SINGAPORE - Every Friday morning, Ms Mary Chow heads to an HDB estate in the western part of Singapore to lead a group of elderly people in doing stretching exercises, dancing the cha-cha or singing.

“We just while away our time being happy. It’s not like your steps must be correct… We laugh and we have fun,” said the self-professed entertainer of the weekly exercise sessions that she started about a decade ago. “I talk to them, sometimes in Teochew, sometimes in Cantonese, sometimes in Malay. It’s spontaneous.”