3am Stories
A Singapore Airlines Boeing 787 on a wet runway.

In October 1972, Lee Kuan Yew Told the Staff of a Brand-New Airline Something No Prime Minister Has Ever Said to an Airline Before.

21 April 2026

In October 1972, Lee Kuan Yew Told The Staff Of A Brand-New Airline Something No Prime Minister Has Ever Said To An Airline Before.

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Touch your phone screen right now.

17 May 2026

Feel how smooth it is. There's a decent chance the glass under your fingertip was made by a woman who grew up raising pigs and ducks in a village in...

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His father owned movie theatres, and the boy had private Chinese lessons and violin rehearsals.

28 April 2026

He attended the University of San Carlos in Cebu and graduated valedictorian from primary school, the best student in the building. Then his father...

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The founder of one of Singapore's most successful restaurant chains can't cook.

23 May 2026

His culinary skills, by his own admission, are limited to instant noodles, frying eggs, and cooking porridge. He's not a foodie. If you ask him about...

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His grandfather left Fujian Province in 1920 with a few dollars and a bag of clothes.

30 April 2026

He landed in Malaysia and opened a timber business. His son, Yeoh Tiong Lay, never went to university. He started a construction company in 1955,...

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He was 13 years old, standing behind his family's fishball noodle stall, and that was the beginning of a US$150 million food company.

9 September 2026

Tan Kim Siong didn't grow up dreaming of boardrooms. He grew up in hawker centres. As a teenager, he helped at his family's Teochew fishball noodle...

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He named the restaurant after a woman who wasn't his wife, wasn't his mother, and wasn't related to him.

3 September 2026

In the mid-1930s, a teenager from the Tanjore district of Tamil Nadu arrived in Singapore. Murugiah Rajoo found work as a shop assistant at a...

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His great-grandfather was a taxi driver.

25 May 2026

His grandfather took that knowledge and built Tan Chong Motor, becoming the exclusive distributor for Nissan in Malaysia. His father, Tan Heng Chew,...

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The Taste Paradise Group.

27 May 2026

I knew Eldwin Chua before the empire. Years ago, we were car friends. A group of us would drive to his coffeeshop at Defu Lane, an industrial estate...

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His first company failed.

27 April 2026

His second company sold for US$66 million. And with the money from the second, he backed a motorcycle taxi app in Jakarta that became one of the...

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Sim Wong Hoo sued Apple. Apple paid US$100 million.

6 August 2026

Not a quiet backroom deal. Creative Technology sued Apple for alleged patent infringement. Apple countersued. Five lawsuits were pending between the...

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TWG Tea wasn't founded in 1837.

26 June 2026

It was founded in 2008. For years, the number "1837" appeared on every tin, every menu, every salon wall. Maranda Barnes had found the date while...

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Benny Se Teo named his restaurant after a street gang.

27 June 2026

Not as a joke or as irony. As a reminder. The number 18 refers to a well-known Singaporean gang, the world Benny Se Teo came from before he built the...

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US$157 million in revenue.

20 May 2026

Zero venture capital. Selling health supplements to Americans from a office in Singapore. That's Maneuver Marketing in 2023. The company that...

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She was a university lecturer in pharmacology. Then she quit to become a salesgirl in a watch shop.

13 August 2026

Not a luxury boutique. A family watch business called Lee Chay & Company, run by her in-laws. She stood behind the counter selling watches to walk-in...