The Good Life: Travel, Grit and Risk Taking

If you had the chance to travel the world would you do it? I think most of us would answer yes. What if I added that you would do this on your own often with just a backpack hitching rides across Sub-Saharan Africa? I think many of us would begin to rethink our answer. Would you risk your life to help someone who’s been in a terrible accident? Would you go choose to spend many days and nights in the equatorial jungle with a tank crew?  I think at this point most of us would say no.

Yix is not like most of us. His willingness to explore the world and himself is inspirational. He embodies character traits that make him a leader whether it’s in banking or the military or with his family. His words should undermine some of the fixed opinions about what an examined life really is. Part of it is exploring the world, but a lot of it is exploring the landscape within our minds and hearts.

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First off can you tell us a bit about you and your family? 

I'm a fourth generation born and bred Singaporean. Both sides of my family migrated from Fujian province in China to Singapore. From the stories I've heard, both my grandfathers were successful businessmen who developed opium habits and gambled away their fortunes. My grandmothers were more sensible. They raised their families and ran the family business the best they could. Both my parents graduated from university, which was very rare in their day. In 1960s Singapore, only ~2% of the population had the equivalent of a high school diploma. It was even rarer for women to attend university. 

Before I was born, my family lived in London and Hong Kong for several years before moving back to Singapore. As the youngest of 3 siblings, I was the only child to be born and bred in Singapore. I lived in Singapore till I finished my compulsory military service at 21 years old, and subsequently left to study in the US. I spent almost a decade abroad till recently returning home.

I know this takes you back a ways, but you have been posting some great photos lately of when you were in school. Where did you attend secondary school and how would you describe the school and your experience in it? How intense was the pressure among so many great students?

The Singapore education system is often compared to a pressure cooker. There are national exams that chart your future when you're 12 (Primary School Leaving Examinations), 16 (O’Levels) and 18 years old (A’Levels). Your results determine which school you go to, and how rigorous your education will be. As much as the system breeds academic excellence, it ends up being a self-reinforcing elitist system. Good students go to good schools and continue to get good results, and vice versa.

I didn't do well in my PSLE exams when I was 12, and went to an average secondary school. It was humbling given both my older siblings went to elite secondary schools. Academics never interested me much, so I was a straight B- student who held his head down in shame whenever I brought home my grades to my parents. For 10 years, every teacher I had said something along the lines of "needs to work harder". Needless to say, my parents were very worried about me! 

One often-overlooked side of the Singaporean education system is its emphasis on after school activities. Everyone ends up being very involved in school, except during the years when they're sitting for a national exam. I joined the National Police Cadet Corps (think of it as the police Boy Scouts), ran in track meets, and was a school prefect. Being from a smaller school, I got more leadership opportunities and got the chance to step up more. I loved my time in secondary school and made lifelong friends.

When I turned 16, the O Levels rolled along and the pressure ratcheted back up. Teachers would march into class, draw a bell curve, point to the far left side and tell us we were in the bottom 20th percentile! It was their way of "motivating" us, but for most of us, it accomplished the opposite. Don’t get me wrong; I also had several great teachers who pushed me in more constructive ways which I owe a debt of gratitude to. Several months before the O Levels, I realized this was made or break time. I hunkered down and studied like I never did before. I ended up being one of the top students from my secondary school and was the valedictorian for my year. After which I went to a good junior college and got decent results for my A Levels. 

What do you think about the compulsory service requirement that all males from Singapore must complete? You had some options about where you would go and you choose a very challenging assignment. Can you tell us a bit about it and how this may have changed you in some ways? Do you think other countries should require service?

Like all Singaporean males, I spent 2 years in the military (2 years, 2 months to be exact) after junior college when I was 18. Every boy harbors some resentment at the government for taking away the 2 best years of their youth. Despite this, the army was my first "real" job and I did the best I could. I left the army as a sergeant in an armored regiment, in charge of a section (7 men and a tank) and at times a platoon (24 men and 3 tanks). 

The army was the most formative experience of my life. I learnt to be a leader, a follower, and a team player. I discovered what it felt like to be utterly beaten down and exhausted, yet still have to lead soldiers to get the job done. I met people I'd never have met, some who were extremely capable and others who were the opposite. Either way I was stuck with them and had to make do. The responsibility the army gives you is daunting. It goes without saying that 18 year olds, tanks, live ammunition and the jungle are a volatile combination. Accidents happen, mainly due to exhaustion and neglect. I remember the fathers of my soldiers telling me, “This is my son, he is a boy. Give me back a man”, and not thinking about “man-building” of any sort, but how to make sure these sons went home safe and sound.

