About Unwritten

I believe life is a collection of quiet moments; the ones we often rush past, yet remember the most. This is my space to pause, reflect, and write about the things that shape me: leaving one home to build another, learning to carry family love across borders, and finding beauty in everyday rituals. I write the way I live with curiosity, gratitude, and an openness to change. Welcome to my corner of the internet. I hope you find something here that makes you pause, too.

recent posts

about

  • Hey English

    I grew up in Singapore, where English is not foreign. It is foundational.

    It was the language of school, of exams, of presentations, of official forms, of essays graded in red ink. We were taught early that English was more than a subject. It was infrastructure. It connected Chinese, Malay, Indian communities at home, and connected us to the rest of the world outside it. Speak English well, and you could walk into almost any room on the planet and function. That was the promise. And for most of my life, it held true.

    Until Europe.

    Here, English still opens doors. It just doesn’t run the room.

    In professional spaces, it exists as the polite default. Everyone can use it. Everyone understands it. But the moment conversation becomes animated, layered, or emotionally charged, people return to their native languages the way birds return to thermals. Voices overlap. Jokes fly. Decisions crystallize in sentences I cannot follow. I’m connected but not included.

    It’s a strange dissonance. Back home, English was our common ground. It was how we built bridges across difference. Here, it is simply one bridge among many, and not always the one people choose to cross.

    The lesson is humbling.

    Because when you grow up fluent in a global language, you don’t notice how much power it quietly gives you. You assume participation is natural. You assume understanding is mutual. You assume your words land exactly as intended.

    Remove that advantage, and you discover how much of influence actually lives beneath language. In tone. In timing. In cultural shorthand. In shared history.

    Even at family gatherings on my husband’s side, German flows the way memory does. Effortless. Intimate. Full of references that existed long before I did. I can hear warmth, but not always meaning. I can feel belonging, but not always access.

    English didn’t fail me.

    It just revealed its jurisdiction.

    And maybe that’s the real shift. Singapore taught me English so I could speak to the world. Europe is teaching me that if I want the world to speak back fully, I’ll have to learn its languages too.

  • Still a guest here

    Week three in Paris is, unexpectedly, the hardest.

    Week one is adrenaline. Everything is charming because it is new. Even the confusion feels cinematic. I was wide-eyed, jet-lagged, waking up at 3 a.m., and puffed up with the belief that I could master this city with enough sightseeing and courage.

    Week two is performance. You start to believe you have found a rhythm. You know which metro exit leads closest to your office. You know exactly how many turns and traffic lights it takes to get home from the station, and the four-digit code plus five-digit code at each entrance of your building before you can finally reach the 1×1 sqm lift that carries you up. You order baguettes as une baguette, and without pointing. You think, maybe, you are getting the hang of this.

    Week three humbles you.

    Your French vocabulary stretches only as far as politeness. Bonjour opens doors but does not always carry you through conversations. You cannot help but feel bad when you see your colleagues struggling to find the right English words to explain things to you, meetings that start in English but drift into French later. You sometimes stand there smiling like a decorative plant while words fly past you. You nod and try to piece together meaning from gestures, and context clues like a detective.

    And then there is the morning RER platform.

    Every day, without fail, there is that smell. That unmistakable, nose-wrinkling, why-is-this-legal scent of stale urine rising from the corners of the station. It greets you before the train does. You try to ignore it. You fail. Not far from it, you catch sight of someone carrying everything he owns on his shoulders, without shoes, in two-degree cold, stepping out of the metro. It is a difficult sight to hold, and you wish you had a few euros on you to spare.

    Here, the contrast is sharp. Paris is breathtakingly beautiful and unapologetically messy at the same time. Ornate balconies above, dog poop on the pavement below.

    Week three is when the honeymoon phase ends and the real relationship with a city begins. This is when you stop seeing a postcard and start seeing a place. The charm remains, but it shares space with small daily negotiations with the question, Pourquoi es-tu ici?

    Adaptation is not a straight line. It is a series of tiny negotiations between who you were, where you came from, and where you are standing now. You carry your habits with you, your standards, your senses, your idea of normal. A new city does not erase them. It gently challenges them.

    So yes, week three is hard. Harder than week one. Harder than week two. Because it is the week illusions fall away and truth walks in.

