Woman Took 500 ‘Good Luck’ Hong Baos From S’pore Taoist Temple & Disappeared Forever

Last Updated on 2019-02-14 , 6:28 pm

What were you doing on the first day of Chinese New Year?

Visiting your grandparents’ home? Or maybe, just enjoying the fact that you can laze around at home because there’s no work or school for that day.

For one middle-aged lady in Singapore, she was doing something very different.

Middle-Aged Lady Caught on CCTV Stealing 500 Ang Baos

Okay, fine, stealing might be a bit too harsh for what she did.

Let’s just say that the ang baos were placed at the Taoist temple for devotees to bring home.

All 500 of them.

But when the Nine Dragon Palace Temple in Teck Whye Lane laid them out in a tray for their devotees, they didn’t expect all 500 of them to be taken out immediately.

Nor did they expect all the ang baos to be taken by one singular person.

Not a Familiar Face To Temple Volunteers

Mr Ivan Teo, a volunteer with the temple at Choa Chu Kang said that the woman’s face wasn’t familiar to the temple worshippers.

The temple had installed CCTV in the temple and caught her face in the act while they were going over the footage.

He added that she had not returned to the temple anymore after her inconsiderate act.

Each lucky ang bao contains two ten-cent coins and a lucky 4D number.

In other words, she might have risked getting into trouble with the law for a hundred bucks and 500 numbers that might or might not yield extra cash.

But luckily for her, the temple people’s pretty forgiving.

Decide Not To Call The Cops On Her

What would you do when someone did this at your place? Call the cops on her and get her into trouble, right?

But the temple decided to let live and forget.

If she comes back, they’ll simply talk to her and persuade her not to do it again.

“After all, the hongbao (red packets) were left there for people to take (anyway).”

But It’s A Wake-Up Call

It was added, however, that the temple will be modifying their traditional 27-year-old practice.

They had initially wanted to discontinue the tradition.

But in the end, they decided that they’ll simply lay out 40 to 50 ang baos at any single time. And only refill when it gets empty.

Of course, it goes without saying that they’ll be keeping a close eye on their lucky red packets from now on too.

This Happened At Other Temples Too

The Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple at Waterloo Street limit each devotee to four ang baos each.

The Hong San See Temple at Bukit Batok had a man taking hundreds of red packets about 20 years ago.

Now, they have volunteers giving out the ang baos and limited each devotee to one ang bao each.

Singaporeans can’t have nice things at all.