The most profound impact the army had on me was the confidence to take on things I'd normally have shied away from. Whether it was taking on a new sport, ignoring an authority figure telling me something isn't possible, or chasing a dream. I'm not sure this is a "normal" byproduct of 2 years of regimentation, but it's something I walked away with! 

Like most things in life, how much you get out of the army depends on how much you put into it and how willing you are to adapt. For the most part, I think almost everyone emerges from the experience a better person. As much as I like the concept of a citizen army, I realize that there are people out there who are not born to be soldiers. Some boys enter the army and emerge broken physically or emotionally. Given we live in peaceful and gentler times, I don't know if this price is worth it even in my country, let alone in others! I do know I want my future children to have the same experience I did. 

Can you talk a bit about why you decided to go to university in the US? Can you talk too about the application process—how did you decide where to apply and why you chose the school you did?

Both my older siblings went to U.S. universities, my sister to Yale and my brother to Columbia. I was headed to university in Singapore till I sat in on a few lectures in a local university and realized I wanted a liberal arts education instead. Singapore universities are similar to U.K universities; you have to choose a course of study and you don't have much freedom beyond that.

So in my second year in the army, I took my SATs Is and IIs and started applying to universities. It wasn't easy. I remember writing application essays in a tank at night under a flashlight and taking practice SAT exams in my bunk after coming back from several days in the jungle. Once while disciplining a soldier, I accidentally used several words I'd just learnt from my SAT vocabulary books, which led to some confusion...  

I knew I wanted an undergraduate business education plus the freedom to take liberal arts courses, so that helped narrow down the schools I applied to. I applied to NYU, Georgetown, Michigan, Northwestern and UVA. In an odd twist in fate, my sister forgot to mail in my application package to Michigan till months after the due date, so I received a letter from Michigan telling me they liked me but had to waitlist me. Ever the underperformer in all things academic, I was rejected by every other school except UVA! With only one option on the table, it was an easy choice to make.

Can you talk about your university experience? Was the transition harder or easier than you thought it would be? 

Coming to university after an almost 3 year hiatus was harder than expected. I found myself the "grown up" foreign 21 year old "army man" among 18 year olds who were eager to party. To say that I stuck out would be an understatement. In one bizarre instance, my dorm set up a wrestling ring and I ended up being the undefeated dorm champion. One former state wrestling champion challenged me to a match but I wisely declined, saying I had to studying for a test. So I somehow got the bizarre reputation as a pugilist in my dorm that persists to this day… Overall given how strange I must have seemed, I’m very lucky the UVA community accepted me with open arms!

Academically, the freedom to choose your own coursework was a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately my brain had fossilized after the army and it took time for it to adjust. I do think that being older and having been deprived anything academic for three years ultimately motivated me to do well in school. 

Can you talk about what you chose to study and why? Did you find mentors who helped you in and out of class?

As long as I can remember, I've had an interest in business and investing. Growing up, I'd listen to both my parents chat about work and chime in on occasion. I also remember picking up a book about value investing in my teens and thinking it made a lot of sense. So it seemed natural to study business, and the UVA McIntire School of Commerce was the logical step.

As an "older" student, I felt some self-inflicted pressure to finish school early. When another Singaporean student told me he planned to apply to the commerce school after his first year (versus the normal applicant who applies after his second year), I leapt at the chance.  Many professors made themselves available to be mentors. As helpful as they were, I think my fellow students helped me the most academically and with the job search.

What about your life away from classes? Who did you hang out with? Did you find yourself having mostly friends from Singapore or did you extend yourself out into the broader community? Do you think international students in general do enough to become culturally fluent In US culture?

I lived in UVA's new dorms during my first year, instead of the International Residence College (IRC). This was by no means planned. Had I known about the IRC and its facilities, I would have definitely applied to live there. It all worked out in the end though. I made great friends with my first year suitemates, who were all from the U.S. I even got to know their families well and spent Thanksgiving dinner with my roommate's family for 3 years. I also made great friends from my block in the commerce school. 

