Search
GLOBAL NOMADS
WHAT INSIGHTS CAN BE GLEANED FROM THOSE WHO LIVE AND WORK FAR FROM HOME? DENIS GRAY INTERVIEWS SIX HAVE-TALENT-WILL-TRAVEL MIGRANTS LIVING ACROSS SOUTH-EAST ASIA TO FIND OUT.
WATERCOLOURS BY CHANTEL DE SOUSA FOR ILLUSTRATIONROOM.COM.AU
THEY MAY MISS THE WARMTH OF extended Asian families, or the cutting-edge buzz of New York and London, but the region’s “global nomads” – young professionals in motion – wouldn’t trade their new lives and locations for anything they left behind at home.
Would you? If you were suddenly transplanted to pamper guests at a boutique resort on Koh Samui, track down a news story in the throbbing streets of Phnom Penh, fuse Singapore’s multicultural colour into graphic design (after having fled the grey skies of England) or sample Hong Kong’s heavenly food – and get paid for it?
This new breed of world citizen shares some common traits: most catch the travel bug early in life and tend to be adaptable, eager for challenges and ready for risks in their quest for globalisation’s bennies. But they invariably navigate to their adopted homes by very divergent routes.
- Steve Lawler, born in Tehran, is happily established as a graphic artist at advertising giant Ogilvy and Mather in Singapore, having arrived via family and career moves to Hong Kong, England and Italy.
Born and raised in Singapore by British-Singapore Chinese parents, Claire Bostock-Huang studied economics in London then went back home into banking. But the family genes soon kicked in (her father wrote a book titled Incurable Wanderlust) and she moved to Bangkok, then Samui in pursuit of a radically different career.
In order to trace Charlotte Lancaster’s life-path, some geography lessons might come in handy: birth in Qatar; family relocations to Iraq, Sudan and West Sumatra; education in Singapore and Scotland; and after several half-way stops, a landing two years ago in Phnom Penh, to work as a journalist.
“We’re all Type A kind of people with similar goals and a predilection for adventures,” says Angie Wong, who, on a bet and a whim, packed two suitcases and booked a flight out of her native New York for Asia.
Five years later she has managed to combine her three passions – food, travel and journalism – as an editor and writer for Time Out Hong Kong and the city’s Zagat restaurant guide. Her fortnightly column “Under The Table” takes a tongue-in-cheek look inside Hong Kong’s restaurant belly, and on any given day she may hop on a plane to indulge in other Asian cuisines and write about the cultures that produce them (she does confess to missing “a good slice of New York pizza” and the city’s pizazz).
“It’s a wonderful, charmed way to live. Everything is happening in and to Asia right now. It’s great to spend your prime career years here,” says the 32-year-old American, while admitting there are “some cons, like lack of roots, grounding, stability and habit.”
“Honestly, I think I would have been a much more content person if I’d never left the five-mile radius of where I grew up. Life wouldn’t be as complicated, and your mind wouldn’t have as many questions,” she says. “But a life living out of a suitcase picks you, not the other way around.”
Not for Thin Lei Win, who might well have stayed in her birthplace – Yangon, Burma – if the government had not closed universities following civil disturbances and she was impelled at the age of 20 to study abroad. But growing up in a well-to-do, internationally minded family, travel was on her horizon since childhood as she listened to her grandfather spin tales of journeys he continued to take into his 70s.
Like the others, she sometimes wonders what life would be like today if she had remained at home, and the answers are similar: marriage; children; professional routine; a certain constriction; friends often set in their ways of thinking and who don’t quite fathom a globe-trotting existence. Thin Lei Win’s course veered in a totally opposite direction.
RICHARD NEO’S LUANG PRABANG
Neo was born in Singapore and now resides in Luang Prabang
Favourite Restaurant: I may be prejudiced, but L’Elephant Blanc in my hotel [Maison Souvannaphoum] is great, though so are some of the local places with no names.
Favourite Bar: Dao Fa, a cold Tiger beer or vodka while listening with locals to the latest dance hits from the charts. Across the street from the Southern Bus Terminal
Best Shopping Tip: Good buys at the Night Market – hilltribe and Lao handicrafts and flne silks.
Best Cultural Experience: The local dances and religious ceremonies with their blend of Buddhism and animism.
Perfect Day: Lazing by the mighty Mekong River or taking a cruise upstream to visit the Pak Ou caves, and in the summer, cooling off under the waters of the Kuang Si falls.
- “I have lived in four different countries in the last 11 years, and every time I had to start things from scratch. Well, not like penniless, but you know what I mean. It has given me an ability to adapt in pretty much a lot of circumstances,” she says. Today, the attractive 32-year-old works out of Bangkok for the Thompson Reuters AlertNet service. Recent stories have included unexploded wartime bombs in Laos and forecasting weather through local lore in Vietnam.
