutes. The man was arrested that same day at about 12:40 pm, with the police seizing several electronic devices from him, including four phones and nine storage devices.   Took naked videos of landlady's daughter since she was 3   Investigations later revealed that the accused had been taking voyeuristic videos at the flat since sometime in or around 2018. A forensic examination of his devices showed that he had retained a total of 13 videos of the landlady, nine videos of her daughter and 74 screenshots of the videos of the landlady on the man's devices. The landlady's daughter was around three years old in 2018. He would film the toddler from his room when the landlady changed her daughter's clothes in the master bedroom with the door open. He recorded a total of six videos of the toddler naked in 2018. In 2023, when the girl was around eight to nine years old, he recorded her another three times while she was changing clothes in the master bedroom. He edited two of the videos by shortening and retaining only the portions where the girl was fully naked, zooming into her genitals, and correcting the orientation of the videos from portrait to landscape so that she appeared upright. The man admitted that he had been recording such videos for a few years and that the bolder he got recording, the more he did it. He asserted, however, that he did not post or share these videos or images, and they were meant for his own sexual gratification.   Victim still suffering from aftereffects   In a victim impact statement, the landlady said she was still suffering from the aftereffects of the offences to this day and has not fully recovered. The man’s recording of her daughter over a prolonged period especially "shook" her, as he had been residing with them for a long time, and they knew each other well. "It did not cross her mind that he would do such a thing," the prosecutor said. Her daughter is unaware of the recordings to date because neither she nor her husband want to let her know, as she is very young. She now has a closed-circuit television camera in her living room, and her husband has replaced their house's locks with digital ones to reassure her. The man was eventually sentenced to 19 months in jail.