Through all this, I remained close with the Singapore students. I was lucky enough to enter the commerce school with a number of them, and we helped each other out with coursework and the job hunt. It probably helped that we were good students and other students (both Americans and other international students) wanted to join us. Sometimes, being a nerd helps! 

I’m sure being an older student helped me assimilate compared to other international students. By the time I came to college, I'd spent 3 years away from the comforts of home, so I never experienced homesickness. I also had life experiences under my belt few of my classmates had, so I was comfortable in my own skin. They often say you go to college to grow up. In my case I came to college grown up and had to lose some of that maturity to assimilate. I'm still not sure if I ever got that maturity back!

You had what I consider a pretty unique experience living on the top of mountain in a remote place in which yaks figured into your life. Can you describe this experience and why you chose to do this?

At the end of my first year just before I went to commerce school, I figured summer school would be a good way to accumulate credits so I could graduate college in 3 years. While looking at the online catalogue for summer school courses, I saw UVA was leading a study abroad research program in Tibet. I didn't know anything about Tibet, or UVA’s great Tibetan studies program, but figured it would be interesting. So I applied and was accepted.

By sheer accident, I ultimately ended up being an unofficial Teaching Assistant (TA) of sorts. The TA with us didn't speak the dialect of Tibetan people spoke in the area, whereas most Tibetans spoke Mandarin, which I'm at least partially fluent in. My time in the army probably helped me deal with the austere conditions too. For example, at points of the trip, we'd only get showers every week or so. Nothing prepared me for riding a wild Tibetan horse owned by nomads by a ravine though…

In retrospect, being a Singaporean probably gave me a unique advantage when it came to settling into both college life and Tibet. Singapore's always been a crossroads between the East and West. One commerce school professor labeled it “Asia-lite”, but one could just as easily label it “West-lite”. Unlike many international students, I didn't have the challenge of learning English in college, which was an immense advantage. A lot gets lost in translation if you're not fluent in English in college. You'll end up suffering not only academically but socially as well. I saw many international students at UVA who came to the U.S. with a somewhat weak command of the language, only made friends with students from their home country, and left with less than great grades. It made me wonder why they came to begin with.

How did you plan for what would happen after you graduated? Did you have to do much of your search yourself or did you use the use the services provided by your university and if so how helpful was this?

During my third year, I went up to the Dean of the Commerce School and asked for his advice. He listed out several options but kept repeating investment banking, specifically how one couldn't "go wrong" with such a career track. While attending an investment symposium, I heard an experienced investor talk about how investment banking was great training ground for an investor. Looking around, I saw everyone else apply for the same job, so I blindly joined the fray. I ended up securing an internship at Credit Suisse's investment banking division in New York, which set me off on my career in finance.  

My internship yielded a job offer. I was very lucky, since I graduated in the midst of the financial crisis in 2009 when few investment banks were hiring. Having a job offer in my pocket also gave me the luxury of coasting through my fourth year. I ended up spending most of my time creating a non-profit NGO consulting group called SEED, which I understand, still exists. 

Can you describe where you went after graduation and what you have done until last year? 

I worked for 2 years in Credit Suisse’s investment banking group in New York that serviced industrial companies. I worked on deals that helped industrial companies raise either equity (issuing stock) or debt capital (issuing bonds), and also mergers and acquisitions (one company buying another). Those years were tough. All investment banks across Wall Street had under-hired and didn’t foresee the snap back in demand for financial services as the market recovered. It was normal for an analyst to work 100+hrs a week. During my worst week, I worked 130+hrs. There would be nights where the only rest you got was a 1 hour nap below your desk and a quick shower in the gym. Needless to say, those years weren't the best in my life. Having said that, I gained a practical education in corporate finance, made life-long friends with my co-workers, and it gave me the opportunity to work in a hedge fund. I should also mention that I started my life in New York with a good number of UVA students, so in some ways, it felt like I never left college.

I'd always wanted to learn how to invest and thought investment banking would teach me how. The best analogy I can give you is corporate finance is like a language and investing is poetry. Investing banking teaches you the language, but not how to write and appreciate poetry. The only way to be a poet is to be under the tutelage of one. It's one of the few jobs out there where a one-on-one apprenticeship is necessary to learn the trade. 

