This made my day: Singaporean moved to tears after Malaysian teen returns lost wallet with over $1,000

If news about a man losing a wallet with $500 was enough to have you double-check your pockets, how does news about a wallet with over $1,000 sound?

In Johor last Friday (May 27), an elderly man misplaced his wallet containing S$1,000 and RM$600 (S$188) on a public bus, only to have it returned to him that same day by a kind Samaritan, China Press reported on Monday. 

On Saturday, the elderly man's niece then arranged a meeting between him and the Samaritan so that he could express his gratitude in person.

During the meeting, the elderly man, Zhou Liangxin, offered the Samaritan a red packet as a token of appreciation, but the young man refused to accept it.

Incredibly moved by the kindness and honesty of the young man, Zhou, 80, couldn't hold back his tears — he had all but expected the wallet with over $1,000 to be lost forever.

On the day of the incident, Zhou was returning to his niece in Kluang after visiting other relatives and was taking a bus from Seremban to Kluang when he accidentally got off at the wrong stop. 

However, that wasn't his only mistake — he also left his wallet behind on the bus.

Maybe he felt anxious about missing his stop, and didn't notice that his wallet had fallen out, Zhou's niece explained to Malaysia's China Press. 

Thankfully, a kind young man noticed Zhou's blunder and picked up the wallet before approaching staff members of the bus company to locate the owner, Zhou's niece said.

Her cousin who bought the bus ticket for Zhou was notified by staff and the message was relayed to her, the niece said.

"I met the young man at the bus station at around 5pm and received the wallet from him," Zhou's niece recalled. "He was already waiting for me at the station at that time, for about an hour."

Zhou's niece was also thankful for other helpful people along the way — her uncle encountered two kind souls that gave him a ride back to her, she told China Press.

While not everyone has been lucky enough to have their wallets returned with money intact, there have been other cases of this in the past.

In January 2020, a Malaysian driver travelled over 200km to return a wallet to a Singaporean Grab passenger.

More recently, a British expatriate in Singapore was pleasantly surprised after his wallet with $500 in it was returned to the police.

khooyihang@asiaone.com