About Me — Alvin T.

Permanent outsider, over-thinker, INTP, coffee addict, beer lover

Thank you so much for reading the whimsical garbage that comes out of my head. I doubt anyone is really interested in the person behind the computer, stringing words together to fling into the vast unknown.

But, if you’re ever just a little bit curious, here’s a little bit about my background, and why I write what I write.

My Childhood

I was born in the Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore in the mid-1980s. Ethnically, although Chinese, growing up in a postcolonial country meant that I was schooled in English, even though my grandparents spoke Hokkien, a Southern Chinese dialect (or language, depending on your point of view).

In the 1980s, envisioning the rise of China, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew instituted a “Speak Mandarin” campaign. In practical terms, that meant that I was also educated in Mandarin Chinese, which I would like to believe gave me a later advantage in studying Japanese. Unfortunately, although I was fluent in Hokkien in my childhood, I have since forgotten most of it.

Still, I never got very good at Chinese. Instead, I displayed an aptitude and perhaps preference for the English language very early on in life. I grew up reading books written by English author Enid Blyton. Her books were readily available in a popular chain of bookstores — funnily, the store was named Popular.

Books were also often thrown out onto the ground floors of government-subsidized apartments, called HDB (an acronym for the Housing Development Board, a government organization that builds public housing) flats. If I discovered any gems, I would pick them up and add them to my book collection.

You see, my family was not poor by any means, but my parents were humble people. They had come from humble origins and never went to university. They worked hard so that I could go to university, and being the ignorant brat I was, I had not understood how hard they had to slog to put food on the table.

I had to beg my parents for months to buy me a Power Rangers toy before they finally relented. It was a very different Singapore from the Crazy Rich Asian image of Singapore that people have today.

I Was Your Classical Childhood Nerd

I also developed varied interests in science, language, and just in knowing… stuff. I devoured everything I could read. Anatomy books — I knew what a spleen and pancreas were probably at the age of 10, pictured encyclopedias of the animal and plant world, and even the dictionary. All artifacts of my irrational obsession with devouring knowledge.

A weird fascination with science grew inside me. In one of my childhood fantasies, I imagined myself a very clever scientist-wannabe who would also become a crime-solving modern-day Sherlock Holmes. To complete the package, I also had very bad myopia and wore thick glasses that made me look like your classical childhood nerd.

A few weeks ago, an elementary school friend randomly tagged me on Facebook, saying that she had a friend who was obsessed with science and would, during our games of catch, run with outstretched palms facing the sky. The belief was that doing that would lower air resistance and improve running speed.

Obviously, my friend was referring to me. Shockingly, I had no memory of it. And maybe she’s remembering wrongly, but no matter. That impression is what counts. I was very different from most children. From childhood, I was already an oddball.

Despite having nerdish qualities, I never developed an aptitude for more exact fields like programming, even though I had some exposure to it when I was 12 or 13. My inability to code was later to give me a serious case of “tech envy.”

Ironically, I also lost interest in the harder sciences when I realized how much mathematics was required in physics and chemistry at the higher levels. Eventually, I grew to become more interested in literary things, going on to study English literature in the Singaporean equivalent of middle school and high school. That solidified my interest in the power of the written word.

Studying Sociology and Encountering Japan

By the time I went to university after a mandatory two-year stint in Singapore’s conscripted military, my interests had shifted from the natural world to the social world. All this time, I always felt like an outsider looking in, and studying sociology gave me the conceptual tools to think more critically and analytically about culture.

I loved the subject and excelled at the program and would eventually go on to complete both my bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in the discipline. Intellectually, I came to be very interested in cultural globalization and the modernity of the modern world (and what particular makes our modern world a modern one).

Part of that fascination with global culture was no doubt shaped by my youth. Although Gen Z around the world today grew up with what can be arguably called a “global” Korean pop culture, I, like most other Asians, grew up with Japanese pop culture.

Speaking of which, I had the opportunity to study the Japanese language during middle school, but since my Chinese was mediocre, I decided that taking another language would be too much.

