S'porean does wholesome TikTok of shopping trip with grandparents who raised him

The most wholesome thing you'll see today.

Ashley Tan | March 22, 2023, 02:42 PM

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For most of us, our grandparents were the ones that cared for and raised us when we were young, as our parents are busy bringing home the dough.

As we grow older, we see these substitute parental figures even less.

One man in Singapore recently took the opportunity to show his appreciation to his grandparents who raised him, and has tugged on the collective heartstrings of the internet after filming a TikTok of himself bringing them out on a shopping trip.

The roughly 1-minute-45-second video that Walter Tan posted showed him bringing the two elderly folks around to buy new shoes, and also included some simple but heartwarming interactions.

In the two days since the TikTok was posted, Tan's video has been watched more than 720,000 times.

@waltzytan New core memory with my dearest grandparents. You may call them yours too. ♥️ #grandparents #grandparentsphotos #shopping #fyp ♬ Married Life (From "Up") - Sergy el Som

Shoe shopping

The outing started off with lunch at a place that serves charcoal fishhead claypot soup near Bugis Junction.

Speaking to Mothership, Tan shared that his 91-year-old grandfather and 80-year-old grandmother love to eat fish, and had never been to the street opposite Bugis Junction.

The trio, along with Tan's aunt, then headed to Bugis Junction to shop for shoes, as the elderly pair's shoes were giving way.

Tan's grandfather got to pick out his shoes first, and chose a pair of boat shoes from Sperry.

In the midst of shoe-shopping, Tan could be heard asking the elderly man from behind the camera: "So are you happy I brought you out for shopping?"

To which grandfather replies straightforwardly, "Of course, why wouldn't I be happy?"

The little family then headed to Skechers to get a pair of shoes for grandmother.

Grandfather picked out a "light" pair for her she could slip on, which "will be easier for her to walk in" and did not require her to bend over to put it on.

In one part of the video, Tan and his grandmother chuckled heartily over the fact that the latter had given a random number for her shoe size.

"So I asked her if she said [the number] 8 because 8 is a huat number," the text on Tan's video read.

Here's grandmother, an absolutely satisfied customer.

Tan and the Skechers staff even asked her to strike a pose with her new shoes.

Grandmother then expressed her gratitude by telling Tan, "Thank you for your love".

Here's her sweet attempt at forming a heart shape with her hands.

Tan and his grandparents then took a break for some coffee and snacks, where he proceeded to show them how to take a polaroid.

Which led to some fond memories being created.

'Treat them like my own parents'

Tan told Mothership that his grandparents were his main caretakers since he was young.

As such, he communicates with them in dialect, which he said is actually his "first language".

The pair used to be fishmongers, but closed their business to care for him until Tan moved out at the age of 21.

"I treat them like my own parents because we were particularly close," he said.

He recalls them doting on him as a kid — his grandfather would play "magic tricks" with him by hiding candy in his hands, while his grandmother would wake up multiple times a night to check on him whenever he had a fever.

When he moved out of their home, Tan recounted "being so reluctant to leave because I didn’t want to leave them".

He initially wanted to bring his grandparents overseas, but work commitments prevented him from doing so.

His grandparents also later decided against going overseas as "they can't walk as much as before".

Said Tan:

"I was a little disappointed because it has been my dream to be able to earn enough and take them overseas. When I was in secondary school, they paid for my air ticket to Hong Kong with them. I told myself that one day, I will take both of them overseas when I am able to afford it."

In light of this new development, Tan thus decided to buy them some new shoes "so they can walk better", as well as take them out for lunch.

"Since I can’t bring them overseas, I will try to bring them to places in Singapore that they have never been to, in the comfort of my car where they don’t have to walk as much."

Tan shared that he spent S$150 for lunch, and around S$469 on the shoes.

The trip was clearly one to remember for both Tan and his grandparents. "New core memory with my dearest grandparents", was the video caption.

Photo courtesy of Walter Tan

Top photo from waltzytan / TikTok