Her braids bring all the girls to the coffee shop: Women play with Kelis' hair at Chinatown without permission

Her milkshake may have brought the boys to the yard, but singer Kelis may have attracted something else while on holiday in Singapore. 

Last Saturday (Oct 22), the 43-year-old uploaded a video of a pretty strange encounter she had with two Chinese women at a coffee shop in Chinatown. 

While she was minding her own business, two random women approached her and began toying with her braids. 

"Is it real hair?" wondered the woman dressed in yellow. Her counterpart, still engrossed with the singer's hair, replies in Mandarin: "It seems like it." 

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The American singer-songwriter even tried to do a 'tit for tat' by reaching for the woman's hair, but her actions seemed to be lost in translation, as the latter thought Kelis was trying to tell her that her braids were real. 

In fact, the woman even gives Kelis, best known for her 2003 hit Milkshake, a thumbs-up. 

As the two continued to marvel at the length of her hair, Kelis' travel companion remarked: "Just embrace it." 

With a resigned expression, the singer says sarcastically: "Oh I like to be touched." 

"I don't even know what to say here," Kelis wrote in the video's caption. 

It's unclear what Kelis was doing in Singapore but in an earlier video posted last week, she was seen visiting Little India, Newton Food Centre and ordering 'cai fan' from a food court here. 

Earlier this month, the singer also performed at the Mandala Weekender party over the Formula One weekend. 

She might have been a good sport about the intrusive strangers, but netizens didn't take well to how the pair were behaving. 

As insensitive as the duo might have been, some netizens mentioned that their behaviour could have been attributed to cultural differences. 

Some Singaporeans also took to the comments to apologise to Kelis for the women's behaviour, saying that local Singaporeans typically "don't go around [touching] the hair of others". 

Kelis herself also explained her reaction in the video in the comments. 

"First, I was caught off-guard," she wrote. "Second, they were enamoured, as they should be.

"I don't like being touched and if we were in the (United) States or Europe, my reaction would have been different."

Speaking of cultural differences, an American expatriate, Alison Emerick, took to TikTok back in July to share how she felt that Singlish phrase 'wait awhile' was offensive to her. 

Emerick shared that she was "really confused" by the phrase when she first came to Singapore. 

"I went to check in at the doctor's office and the receptionist said, 'Wait awhile'," Emerick said, adding that she found it "rude".

Although Emerick later clarified that the receptionist wasn't being rude, her video did baffle some netizens who found no issue with the phrase. 

ALSO READ: Snakes fall from trees: American shares 10 reasons why Singapore is the 'worst place to live in'

claudiatan@asiaone.com

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