After a privileged youth in Rangoon, she studied business management and then corporate communications in Singapore, while freelancing for assorted publications and MTV. She then earned a master’s degree in multi-media in England. “I learned to cook there. All my life I had been slightly spoiled.” Back in Singapore, she met her British husband in an elevator and followed the advertising executive to Ho Chi Minh City for a productive three-year stay before the Reuters job came up in Thailand.
“Singapore was perfect – too clean and too perfect. Singapore is an easy place to adapt to – people speak English, everything works, they are so efficient, there are few misunderstandings,” she says. “Vietnam was just the opposite – total chaos, people friendly but more in your face and less apt to follow the rules. We wanted some grit, and got it.”
ANGIE WONG’S HONG KONG
Wong was born in New York and now resides in Hong Kong
Favourite Restaurant: Sie Jie Sichuan for great death-by-chilli dishes from Sichuan. Kowa Building, 2nd floor, 285-291 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai
Favourite Bar: Wooloomooloo has incredible views of the city, harbour and Happy Valley racetrack in a low-key spot. 256 Hennessy Road, Wan Chai
Best Shopping: Retro Stone (1/F, 504 Lockhart Road, Causeway Bay), a vintage, second-hand T-shirt shop, or Horizon Plaza (2 Lee Wing Street, Ap Lei Chau).
Best Relaxation: Watching the birds frolic and clearing my head with a walk through The Aviary at Hong Kong Park.
Perfect Day: Begins with a traditional Cantonese breakfast of dim sum and congee with ying-yang tea (half tea, half coffee).
- So did Richard Neo, who echoes that “everything works” in his native Singapore, and he misses that – but not enough to exchange it for what he’s experienced the past decade, which has even featured a spell in, yes, Shangri-La.
“I would never have been able to understand what life is like outside my comfort zone and the threshold I can take,” says Neo, who recently extended his term as manager of Luang Prabang’s colonial style Maison Souvannaphoum Hotel for another year, savouring the un-Singaporean pace and fairy tale charm of the one-time royal capital of Laos. “It’s a great time to be here, before it gets too well known and commercialised,” he says.
Neo prepared for the hotelier’s peripatetic life with an education that included Cornell University in the United States. Hired by the Banyan Tree hotel group in 1998, he was dispatched to Indonesia and then to open the Banyan Tree Ringha – in the mountain-ringed Chinese town in Yunnan province that has officially been renamed Shangri-La, after James Hilton’s escapist novel.
“I’ve lived out of a suitcase for so many years that it’s second nature. I like to adapt to the environment rather than having the environment adapt to me,” says Neo, who has picked up more than half a dozen languages along the way. “Working overseas is really like being thrown in the far end of the pool, confronting cultures in which you never can predict what can happen.”
CHARLOTTE LANCASTER’S PHNOM PENH
Lancaster, a Brit, was born in Qatar and now resides in Cambodia’s Capital
Favourite Restaurant: Restaurant Khmer BBQ for the all-youcan eat local barbecue. Cnr of Street 86 and Monivong Avenue
Favourite Bar: Drunken Frog – with 8,000 songs on iTunes and the city’s friendliest barman, this popular watering hole stays open until the last patron collapses. No. 20, Street 93, Boeng Kak Lake
Best Shopping Tip: The Lunch Box, an eclectic mix of casual, funky, practical clothes suited for tropical heat, sold on the premises of a tasty sandwich shop. Sales Friday through Sunday (No. 14, Street 282). For high-end clothing, Ambre is tops (37, Street 178).
Best Relaxation: Sundowners at the rooftop jacuzzi in The Quay hotel. No. 277, Sisowath Quay
Perfect Day: Breakfast on the terrace at Zorro’s, a family run Tex-Mex restaurant (No. 78b, Street 93), followed by go-karting with friends at Kambol Kart Raceway (Highway 4, Kambol Village), a flne Italian dinner at Pop Café (371 Sisowath Quay), then a movie at Phnom Penh’s latest cinema Flicks (39B, Street 95).
- Some nomads, like journalist Lancaster, find themselves seen as having “gone native” when they revisit their homelands. “My friends mock me for not really being ‘English’. People couldn’t decipher my accent and were confused by the Singlish-fused Australian, American, British intonations. My points of cultural reference are virtually non-existent,” says the 28-year-old, who has studied Arabic, worked at a Palestinian refugee camp and windsurfed on the Nile.
“My life is very much driven by the need to experience new things and be on the move. It stimulates and energises me,” says Lancaster whose gamut of writing spans Phnom Penh’s nightlife scene to human trafficking. “My roots are my family, not a country or a city.
I don’t need to be in the UK to feel at home.”
