Rob will be appearing on Primetime Morning on Channelnews Asia at 8.50am tomorrow, Thursday 19 Aug 2010.
If you have cable or are in Singapore, please switch on your telly if you can!
He will be talking about his 3 year, 30,000 mile solo bicycle expedition Cycling Home From Siberia on which he went through wild places such as Siberia, Papua New Guinea, Tibet, Afghanistan and Iran.
The second paperback edition of Rob's book Cycling Home From Siberia, which has received glowing reviews from the UK press, is now out and available from all major bookshops.
Showing posts with label Singapore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Singapore. Show all posts
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Monday, 9 August 2010
The Unedited Version....
A few people have expressed an interest in reading the unedited version of the piece "High Cost of High Life" which came out in My Paper last week, so here it is!
Life without a Blackberry
Do you miss anything from your previous life? seems to be the favourite question which people ask me since I left the corporate world about 2.5 years ago. The fast money, the exotic holidays, the nice apartment where we threw many lavish dinner parties? Or the turquoise corporate Amex card, the slight air of importance I felt whenever I shook hands with clients in glass-roofed buildings? How about the Blackberry handheld device which I had carried with me almost religiously (to the point that some days it even graced the loo), with the blinking red light indicating the arrival of an email and consequently, my immediate attention.
Sure, a part of me misses the high life. Some days, a little voice whispers to me that all the perks which I had left behind were what made life enjoyable, that without them I cannot have a good quality of life.
2.5 years later, however, I do honestly question what kind of quality that sort of life really offered. It seems impossible to erase from my memory the hundreds of late nights, of being “on call” at weekends and evenings, the inability to plan any social activities during the week, and missing many important celebrations. The image of me crying on the phone at 5am in the New York office with my then boyfriend who was cycling in Australia remains etched in my mind. I was constantly exhausted and high (on Coke Light) at the same time. I felt like I was incessantly catching up on sleep, or out partying to make up for my loss.
Recently I visited Singapore and saw some old school friends. Most of my school friends had been straight A students and had gone on to various high flying careers. One guy, who I had not seen for 13 years, commented that I was brave to have left my very well paid job in order to pursue an alternative career in the charity sector. He quickly added that he loved his luxuries too much, so he had no choice but to continue to work his ass off. Feeling slightly surprised by his candour, and not wanting to offend an old friend, I smiled and mumbled something non-consequential. Later that evening I did wonder though, were the luxuries what he was actually living for?
A few months back I read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Don Miller who is a brilliantly thought-provoking writer. In his foreword, he described how nobody would want to watch a movie about a guy who worked very hard his whole life in order to buy a sports car in the end. None of us would be very inspired by such a plotline, but the sad fact is, so many of us do live spend our whole lives living a story just like that.
The transition has not been an easy ride – having to deal with head-on many deeply personal issues like my identity, insecurities and my attitudes towards money. However, even with all the struggles I have had to face in my new life, I’m not sure I really miss anything from the old one.
And I now read the red blinking light of a Blackberry as Beware, Danger – I am here to take over your life!
Christine Liu Lilwall grew up in Hong Kong and Singapore, and is married to adventurer and author Rob Lilwall. She worked in the City of London as a corporate lawyer until November 2007 and has since worked for several NGOs in international development and human rights. She has just finished volunteering on a project that works with former street children in Cebu, the Philippines, and regularly writes about her experience on her blog www.lifewithoutablackberry.com.
Life without a Blackberry
Do you miss anything from your previous life? seems to be the favourite question which people ask me since I left the corporate world about 2.5 years ago. The fast money, the exotic holidays, the nice apartment where we threw many lavish dinner parties? Or the turquoise corporate Amex card, the slight air of importance I felt whenever I shook hands with clients in glass-roofed buildings? How about the Blackberry handheld device which I had carried with me almost religiously (to the point that some days it even graced the loo), with the blinking red light indicating the arrival of an email and consequently, my immediate attention.
Sure, a part of me misses the high life. Some days, a little voice whispers to me that all the perks which I had left behind were what made life enjoyable, that without them I cannot have a good quality of life.
2.5 years later, however, I do honestly question what kind of quality that sort of life really offered. It seems impossible to erase from my memory the hundreds of late nights, of being “on call” at weekends and evenings, the inability to plan any social activities during the week, and missing many important celebrations. The image of me crying on the phone at 5am in the New York office with my then boyfriend who was cycling in Australia remains etched in my mind. I was constantly exhausted and high (on Coke Light) at the same time. I felt like I was incessantly catching up on sleep, or out partying to make up for my loss.
