From Intermediary to Creator: A Singaporean's Reflection and Awakening

Author: eigen moomin

Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow

We are the descendants of those brave individuals who either fled due to war, sought refuge from famine, or simply gave up everything in pursuit of a better life, migrating to this island.

They established a well-functioning nation, a place that tamed chaos and provided us with an orderly life. Such a life allows us to live methodically, even without making any truly brave moves. Of course, you still need to work hard, but we also became the first completely “self-tamed” immigrant nation. We extinguished the ambition that once drove our ancestors, filled with hunger and dreams, to cross the ocean in pursuit of a better life.

This is a wealthy land, and it has been so for decades. Our people are hardworking, diligent, and well-educated. Our universities have almost reached world-class standards, and it will only get better in the future. We are fortunate to be the only country in the world with a rational government and an efficient bureaucratic system.

However, after half a century of unremitting efforts, transforming from a barren land into fertile soil, where are our “crops”? Where are our local companies that we can proudly point to? Where are our “Ericsson” or “Nokia”?

Our self-designation has changed with the passage of time. From the initial “entrepôt,” a trade hub connecting the wealth of China and India, to a “manufacturing base” where we sculpt silicon wafers and refine oil. Today, we have taken off our factory uniforms and put on suits and lab coats, upgrading from a “base” to a “hub”—a hub of finance, biotechnology, and a plethora of buzzwords that The Economist loves.

Despite the changing times, the core relationship between Singaporeans and work has remained unchanged. We are still the world's best “compradors.” As a service-oriented economy, we train young people to serve banks, funds, laboratories, and factories. From the past acting as intermediaries for Western companies, unlocking the wealth of the East, to now packaging the image of Eastern companies, integrating into a world still dominated by the West. The old “boss” has passed away, and the new “boss” has taken over; he may look like us, but we are still just his workers.

As for those local “bosses”: who is truly worthy of respect? Every so-called “success story” ultimately boils down to a form of rent-seeking behavior.

Here, you can earn a lot of money by providing very little value. Find new policy directions that the government is keen on, start a consulting firm, and promise to deliver on these buzzwords. Apply for government grants without doing any substantial work, just give dazzling speeches and hold “seminars.” Or, if you're not good at talking endlessly, source OEM products from China, slap your own brand on them, and sell them at double the price as a “local entrepreneur.” As for real estate tycoons, modern history has long given the correct judgment on those who made their fortune from land.

Our smartest talents never create - they are too smart to know that this path is too risky! We Singaporeans are smart enough to understand that the safest way to earn investment returns is to observe what others are doing and then do it better. We excel at mathematics and intuitively know that the risk-return ratio of entrepreneurship is far lower than that of being an investment banker, consultant, lawyer, doctor, or software engineer, and the latter have a higher Sharpe Ratio - look at this study, 90% of startups ultimately fail!

And when that sense of emptiness, of being “a country without a proud corporate fortress,” comes upon us, we write articles, produce well-crafted CNA documentaries, explaining why we cannot innovate. This way, we can comfortably take no action, because at least we have “professionally” diagnosed our own problems.

Of course, the issue is culture. It has always been about culture. I could cite the names of thousands of economists and commentators, reference hundreds of minds smarter than mine, but ultimately it all boils down to that simple word: culture.

Smart person

Our education system is ruthless and merciless, rewarding those who win time and again while excluding those who may fail at any moment. Those who commit the serious crime of messing up even once in an exam must pay the price and are forced to walk a long road in life in Singapore (of course, except for those wealthy enough to afford studying abroad).

When you finally enter university, you have already gone through two rounds of fiercely competitive exam trials, each claiming to provide you with the necessary skills and knowledge to survive in modern society. However, the most important lesson they teach you is: never be the one who gets eliminated.

In the face of such a system, the rational response is to do everything possible to climb upwards, to avoid being crushed by the “wood chipper” at the bottom. But when every exam score determines your future, who can bear to do poorly at anything? The opportunity cost of doing one more exam paper or spending an hour in tutoring class is that a side project cannot continue, a skill cannot be learned, and yet another door to a long and unknown future is closed. It artificially restricts the originally colorful life to the pursuit of academic excellence, with the ultimate goal of becoming a professional in a certain field, a field that requires excellent qualifications to reap rewards.

Maybe you are that 1% of people who have never faced hardships in school – you are truly lucky! You have enough leeway to discover what you really like and try some new things. Each cohort may have about 50 people like you. Half of them will enter government departments and start their careers in a glamorous way, never to see the light of day again. The other half will leave Singapore for the United States and never come back.

Fortunately, the rest of us are still smart and diligent enough, and our excellent education teaches us how to solve any problems in the world for our bosses. But without great leaders to guide the way, do we know what problems we want to solve?

Smart but tasteless people

For 18 years, you have been performing excellently, but once you reach university, the script suddenly changes. Studying to get an “A” and becoming a “jack of all trades” is no longer enough to be considered “excellent”. Now, you should “follow your passion” and “create something meaningful”.

Of course, there is no time to waste on cultivating passion or a sense of meaning. Time in college is shorter now. The courses are harder, people are smarter, and they are more motivated. So, you can only adapt to the new script and hurriedly learn how to perform on the new stage.

