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A diner left behind S$17,000 in cash inside a sling bag at a coffee shop in Jurong West.
The incident happened at noon on Feb. 4 at Block 557 Jurong West Street 42.
The wad of cash was found by bak kut teh hawker Jalynn Woon, who picked up the bag and uncovered its contents.
She then proceeded to safekeep it in case it got removed by someone else.
Shin Min Daily News reported that it decided to track down the owner of the bag.
And as luck would have it, when a reporter from the publication reached out to the hawker, the diner so happened to be there for a meal again at that time.
What happened
The 37-year-old hawker, who works at the Hong Ji Claypot Herbal Bak Kut Teh stall has since won praise for her honesty and being a Good Samaritan.
When interviewed, Ma, 66, who is the owner of the bag of money, said the cash was for his younger brother's funeral expenses.
Ma said his younger brother fell in the market on Feb. 2 and passed away after being sent to the hospital.
After his younger brother's funeral on the morning of Feb. 4, Ma said he went to Jurong West Street 42 to return the drinks left over from the funeral to a grocery store run by a friend.
He then went to the coffee shop for lunch.
He left the money in a bag on the chair.
Was gone for 1.5 hours
After he was done eating, he forgot to take the bag with him.
He said: "After I was full, I went back to my friend's grocery store and chatted for about an hour and a half. When I returned to the car, I found that the bag was missing, but I couldn't find the bag after searching the entire car."
He hurried back to the coffee shop to look for the bag.
But after searching for a while, he thought it was hopeless, and he assumed that someone had taken it with all the money inside.
Just when he was disheartened, the staff at the coffee shop asked Ma to look for the owner of the bak kut teh stall.
Described bag to hawker
After he described the characteristics of the bag and the huge sum of money in it to the hawker, Woon took out the bag and returned it to Ma.
Ma was overjoyed.
He said: "I was very excited and happy at the moment, and immediately hugged her to thank her. I felt very lucky that I was able to get my bag back!"
Woon said she had noticed the bag was unattended for about 15 minutes after Ma left.
She added that she did not want to open the bag initially to look at its contents.
But when she realised the bag contained wads of S$100 notes, she thought it would only be right to safekeep it, because the person who misplaced it would be back.
She said she did not count how much was inside.
She explained that she was planning on returning the bag to its rightful owner only if the person who came back to claim it could describe the bag and its contents.
She also said she would have reported the bag to the police if no one came back for it.
Spread message of good deed
In order to praise the stall owner, Ma asked his grandson to post the incident online.
Ma said he had wanted to gift the stall owner a red packet, but Woon declined.
Ma said: "So I asked my grandson to post this good deed on the Internet so that everyone can support the stall owner."
Ma said that to express his gratitude, he also brought his wife and children to the stall many times.
He said: "I have never patronised this bak kut teh stall before, but now I know that the owner of the stall is so good, I will come here often to support the business."
Top photo via Shin Min Daily News