The Manila Times

Singaporea­ns get ‘rage room’ relief

- AFP PHOTO AFP

SINGAPORE: high-pressured Singapore there is now a solution—a “rage room” that lets stressed-out people take a baseball bat to items ranging from glass bottles to television­s.

The “Fragment Room” consists of a bare, cell-like space with concrete walls, where customers pay to indulge in an unusual form of destructiv­e stress relief.

After being given overalls, helmets, gloves and shoes, people proceed to smash up items ranging from plates to printers.

The set-up opened six months ago and inhabitant­s of the citystate have shown they have an appetite for destructio­n. Anxious as well as students and retirees in their 60s.

While Singapore is ultra-mod - ous for the high levels of stress

This photograph taken on October 19, 2017 shows Fragment Room employees smashing bottles during a demonstrat­ion in a “rage room” in Singapore. suffered by its citizens, from school children to adults, who are placed under huge pressure to do well from an early age.

“Everyone in Singapore— no matter where you come from, what your background is, whatever you do, whatever age you are—ev- eryone is stressed out,” Royce Tan, the founder of “Fragment Room”, told Agence France-Presse.

“Be it school, be it work, be it like your own personal relations, everything is stressful.”

The set-up, one of several such “rage rooms” in cities around the world, has two main offerings: half- hour slots with a limited amount of items to smash for Sg$ 38 ($ 28), or the Sg$ 350 “annihilati­on pack” that lets customers smash as much as they can in half an hour.

Most items are provided by the “Fragment Room”, located in a disused noodle factory in central Singapore, but customers can also bring their own.

And the most popular item to

On a recent afternoon at the shop, four students, aged 18 and exams were enjoying a session, and the thud of bat on printer was just audible through the concrete walls.

Law student Kylie Low, drenched in sweat and with her shoes covered in printer ink, described it as a “cathartic experience.”

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