Siblings disguise as waiters to surprise parents
For almost two years, Malaysians living abroad were not able to meet their loved ones due to prolonged Covid-19 travel restrictions. But this is no longer the case, with the launch of the Malaysia-Singapore Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) on 29th November 2021 allowing families and friends to reunite.
Among the many heartwarming family reunions that we have seen during the pandemic, there’s a recent one involving two Malaysian siblings working in Singapore who took extra efforts to surprise their parents after two years of separation.
The pair disguised themselves as waiters at a hotel, and deliberately gave their parents bad customer service to throw them off their elaborate plan.
Surprise family reunion after returning from S’pore
Siblings dress up as waiters to surprise their parents
Image credit: Choong Kai Yee
On 7th December 2021, Facebook user Choong Kai Yee updated a post and a video documenting her surprise family reunion at Holiday Inn Johor Bahru City Centre after returning home from Singapore the day before.
In it, she shared how excited she and her brother were to return home as Malaysia and Singapore had finally launched the VTL to allow free travel for the fully vaccinated between the two countries. The siblings had been separated from their parents for nearly two years.
“I haven’t seen my family for nearly two years. Every day I think about when I can go back. After the government opened the VTL, we were all super happy! We started planning to go home! [But] At the same time, I told [my] mommy that we won’t be back until the New Year. We started a series of plans! The eldest sister proposed to bring the family to Holiday Inn for a buffet. [And] I suggested that we act as waiters,” she wrote in the Facebook post.
The family’s touching reunion
Video credit: Choong Kai Yee
To set their plan in motion, Choong and her brother had to first run it over with the hotel manager, who granted them permission to don uniforms of hotel staff to disguise themselves as part of the surprise for their parents.
It was well worth it in the end.
Their parents were not able to identify them in the uniforms until they took off their face masks at the end of the video. Leading up to this heartwarming reunion, the siblings were videoed intentionally misguiding their father at the hotel buffet so he could interact with the both of them.
At several points in the video, their parents appear to catch onto the ruse, pointing out just how similar the ‘waiters’ looked to their own kids. But they remained unclear about their identities due to their face masks.
It’s not until around the 3-minute mark of the video when the parents finally recognised them after Choong’s brother pulled off his face mask. The rest of her siblings can be seen tearing up while hugging each other affectionately.
Image credit: Choong Kai Yee
Speaking to The Smart Local Malaysia, Choong said she felt happy for being able to meet all of their family members again after a long time.
“Our dad kept second-guessing himself throughout the surprise and our mom had no idea that we were planning for a surprise reunion because she thought we won’t be coming back. But, we are happy that we got to see the whole family together after so long!” she said, adding that the family planned a trip to Genting Highlands the next day.
Since its posting, the viral video has garnered over 200,000 views, 17,000 reactions and more than 7,000 shares, at the time of writing. Malaysians have been tagging their Facebook friends on the post, while leaving comments on how happy they feel for Choong and her brother who reunited with their family after nearly two years. Many also left comments expressing how touching and emotional the reunion was.
Malaysian siblings reunite with family after two years
After a long hiatus in international travel, we are glad to see Malaysians being able to reunite happily with their family again. It’s indeed a heartwarming moment worth sharing with the rest of the world.
We hope this video will remind everyone to never take their loved ones for granted and always cherish their presence in our lives.
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Cover image adapted from: Choong Kai Yee and Choong Kai Yee