After Credit Suisse, I worked for a hedge fund in Boston for 3 years. Though at times stressful, I enjoyed the job thoroughly. My boss was a great mentor to me and we formed a great team together. It’s an incredibly challenging job, but one I found exciting, intriguing and intellectually stimulating. More than anything else, it was the first job I could see myself in for a long time.

However during one visit back to Singapore, I realized how my family business needed me. It was a hard decision to turn my back on a great firm and the five years I’d spent building a career in finance for myself, but it was a decision I felt like I had to make. So I decided to return to Singapore.

Over the past year you have taken one of the most wide-ranging journeys I have seen (thank you for posting such great photos and videos). Can you outline how you came up with the idea to do what you did and then describe some of the highlights (and low lights if you care to do this too)?

I never had the luxury of a gap year before I started college (unless you consider the army a gap year) and had never traveled for a long duration. It seemed natural to travel during this transition period in my life, so I asked my family business for a year’s grace while I went off to travel.

I planned out the first two months of the trip as meticulously as I could. It turned out to be a bit of an exhausting whirlwind through Europe and into the Middle East. I spent the next two months in the Middle East, making up my schedule as I went along but following an overland route from Egypt into Israel and finally Jordan. The two months after that were spent in the Southern Africa sub-continent. By this point, I was truly backpacking. I didn’t have a flight out and was free to go anywhere I wanted. Needless to say, I was the most happy and stress free in the African leg of my trip. After a hiatus in New York and Singapore, I spent 2-3 months in Central America scuba diving. At one point, I spent almost 3 weeks on a scuba boat in the open ocean. Thank goodness I have decent sea legs, probably thanks to the voyage my great grandparents made from China to Singapore. 

It would take a book to write down all of the highlights of the trip. But here’s a stab: hiking on an Icelandic glacier, a hot air balloon ride in Cappadocia, Turkey, discovering freediving in Egypt, being in the water with two humpback whales in Mozambique, an encounter with a 4m long Tiger shark in Costa Rica, playing with a pod of wild dolphins in the Socorro islands and cave diving in the Yucatan peninsula.

I had a good number of lowlights as well. I won’t share all of them, but I was a first responder to a fatal car accident in South Africa. I didn’t have latex gloves on me and had an open wound. Thankfully I tested negative for HIV, which is lucky given 20% of the population in that part of South Africa is HIV positive. The silver lining, if any, from this as well as the other lowlights I had, is I walked away more confidant that I can handle whatever comes my way on the road.

How has this journey changed you?

It’s probably too soon to tell since I’m only beginning to adjust back into the “normal world”. I will say that I’m glad I went on the journey. It gave me a lot of time to think about my life thus far and wake up every day to a clean slate. It was likely the last point in my life where I could drop everything to chase rainbows and unicorns. 

I sat down to write down the things I learnt from this trip and almost ran out of pages. A lot of what I learnt is very personal. One lesson I’m happy to share is there’s always a way out of a bad situation. Whether it be a terrible job, a foul place you’re living in, a nasty roommate, there’s always a way out. Sometimes I feel like it’s too easy to be tied down to the status quo to the point of paralysis. Of course packing up and leaving is a lot easier when you’re a transient being living out of a backpack, but it can still be done no matter how much literal or figurative baggage you have.

Many people in the US and other places too have stereotypes about Singapore being a place that encourages hard work and commitment to education but sometimes at the cost of encouraging developing a creative risk-taking self. You undercut this stereotype about as well as anyone I know. What would you say to those who hold these stereotypes? 

There’s sadly some truth in the above-mentioned stereotype. It’s probably made worse by the sample set of Singaporeans you tend to meet in a good U.S. college. These are the Singaporeans who emerged successfully from our academic pressure cooker and are generally armed with a scholarship from the government that gives them a career in the civil service after graduation. The upside from this is our best and brightest enter the government as civil servants. The downside is this talent pool is steered away from the public sector.

It’s worth mentioning that there are a good number of Singaporeans who didn’t excel in the education system, waded into the world of business on their own and are incredibly successful today. My best friend from secondary school is one of these people. He was a B and C student who eschewed university to build a successful business. In a perfect world, our education system should be using him as a role model!

I also think that Singapore is becoming gradually progressive in this regard. There’s still a belief among parents that your kid should grow up to be a “doctor, lawyer, engineer or business person” (in that order), but that belief is slowly giving way to “let your kid be whatever he wants to be, you can’t control him or her”. 

 What are you doing now and what are your future plans?