You signed up for the school's entrepreneurship program and personally practiced the entrepreneurial spirit. You learned all the popular vocabulary and all the skills needed for presentations. You posted exciting updates on LinkedIn, exaggerating every major achievement. You helped the school achieve key performance indicators (KPI), proving that the school is cultivating successful entrepreneurs, which is part of the government's push for entrepreneurship development. Once you complete the year-long internship in Silicon Valley (the mecca of entrepreneurship) funded by the school, a shiny badge will be added to your resume. Congratulations, you are now a school-certified entrepreneur.

Please note a little irony in Singapore: even the birth of entrepreneurs seems to be government-led. This is not a grassroots encouragement for those dreamers and eccentrics, but a carefully choreographed dance, where Type-A kids check off tasks according to a script sent across the ocean. Even those who perform well enough to barely imitate entrepreneurial behavior execute projects that are unimpressive. “Uber for hawker centers,” “Amazon designed for Singapore,” “yet another tutoring market platform,” “yet another property platform for HDB rentals.” Where is the ambition? Why do these ideas always stop here?

Give a Singaporean hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he will build a tutoring center. Localization, derivation, extracting value from existing problems instead of trying to solve any problems.

Smart, tasteful, and non-believers.

At some point, your taste will improve. Maybe a few years into your career, or perhaps during your college days, you will realize that you can uncover all the nonsense that exists around us.

The current problem is that you have all these brilliant ideas and observations, but they are trapped by layers of self-sabotage. You need absolute certainty to speak up, and even then, each idea comes pre-packaged with its corresponding rebuttal. You avoid conversations that might be questioned; unless you are completely sure, you remain silent in meetings; in discussions where others might know more than you, you take a back seat. Nowadays, there is a general phenomenon in society of being ashamed to express opinions, making even simple expressions hard to avoid.

The primary consequence is that we ultimately miss countless opportunities to do interesting things. When you present yourself to the world, even if imperfectly, you allow others to shape your image, beliefs, and interests. When someone needs help with something or seeks advice, the first person they often think of is the one who exists in this world. If you don't write or express yourself, you exclude yourself and may even be undervalued. Our shyness leads us to minimize the aspects that draw attention, and this is precisely the small tragedy of communication that each of us experiences every day.

The deeper tragedy is that this is precisely the core reason we have always remained in the role of intermediaries. Not only because our greatest dream is to work for foreign companies or execute the ideas of others, but also because we do not believe that our own ideas are worthy of unconditional existence. We have been thoroughly trained to habitually retreat, hesitate, and avoid making mistakes, to the extent that we have lost the basic belief in our own observational skills.

I hope we can change this situation. I hope we can face our fears and mistakes calmly and boldly proclaim our beliefs. The ultimate goal is to give us the autonomy to act, to no longer serve as intermediaries, but to start taking control of our own destiny. But the autonomy to act first requires the autonomy of thought—firmly believing that when you see something, it is important to see it, and you will express it without any apology.

Without this fundamental belief, we will always be compradors. We understand everything, yet have no power to decide anything.

Smart, tasteful, and faithful, but without willpower.

I am deeply afraid of becoming someone who can only survive within the Singapore system, afraid that I will be overly specialized to the point of thriving only in this environment, while destined to wither away elsewhere. I believe I am smart enough to do what I want to do; I also have taste, able to discern what is important; I even have enough confidence in my observational skills to dare to write this perhaps overly embellished article for the world to read.

But do I have the will to take action? How much time have I spent thinking about these issues, having endless lunches and coffees with friends, all agreeing that “certain things must be changed by certain people”?

I gradually realized: you cannot wait for others to change Singapore. Everything you enjoy now—even that behemoth regarded as a god, the government you curse in failure and pray to in need—exists because certain people dedicated their lives to building it. If you despise the status quo, either take action yourself or stop pretending that complaining will solve the problem.

Doing anything difficult requires sacrifice, especially when an alternative choice – the comfortable life in Singapore – would almost certainly make you happier. But I want to stop dreaming of the wonderful life that others long for and start dreaming of the hard life that I would enjoy experiencing. In such a life, I am no longer a Singaporean living a comfortable life, afraid to commit to anything, but rather someone who believes in their ability to create anything they can imagine and ultimately bring it to fruition.

For the first 22 years of my life, I followed a predetermined path: attending the right schools, harboring the right ambitions, and pursuing the right goals. In college, like everyone else, I spent every summer burning through internships at major tech companies, all in hopes of landing that coveted position that everyone dreams of. I had everything that every outstanding Singaporean dreams of: a high-paying job that allows you to live comfortably outside of work.

But I refused it and went to San Francisco to try my luck. I exchanged my last year of college—the carefree time spent partying and enjoying with friends—for weekends of working in a strange city. There, I was all alone, knowing very few people. I had a beloved partner, and I knew we would spend our lives together, but I chose to be separated from them by a vast ocean for the coming years.

I write these words not for performance, not to earn your admiration for the sacrifices I made in my “struggle”—braver people than I have given more for less reward. On the contrary, I write these words because I am proud of the only brave moment in my life: meeting that “comfortable Singaporean” on the road and then killing him.

Empty talk is useless, you have no reason to believe me. But when I return, I will create something worth trading ten years of my life for.