SINGAPORE — A taxi driver, Ghazali M Sadip, shared a picture of an elderly woman collecting cardboard boxes on the eve of Chinese New Year at Bukit Merah Central. He said on Facebook, “it’s 7pm on the eve of Chinese New Year and seeing this just breaks my heart.”

Most Chinese consider the reunion dinner the most important part of the Chinese New Year celebration. The Reunion Dinner is an annual feast where family members reaffirm the love and respect that binds them together as a unit. It is also known as tuanyuan (or weilu) to mean “gathering around the family hearth.” This event is of sociological significance as it is a means to ensure the solidarity of the family and its cohesiveness. It is unclear if the elderly women had anyone to celebrate Reunion Dinner with on Chinese New Year.

Nafiz Kamarudin, leader of a community group, Happy People Helping People, said a few years ago that the number of elderly cardboard box collectors seems to have grown in Singapore. His group provides monthly meal vouchers and provi...