Top image: Isaiah Chua / RICE file photo
The hidden lore of a public figure who will do almost anything for fame. What it’s like to live in one of the country’s poorest neighbourhoods, under the shadow of CBD skyscrapers. The years of prolonged distress suffered by residents of an HDB estate when the system could do little to intervene. The invisible work that goes into directional signs at MRT stations. The industry drama among property agents when market disruption arrives. And yes, even the gastrointestinal hell of eating nothing but McSpicy burgers for a week.
For nearly a decade, these are the stories RICE has gone looking for—rooted in lived experience, told from angles you don’t usually expect. But here’s something we’ve always known and probably never said clearly enough: we were never the only ones who could tell them.
Everyone’s a storyteller. Everyone carries something—some experience, some specific truth about what it’s like to be alive right now. And that something could change how someone else sees the place they live in. Lived experience, honestly examined, is a form of knowledge that no amount of official reporting can replace.
RICE has always been that platform for the culturally curious in Singapore. In 2026, in our new chapter, we want to go further.
But why now? Singapore is at a moment where the distance between the official story and the lived one feels more pronounced than it has in a while. Maybe we feel it in the exhaustion of coming home from work with nothing left to give. Perhaps it’s felt by the caregiver holding everything together and stopped asking who does the same for her.
Or it could lie in the creeping suspicion that the Singapore we were promised and the one we’re actually living in may not be quite the same place. And deep inside, we know that things can be better.
Singapore has no shortage of comfortable consensus narratives, but the stories that actually shape the raw texture of this place come from pockets unknown, from people who’ve lived something specific and honest.
The stories that need telling aren’t getting told enough, and the people who could tell them don’t always have the infrastructure to do it well. From our sojourn into community events, we’ve also come to understand that impactful stories don’t live only on platforms—they can be shared in offline spaces where people gather to meaningfully connect with one another.
RICE is becoming a publication you can be part of. We’re actively looking for people who have something true to say about living here and just haven’t had the platform to say it well. We want to provide a space that takes your story seriously enough to help you tell it properly.
(And if you’re trying to read between the lines, here it is. When AI slop is everywhere and algorithms keep you in your own ideological bubble, the most radical thing we can think to do is put real people’s stories in front of you. So you might actually care about someone you’d never otherwise meet and care about issues you’d never otherwise have to grapple with.)
With every story, we’re trying to answer the same thing: What can a better life look like in Singapore?
There’s no single answer, but there are thousands of lived ones. We can tell those stories together.
Submit yours here
Looking to be part of RICE Media’s new chapter? Join us for a community gathering at the end of May and share your thoughts with the team.
