Pioneers, my people

We’re in Chiang Mai now on a recce trip for our big move, and met some Singaporean families living in Chiang Mai.

It felt like meeting my tribe, my people.

Not because they live in Chiang Mai.
Not because they are from Singapore.
Not because they are parents.
Not because they are of similar age.

But because they are pioneers.

I think all my life, I resonate most with people who are doing pioneering work, who are living on the niche edges of their communities, who are at the frontiers (or out of it).

Backpackers. Travellers. Climbers. Indie hackers. Digital nomads. Home birthers. Home schoolers. Migrants.

These folks, who uprooted from safe, secure, rich and comfortable country of Singapore, to come live here, all have that. Their reasons differ, life circumstances differ, and definitely personalities and values differ.

But you can see something common in their eyes, these people who had given up nice lives to come to a foreign country to live as a migrant.

They had the courage to say no in defiance to common social norms, to unquestioned folk wisdom, and to cultural expectations of their family. They had the resolve to stick to it when it got hard, and lived through it to know what their two hands are capable of.

Their eyes, speak volumes.

Perhaps it’s the eyes of my grandparents I see, for they too, uprooted from their China and Malaysia to come to Singapore to build a new, different life. Back then, they had so little. Now we have so much.

Yet our challenge is the same.

To say no, to push out, to journey.

So that we can say yes to our higher callings.

Pioneers. Migrants. Sojourners.

My people.