Still shivering from memories of school in northern England, graphic designer Lawler nonetheless regrets not enjoying “the closeness of my friends who have been through thick and thin together” and missing family milestones. “I find it harder to stay in touch the longer I am away, as there are less things to discuss and shared experiences are fewer and farther between,” he says.
But after six years of residence, Lawler has no plans to leave Singapore – which is, from his perspective, hardly a clinically sober city, but rather one laced with excitement and an ethnic diversity, topped off with a tropical atmosphere.
“It’s very easy to see the influence Asia has had on my art, and more and more I infuse it into my work,” says the ad man. “I’m even inspired by the typography and graphics which bombard you as you walk through the Little India district where I live.”
STEVE LAWLER’S SINGAPORE
A Brit, Lawler was born in Iran and now resides in Singapore
Favourite Restaurant: Lavender Food Centre for great hawker food and a down-to-earth local atmosphere. Near Jalan Besar and Lavender Street
Favourite Bars: For informal alternatives to posh places in the business district, I opt for Night & Day Bar (Selegie Road), Blu Jaz (Haji Lane) and The Shack (Sentosa).
Best Shopping: Mustafa’s 24-hour supermarket in Little India has got to be one of the world’s craziest – and most claustrophobic – shopping experiences. Great cheap shirts and shorts at the military surplus shops at Golden Mile Hawker Centre (Beach Road). Designer laptop bags and artwork at Loft (16A Haji Lane).
Best Relaxation: Walking through the Botanic Gardens, or the sculpture garden at the amazing Haw Par Villa (262 Pasir Panjang Road).
Perfect Day: Breakfast at Café Hacienda (13 Dempsey Road), then down Orchard Road to Little India for a stroll, shopping at Arab Street and Haji Lane or Sim Lim Square (if I need electronics). Lunch of dumplings in Chinatown or curry in Little India and dinner at the lush restaurant called One Rochester (No. 1 Rochester Park).
- Bostock-Huang finds inspiration on Thailand’s Samui, teaching hot yoga (“Some people don’t get it. They say the island is already hot enough,” she quips) and creating from the ground-up Absolute Sanctuary, a spa resort which opened last year and where she shoulders a spectrum of management duties.
There are problems in paradise – a language barrier, blackouts and crazy island driving, silly guest complaints and some staff that take Thai easy-goingness a bit too far. And occasional pangs of nostalgia for big Asian-style family get-togethers at home. But the 34-year-old executive says her decision to break out of the Singapore cocoon has made her “more wiser, street-smart, patient, tolerant and appreciative of the comfort and security of home.”
Initially she followed “the family trend” and went into banking, but aft er five years hit burnout and turned to yoga to relieve the stress and loss of self-confidence. Acquiring a master’s in counselling psychology, she combined yoga with her counselling practice, even taking it to mental hospitals. Then, an opportunity came to follow her husband to Thailand, and she grabbed it.
“Following my heart has opened the doors to do what I want to do. Right now, I am letting things take their course,” she says.
But vague plans are forming. Next stop in the global nomadic life: maybe Australia.
THIN LEI WIN’S BANGKOK
Born in Burma, Lei Win currently resides in Bangkok
Favourite Restaurant: Family-run chicken rice food stall just off Soi Ton Son where I live.
Favourite Bar: Vertigo for a spectacular view of Bangkok (61st floor, Banyan Tree Hotel, South Sathorn Road).
Best Shopping Tip: Chatuchak Weekend Market, the mother of all markets and great Asian atmosphere into the bargain (Suan Chatuchak underground station).
Best Relaxation and Cultural
Experience: Lumpini Park – aerobics, tai chi, meditation, a cultural mélange in a green world (Off Rama IV Road, Central Business District).
Perfect Day: Taking the walkway to the Siam Paragon shopping centre (Rama I Road) to spend loads of money at the Kinokuniya book store. Lunch of simple Thai food across the road at Siam Square. An afternoon of reading before cooking an evening meal for friends.
CLAIRE BOSTOCK-HUANG’S KOH SAMUI
Born in Singapore to an English father and Chinese mother, she lives on Samui
Favourite Restaurant: Oceans 11 Eleven (“Samui’s best kept secret”), and anything cooked by our resort chef (especially the seaweed salad and Cheong Mon burrito). 23 Moo 4, Bophut
Favourite Bar: Padma Deck at Karma Resort, set over the rocks, is a lovely, quiet spot for a drink. 80/32 Moo 5, Bophut
Best Shopping Tip: Siddhartha Exotic Fashion Boutique is the place for outflts I can wear for yoga or casual outings, in bright fun colours. South Chaweng
Perfect Day: Yoga in the mornings, walks along the beach, watching the sun rise and set over the sea.
Bookmark This Post
