4 Times When S’poreans Thought the World Was Ending But We’re Still Eating Laksa Today

By
George Yang
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Last Updated on 2021-08-09 , 1:38 pm

Every now and then, we’ll hear rumours about the end of the world, with some so serious that people did weird things before the supposed date when everyone would die: from withdrawing all their money to even building a secret place to avoid that “meteor crash”.

If you’re old like me, you’ll have remembered these days—and some of them were before Internet became mainstream, so the fear was even more pronounced since Google wasn’t around to tell us that they weren’t real!

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23 October 1997

1997 was the year when the Internet had not become mainstream, and everyone was taking each other’s words at face value. I don’t know about you, but during my time, classmates were writing last wishes to each other, and some even confessed their love.

Now that the Internet is available, it turned out that this prediction was established in the 17th century!

1999

There were so many dates that stated that 1999 would be the end of the world that we’ve complied them into a year instead. Most people projected that humankind would not live to see the year 2000—but well, here we are, in 2016, still eating laksa.

The cause of destruction varies from each individual. In fact, one of the predictions was by a Yale College president in the 18th to 19th century!

2000

Who can ever forget this year? The countdown to year 2000 was filled with apprehension—would we survive? While there have been predictions even in the 13th century that we’ll all die in the year 2000, there’s apparently a real threat: the Y2K Bug.

With our reliance on technology, no one knows whether traffic lights, satellites or power stations would still be able to function when the clock ticks to 12:01 a.m., 1 January 2000. Thank God everything went well, and we’re still eating laksa in 2016.

21 December 2012

This is so wildly known that there’s even a movie about it.

Known as the Mayan apocalypse, it is supposedly projected that the Maya calendar has ended that day, so the world would end, too.

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Scientists debunked all theories, from an asteroid hitting the Earth to a big earthquake, but people still believed in it and a manufacturer of underground survival shelters even saw their business blooming before the event.

Of course, we Singaporeans just ate laksa during that day.

Featured Image: Pavel Chagochkin / Shutterstock.com

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George Yang
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