Being noisy neighbours puts HDB flat owners in Singapore at risk of losing their units, but only as ‘last resort’Mohd Khaidil Buari is famous as Korea’s Mango Boy for his fluent use of Korean and knowledge of Korean social media trends. — Picture by Julia ChanKOTA KINABALU, Aug 14 — “Hello! Mangoes!” In Kota Kinabalu’s central night market downtown, 16-year-old Mohd Khaidil Buari calls out to a group of Korean tourists passing by his stall.
Among the stalls of fresh and dried fruits, grilled chicken, and abundant rows of seafood are numerous signs and labels, handwritten inMohd Khaidil, or “Midz” is actually rather famous, known as Mango Boy in Korean and is featured in countless videos all over social media by Korean tourists and locals impressed by his language skills and knowledge of Korean slang, trends and memes.
He converses affably with visitors, many of whom would take selfies with him or ask for a video before or after buying his mangoes, mangosteens or other fruits.“celebrity” vendor of the market but several other stall operators and owners are also conversant in Korean and other foreign languages. “We learnt from the internet — Chinese, Korean, Japanese, English — all the languages of the tourists who come here. It is useful and also, it's quite fun,” he said as he pulled up a YouTube video of his favourite channel.
However, one of the vendors, Hartatiey Bahar, actually picked up Korean long before she started working at the night market selling barbecued chicken.