もったいない, do not waste (Singapore)

In our Japan, there is a word and the philosophy of もったいない, mottainai — meaning “don’t waste”. It is actually hard to fix things these days with local electric supply shops, tailors and shoe repairers all disappearing en masse. I found a makerspace at a campus. I made a short power cable plug (I could not find a single local shop selling a 0.5 meter cable, the only option was to buy on eBay or Amazon where the shipping costs more than the price of the cable).

And once you are in a makerspace, you have this strong desire to repair everything. I ended up fixing the fraying canvas on my bag.