SINGAPORE - Ms Noriza A. Mansor, 49, was a total stranger to Mr Tan Soy Yong, 76, who had soiled himself while grocery shopping.
But that did not stop the bedsheet promoter from reaching out to help the elderly man. She cleaned off the faeces on Mr Tan, bought him a new pair of shorts and even accompanied him home.
This act of kindness took place last Tuesday at the FairPrice supermarket at Toa Payoh HDB Hub, and was reported today in The New Paper.
Ms Mansor, who works at the supermarket, had noticed that people around her were pinching their noses and looking uncomfortable about a foul smell in the air.
She went about trying to locate the source of the stench, and found that it was coming from Mr Tan, who was standing at a cashier's counter with faeces on his shorts and shins. There was also a small lump of faeces on his sandals.
Mr Tan had soiled his pants while grocery shopping with his wife, Madam Lee Bee Yian, 76, who was in a wheelchair.
"No one was helping him even though he looked so pitiful," Ms Noriza told The New Paper.
People were steering clear of Mr Tan and even his wife was complaining about the problem he had created, but Ms Noriza rose to action.
She bought him a new pair of shorts from a store opposite the supermarket, and went to the FairPrice staff toilet to get a pail of water and some tissue. She then got Mr Tan to change into the clean shorts and asked him to sit on a nearby brick ledge, while she knelt before him and started to wipe the faeces off him. She also rinsed out his dirty sandals.
All the while as she did so, she kept talking to Mr Tan. "I was telling him not to worry and that he would be clean very soon," said Ms Noriza, a divorcee with five children aged 10 to 25.
When she was done, she accompanied the elderly couple back to their flat in Potong Pasir, before heading back to work.
Ms Noriza's kind act was observed by currency trader Goh Rong Ren, 32, who was rushing off to a dinner appointment with his friends that day when a passer-by asked him to help Ms Noriza and the elderly couple.
He helped to pay for the couple's cab fare home, and was so touched by Ms Noriza's compassion towards Mr Tan that he wanted people to know about what she did. He then got his friend to contact The New Paper.
"Her selflessness towards a total stranger moved me. It was pure and unadulterated kindness," he said.
For the full story, read today's The New Paper.