During university, when a course I wanted to enroll in was over-subscribed and I had to choose another class to take, the chance to study Japanese suddenly appeared, since the course still had vacancies. A random decision to take a lesson in the Japanese language changed my life trajectory.

I fell in love with the Japanese language. I was hooked.

I slowly became obsessed with mastering the Japanese language, taking formal classes studying grammar, spending hours a week listening to recorded conversations, memorizing lists of vocabulary, and relearning Chinese characters in the form of kanji.

I was also able to go on a sponsored student exchange program at Kyushu University, a decision that planted the seeds for my eventual move to Japan. My experience at Kyushu University profoundly altered my worldview. For the first time in my life, I had left the comfortable confines of the small island I had called home to discover that the world was much bigger than I had ever imagined.

My Career

I eventually graduated with a master’s degree in sociology from a university in Singapore in 2012. Although the thought of pursuing a PhD crossed my mind, I decided against it, since the financial prospects were disappointing.

On top of that, ever since my exchange program at Kyushu University, I’d developed an inextinguishable desire to move to Japan. To that end, I sold my soul to capitalism. I joined a Japanese consumer goods firm in Singapore where I worked for three years as a marketer. After slogging away for 3.5 years, in 2016, I was finally offered the opportunity to move to Japan, and not as an English teacher.

I immediately said yes.

But the start of my life in Japan was rough. I endured weeks of relentless overtime work, which took a toll on my mental health. Weeks that turned into months, and into years.

Enough was enough. I was scouted on LinkedIn and eventually hired by another company. Even so, my experience had left me psychologically drained. Plus, I needed a more creative outlet to release the energy produced by the neurons firing away inside my head — I would not find that within the confines of a bureaucratic Japanese company.

Besides, all that sociological training had given me a unique view of the world, which I felt I could use to share my experience in Japan with the world.

Medium, which had only been a place for me to consume, soon became the platform for me to share my voice with the world.

One thing led to another. As I started writing more and more articles about Japan and my experiences living in the country, I connected with like-minded people DC Palter and Yuko Tamura. I soon became a part of the Japonica community as an editor.

Why I Write

I’m probably not the most brilliant marketer, nor the best storyteller in the world. Instead, writing has always been more of a tool for me to structure the mess in my head, rather than existing purely as a creative art form or an exercise in storytelling.

For me, writing is logical, before it is emotional. I write primarily to describe and explain the world as I see it.

Writing for me, is thought made visible.

That might not be a recipe for success in the 3-seconds-before-you-lose-my-attention Tik-Tokesque world of today. I’m surprised that I even have somewhat of an audience.

Even so, the act of weaving words from nothing has also been a massive boon to my mental health. If the corporate world nearly killed me, it was writing that saved my life.

While I chiefly write about Japan these days, I sometimes also write more general cultural observations about Society (with a capital S). I’ve also written on cryptocurrency, AI, and the creator economy, chiefly from a socio-cultural perspective. I have even dabbled in fiction and poetry!

Even so, I must confess that I don’t really see myself as a writer. It’s not what pays the bills, and it’s not the one thing that drives me the most. For me, the best writing comes from living life — working my day job, traveling, being a regular human being, and just being in the world. Observing, thinking, making notes in the corner of my head, and then coming back to stitch together a piece of writing that might be meaningful to someone out there.

I am not the most prolific, consistent, or even most virtuosic writer. But I can swear that everything that comes from my hand comes both from my brain as well as from my heart. I hope to be the most human writer that I can be, and I hope you’ll join me on this journey to make sense of the world.

Making Further Sense of this Writer

Finally, let me finish off by sharing a few pieces of mine that give more insight into the experiences, ideas, and philosophies that have shaped who I am, and in return, shape what I write.

Interested in Japan, Japanese culture, or the Japanese language? Follow me! I write frequently about Japan-related topics on Japonica, where I am also an editor. Discover my most-read stories here.