Virgin Blog — Ground Up Stories, The Asian Way
It has always been a desire for me to share all the experiences as a humble Singaporean who is born in this tiny island city on the equator, being multicultural and multiracial, about how we see Asia in Asia. There is so much mystic about Asia, and having lived, travelled and worked in Asia for almost half a century, many people whom I came across had been asking me to share my perspectives on Asia’s way of management and the future of Asian cities or countries. Even though I have given many talks and lectures to many people in different cities, I think my life stories working for the government, government linked companies, MNCs, Asian conglomerate and private enterprises as a technopreneur-innovator and consultant to several international organizations, across many business cultures and in several cities in Asia, will be a testimonial to the evolution of how Asian countries and industries have transformed over the last few decades. Hopefully the stories told from the ground will be beneficial for future leaders and young people to integrate the world with Asia, and a mindshare platform to provide more understanding of Asian people and the way things are being done in Asia, For those who have known me, I will continue to share some interesting views on how to make a country and society better through various topics that can be pollinated from one city to another. I will also try to publish some blogs in Chinese and Japanese, to address some areas specific to those who read these languages in a different nuances.
Given this is my virgin blog post, please allow me to me start with some rambling ….
I never knew Asia as much when I was a young boy, and the only country that I visited while in school was only my next door neighbor, Malaysia. Everything seemed to be centered only about Singapore, although I read about countries like USA, China and Japan in my teenage years. Never had I imagine in my adult life, I would have lived in both China and Japan for more than 20 over years, now the 2 largest economies globally thereafter, and the enormous experiences changed my entire life perspective of Asia. So I thought it is calling for me to share with the world, especially for many people out there who are still curious about different aspects of Asia, from the love of the variety and complexity of food, which itself connects people and businesses, as well as technology, businesses and even government policies for promoting investments, trade, economy, social well-being, innovations, science, technology from as an Asian person’s perspective.
I have been fortunate to have spent my most energetic part of my adult life living, working, business dealings in Tokyo, Osaka, Shanghai, Suzhou, Beijing, Shenzhen, and learnt to understand how these 2 countries shaped the economic and trade dynamics in Asia, or even to the world. Both countries are enigmatic to many, but hopefully I can use this blog to start to share on many untold personal stories from the ground up as well as macro policy making.
Beyond these 2 economies, I will also try to share different stories from my adventures to South East Asian countries such as Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Timor-Leste, and even Central Asia country like Kazakhstan. I was fortunate that I was given the opportunities not only as a tourist, but as friend and business person to learn about the beauties of each of these countries…Not that I am the expert in any of these countries, but having experiences that has made me what I call myself today, an Asian-interlocutor, I will try to share as much to understanding about these countries and how things are conducted there, and hopefully through the lens of a Singaporean, share about the different aspects that I have gone through.
To some, my blogs may be rambling of thoughts or dull stories, but I will try as far as possible to share on topics ranging from government policies to private sector development, cross border trades, the different ways of looking at things by Asian people, and also some topics to stretch the connection from one country and people to the other. The stories will all be written on random days (hopefully at least one article per week) and with no sequence, but I will try to focus on a particular topic or city when I write my blogs.
Hopefully, with this role to blog as a “Asia-interlocutor”, there will be more understanding about Asia and how we, both present and future, I can play a small part to contributing to a better world for humanity’s understanding of each other. Not trying to be expert here, but I would be most humble to be corrected and apologize first if my views are too personal or skewed, as there will be many people in the countries that I have become good friends. Who knows, I may make new friends along the way with this blog that can further contribute to this cause of making Asia understood by Asians and the rest of the world too….
