About

Writing on this blog is my healthy form of catharsis, and I’ve been happily blogging on this domain on and off since 2006.

I left Singapore when I was 19 to throw myself out of my comfort zone, and have since found my footing and built a new nest. I’ve been living in Shanghai since 28 August 2005, with time off during college vacations, as well as a semester abroad in Vancouver, which quickly turned into a study and travel affair. After my 4-year Bachelor’s degree programme in Shanghai, I explored work options in my adopted city.

While I was in college, I got acquainted with setting up my own website on a shared webhost, mostly because China kept blocking foreign media and free blog hosting services like blogspot and wordpress.com were disrupted. Other than blogging about what went on in my life, I also got my feet wet in paid content and Google AdSense. These skills and knowledge landed me my first job as a Web Content Editor, and I curated content for websites with focus on SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

After a year, I felt that my role was rather limiting, and wanted to get my hands busy on social media. I took on the role as a Social Media Executive for a global social network service, and implemented social media marketing strategies for the social network. Not long later after implementations were in place, there was a company reorganization and the social network service repositioned itself as a hardcore dating service. My job evolved into writing cheesy dating content, fetching coffee for the new boss, and being scolded with bad language from time to time. I gave myself 6 months to endure that shit and quit just before bonus was handed out for my year’s service, but with me I carried what remained of my dignity and sanity.

I was in a dark place for a while not knowing what my next move should be, but managed to still pay the bills with a freelance content editing gig and worked as an international hand-carry courier. I got to travel frequently which felt great, but long hours in the air deficient plane cabins took away some of my bubbly youth. I decided to take this time to think. I knew big companies with all the bureaucracy and politics were not for me, and that having ownership in projects was extremely important to me. Working for myself and being location independent are big dreams of mine and I want that in years to come.

Right now, I’ve taken on the challenge in a startup as the Website Manager of a B2B trading network in China for a certain high-end commodity. This is a great sandbox for me as I intend to build my own commercial website/application someday.

I currently own 4 web properties.

This blog is my personal one where I journal about my life in Shanghai, but mostly about living with my girlfriend, affectionately known as The Bitch, and her two dogs.