A tourist from Dalian, China, who came to Singapore for holiday, remarked on social media platform Xiaohongshu that she felt like she was still in her home country, despite flying several thousand kilometres.

The reason?

Singapore is sufficiently Sinicised — at least in the shopping and dining scene — due to the large number of retail brands originally from China that have spread abroad and set up shop, especially in the Lion City.

In other words, capitalism works.

Brands she came across

Her video highlighted prominent retail brands she personally came across, mainly from the food and beverage sector, such as Haidilao, Mixue, and Juewei, as well as lifestyle products brands Yishion and Miniso.

All these businesses originate from China, and taken as a whole alongside many others, they can be found littered across the island.

Still patronised businesses

Despite lamenting the presence of Chinese businesses in Singapore, the tourist could be seen patronising them.

She also responded in the comments section that the Mixue mascot regularly "goes crazy daily" in Paya Lebar, indicating that she has become sufficiently acquainted with this area in Singapore and also implying the mascot's antics are similar to the ones in China.

She was also seen, at the start of the video, travelling along the road in Geylang, which is also an area with many Chinese-run F&B businesses.

Background

The presence of Chinese F&B businesses here should not be surprising though.

In recent years, China's tech giants, such as Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance, the parent firm of TikTok, have set up regional offices in Singapore.

The Financial Times reported in January 2023 that the number of Chinese family funds in Singapore has soared from a handful a few years ago to an estimated 600 today.

At the same time, some 500 Chinese ...