A Singaporean man and his Vietnamese wife garnered attention online after a Facebook post by the Singapore Atrium Sales on 4 February went viral.
The photo was captioned “Group of Vietnamese guy and ladies giving out free masks outside Punggol MRT station. Thanks for the love for everyone here. Thanks to a friend of our page for sharing.” The post has garnered 6.5k likes, 1.3k shares, and 312 comments.
Netizens went on to praise the people who were distributing the free masks, with some users commenting that the gesture was “commendable” in the Hardware Zone Forum.
Apparently, that was not the first time the couple Adrian and his wife Yen Vy Vu Tran, who is a Vietnamese PR in Singapore, gave away masks for free in public.
Mr Adrian told Mothership that when they heard about retailers in Singapore running out of surgical face masks and the cases of face masks being sold at inflated prices, they decided to buy bulk masks in Vietnam during the Chinese New Year.
He said they had a limit whereby each of them can only buy two boxes in a pharmacy, thus their family in Vietnam also helped them buy more masks.
On 31 January, they gave out a total of 4,000 masks, and another 6,000 on 1 February. On the first day, the masks were finished being distributed in 10 minutes.
The couple also tried to ensure that one person only gets one pack of 10 masks, so that more people can have the masks.
Mr Adrian also implored that humanity should stand together in “times of crisis”, adding that helping others is the right thing to do based on Buddhist beliefs.
Friends of Ms Vy who are residing in Singapore also organized another giveaway on 4 February, Mothership reported.