I'm working for my family business as an operations manager and as the director of acquisitions. I plan to stay in the company indefinitely.

Given that you have always taken up challenges to go places around the world in ways few would, why do you think this effort to explore is such an important part of who you are?

Singapore is a tiny country in a big world. All Singaporeans travel, since there really isn't a whole lot to do at home. I'm lucky to have the resources to be able to travel more extensively than most.

I'm a nature lover, specifically one who loves interacting with it. Its little wonder I ended up scuba diving, freediving, hiking up mountains and surfing during my travels. Once in a while, Mother Nature and lady luck cooperate and let you experience something that makes you feel tiny and insignificant. You can get a glimpse of some of these experiences though a YouTube video, but living them is something else.

I also love how traveling, like life, can be unpredictable. In a way, traveling feels like life at its rawest and unfiltered. You have no idea what tomorrow brings and all you have is what’s in your backpack. For example, I was hitchhiking in Malawi and ended up being picked up by a Malawian member of parliament (MP). The MP gave me a glimpse of grass root politics, bringing me to a funeral and soccer game. I would never have seen that side of Malawi had I not stood at the side of the road with my thumb out! Of course there are the unpleasant moments too, but as long as you learn to get away from such situations, life is very fulfilling.

Do you have advice for people who might hesitant to take trips and be a part of challenges because it might interfere with a fairly clear life plan? 

All too often, we're gripped by fear of the unknown and don't dare to take the next step forward. When it comes to traveling, I know many Americans who refuse to travel because they see the world as a big bad place where danger lurks in every corner. If you stay huddled up in your comfort zone, you're never going to grow. Get out there and live a little. Make your own judgments versus listening to horror stories from friends of friends. Make mistakes, get swindled, get lost. It's easier to learn these lessons when you're young and not have much to lose.

I also have a somewhat eastern belief in fate. Sometimes life pushes you in a new direction you never anticipated. Rather than fight it tooth and nail, go with it and enjoy the grand adventure. I can't say there's a divine plan out there for everyone, but it does seem like everything happens for a reason, though it's up to us to decide what we want to do about it.

Did your parents ever worry (or perhaps they still do) about how adventurous you are?

My poor long suffering parents have been victims of my policy of finding out about most of my adventures after the fact. It's a great policy and one I highly recommend. The one time I violated this policy was when I was cave diving in Mexico. Before I set off every morning, I'd send a note to my mother wishing her good morning and telling her I loved her. This had an unanticipated effect on my mother. It turned out she started to pray for me daily and was incredibly relieved when I told her I was done cave diving!

Anything else you want to add?

I should add that my finance education from the McIntire School of Commerce came in very handy professionally. Training was a breeze in Credit Suisse and I was regarded as an analyst who understood the technical side of finance well, not because I was smart, but because I’d learnt everything from McIntire! Hedge fund interviews are notoriously hard, and mine was no different. The first round the interview I had with the hedge fund I ultimately joined involved working through 3 technical questions. It turns out I was the only candidate out of the 20-30 they interviewed who got all 3 right. My McIntire education saved me again!

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How do we determine a person’s character? I ask this question because it is something a lot of people say they want to know about when making decisions about applicants for schools or jobs. And yet all too often it is a GPA or a score or something quantifiable that can get recorded with data that will look good on some report.

Yix has demonstrated throughout his life that he wants to approach the world as a leader and as someone who does not fit the traditional mold. It helps that he has had a supportive family and a fine mind. He is also very modest. His ability to secure a banking job during the economic crash underscores that his performance at university far exceeds those of just about anyone. To do this as an international student (who have much tougher times securing jobs than US citizens) makes this accomplishment even more impressive.

I want to thank Yix for sharing his experiences and wisdom here. I also want to tell a story. When he returned from his journey to Tibet he brought me a work of art I still have today. He had very little space to bring things from Tibet to the States and yet he thought to share something beautiful with me. Yix has a heart that goes out to others. His founding of the SEED group shows he does this in ways that reach far beyond those he knows. At the same time, he also has chosen to return home to help his family business rather than continue along the path he had forged with a hedge fund. For him there are things that are far more important than money. Love of family, country and the natural world all exist within him. As a global citizen he embodies the qualities that we often don’t hear enough about and I am lucky I have been able to get to know him and learn from him. I hope anyone reading his words will feel as I do.