Recently I visited Singapore and saw some old school friends. Most of my school friends had been straight A students and had gone on to various high flying careers. One guy, who I had not seen for 13 years, commented that I was brave to have left my very well paid job in order to pursue an alternative career in the charity sector. He quickly added that he loved his luxuries too much, so he had no choice but to continue to work his ass off. Feeling slightly surprised by his candour, and not wanting to offend an old friend, I smiled and mumbled something non-consequential. Later that evening I did wonder though, were the luxuries what he was actually living for?
A few months back I read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Don Miller who is a brilliantly thought-provoking writer. In his foreword, he described how nobody would want to watch a movie about a guy who worked very hard his whole life in order to buy a sports car in the end. None of us would be very inspired by such a plotline, but the sad fact is, so many of us do live spend our whole lives living a story just like that.
The transition has not been an easy ride – having to deal with head-on many deeply personal issues like my identity, insecurities and my attitudes towards money. However, even with all the struggles I have had to face in my new life, I’m not sure I really miss anything from the old one.
And I now read the red blinking light of a Blackberry as Beware, Danger – I am here to take over your life!
Christine Liu Lilwall grew up in Hong Kong and Singapore, and is married to adventurer and author Rob Lilwall. She worked in the City of London as a corporate lawyer until November 2007 and has since worked for several NGOs in international development and human rights. She has just finished volunteering on a project that works with former street children in Cebu, the Philippines, and regularly writes about her experience on her blog www.lifewithoutablackberry.com.
Monday, 4 February 2008
Singapore: Slings and Arrows
Last month I flew to Singapore for a 2-week visit and met up with old friends and relations. I have always had a love-hate relationship with this place, and with each visit my feelings grew even more complicated.Love, because Singapore is clean, tidy, relaxed and, most notably, nicely hot. The people (I used to find anyway) seem a lot more down-to-earth than their fellow counterparts in, say, Hong Kong. I felt I could let my hair down completely, wear any random top, bottoms and flip-flops I could find and wouldn't feel embarrassed or inappropriately dressed going to most places. Because I spent 6.5 of my growing years there, I have many good bosom friends from high school days. From memory our concerns were to do well in the O and A levels and know nice boys (in that order), and we didn't seem too fussed about money, fame or even beauty. It's great making friends in that context as friends such as these seem to remain forever as pure and innocent as before, no matter what time has done to us 10 years on.
Hate. Well, hate is probably too strong a word. Reservations, maybe. The usual complaints aside (e.g. the apparent homogeneity of things, the paternalistic governing, the lack of freedom, the extreme competitiveness), I always wished for in the people I met more spontaneity, more outside-the-box kind of thinking and more daring attitudes. I can't say I'm not generalising somewhat. I remember being 17 (i.e. rather naive and idealistic) and dying to express my views on certain rather politically sensitive topics in our General Paper class, and while our teacher seemed slightly pleased to see the potential of a good debate, no classmate of mine raised their hands to say anything in response. Perhaps it was a topic no one was really interested in, but on hindsight I think it was probably either apolitical indifference or some sort of subtle fear that dictated the silence of my class.
I'm not saying Singaporeans can't think for themselves, but certainly I'm not sure if they are really encouraged to, in spite of all those creative writing and thinking lessons they are made to take. Can one create creativity? It seems like most of the time the people don't feel completely free to express themselves. The inability to be free with one's thoughts, I think, curbs creativity and stifles spontaneity, and in turn further perpetuates the bubble of apparent success and security.
A good friend asked me over drinks one evening whether I thought Singaporeans were shallow. I asked her what she meant by shallow. She said: "obsessed with the materialistic, with little culture or history." This time in Singapore I did notice the increasing affluence, how everyone seemed to be all out shopping all the time, and I could hear a lot more talk about huge killings made in the property market, higher wages and bigger spending power, and was even told that government-supported scientific research institutes remunerate their staff based on their profit-making performance (instead of research ability or results). I felt sad seeing Singapore turning into another money-obsessed city, not least because I now felt less relaxed about how I dressed/looked on the street, but my response to my friend was - isn't the whole world going that way too? As for culture and history, given Singapore only has 42 years of history since its independence, can one expect much of a culture at this point? And just when we were discussing this point, a Singaporen version of the song Pretty Woman was blasting in the cafe. That's culture, no?
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