Editor’s Note

’ Tis the season for Christmas parties and farewells. The end of the year brings with it an urge to recalibrate — and this year it feels like many colleagues and friends are looking for new horizons. In fact, one of my friends, feeling overwhelmed by bad news stories on social media, thought that we should group together and find a deserted island where we can escape from the world’s troubles. She suggested we form our own society, and that I could be the Minister of Communication, reporting only good news stories like we do in Lifestyle.

That was after I vowed to give up social media (for a while) — with its thousands of unfounded posts full of questionable stories about unfathomable atrocities, interspersed with memes about cats, dogs and babies. Oh, and adverts for the latest fashion and decor.

Before my social-media fast, I had come upon a few happy stories among the dire ones. One of them was about a pop-up restaurant in Japan called Orange Day Sengawa, also known as the Cafe of Mistaken Orders, where elderly people with dementia are hired to work as servers.

The restaurant’s wait staff get the patrons’ orders wrong 37% of the time but the customers aren’t bothered at all and most report leaving the restaurant feeling happy. This is because people prefer making others feel at ease over getting exactly what they ordered. They don’t care if they get rice instead of noodles (provided they’re not gluten intolerant). In return, everyone gets to be part of an inclusive community where they meet and laugh with people usually hidden from society.

Good news stories also abound in this edition of Lifestyle where we have featured Yoh! Christmas ,a new original local Christmas series from Netflix all about inclusiveness, love and family.