    But it is also the week you begin to grow. You start smoothing the wrinkles. You notice the small wins. You hold on to moments of goodness and learn to steady your emotions.

    You’ve got this.

  • Day 5 in Paris

    I’m here now.
    In Paris.
    Not for a holiday but actually living here.

    Even writing that feels strange. Surreal, in the quiet way that only sinks in when you’re doing very normal things, like unpacking or waiting for a lift that may or may not fit two people. I’m here with my husband, Julian, and our pet rabbit, Xia. Yes, all three of us. A full household, relocated.

    Months ago, my relocation team reached out after reading my description of what I was hoping for. I spent some time carefully choosing an apartment from photos, trying to imagine a life inside rectangles on a screen. Eventually, I picked one in the 16th arrondissement. My friends told me it’s a bourgeois estate, the kind of neighbourhood you’re advised to “enjoy while it lasts.” I only have this apartment for two months, so I’m taking that advice seriously.

    It’s close to the Arc de Triomphe, which I still can’t pronounce properly in French, no matter how many times I hear it said around me. The building was built in the 1920s. To get in, you pass through at least two electronic security points via a courtyard before reaching the main entrance. Honestly, perfect for my Singaporean timidness. Layers of safety feel familiar. The lift is tiny. It could barely fit two people. Three would be a crime. We were greeted by an agent from Move In Paris when we arrived, clearly unimpressed that we showed up two hours late thanks to a cargo baggage delay.

    When we finally stepped into the apartment, the first thing that greeted us was the creaky wooden floor. Sixty-two square metres. Surprisingly spacious for two humans and one little rat (affectionate term). The space felt old and lived-in. From the living room window, we can see about one-third of the Eiffel Tower. Just enough. At night, when it lights up, it’s actually quite spectacular compared to the 7,000 metric tons of puddling iron you see in the day.

    It’s day five now. The fridge is nicely stocked with fresh groceries. I’m sitting on the floor typing this, having just finished a bowl of salad. The apartment already feels lived-in, even if some things are still unsettled. Every panel button on my induction stove is filled with the letter E. I have no idea what that means yet, and according to my agent, there’s no ETA on how long it will take to be fixed. Julian is already on day three of work, and I’m finally meeting my team tomorrow.

    We still haven’t gotten our French phone numbers, and some parcels have gone missing. It’s a bumpy start, but we’re hopeful things will eventually get better. Overthinking on good thoughts only. The universe will balance out the energy. Stay true.

  • 02:57 am

    How did it ever occur to anyone that time seems to move faster and faster each year? It is strange, especially when every year is still made up of the same number of days and hours. Nothing has changed on the calendar, yet everything feels more compressed.

    Maybe time itself is not speeding up. Maybe our lives are. The fuller our days become, the more we stack commitments on top of one another, the less space there is between moments. Weeks blur into months, months slip quietly into years, and suddenly we are asking where the time went.

    For the last four to five years, I have been deeply involved in the local volunteering and charity space. When people asked why, I often said it was a calling. And it was, in many ways. But over time, I also realised that part of me was filling a void. Filling extra time. Responding to an increasing awareness of the very real and pressing situations around us. Once you see certain realities, it is hard to look away.

    Doing life more purposefully, I am learning, is not always about adding meaning. Sometimes it is about choosing where to place it. Not every moment needs to be optimised. Not every capacity needs to be filled. Purpose can be quiet. It can be intentional.

    As I move into the next chapter of my life, I know I need to step back and recalibrate. To ask what I really want to achieve, who truly matters, and what deserves my energy. To silence the noise, both external and self imposed.

    Perhaps time only feels fast when we lose authorship over how we live. And maybe purpose is less about keeping up, and more about choosing, again and again, how we want our days to feel.

  • Hello 2026

    Julian and I just got back to Singapore from our two week year end holiday, where we spent Christmas with his family in Germany and Austria. There is something about being in cold weather during the holidays that slows everything down. Sitting by the fire oven, listening to dry firewood crackle, wrapped in a soft sweater, drinking something warm under dim lights, and picking up a book has quietly become one of my favourite ways to rest. The only thing missing was hotpot. Some things are simply too good to leave behind.

    Coming home took more out of us than expected. The long flights, jet lag, and sudden shift from minus ten to thirty degrees weighed on our bodies. I have been awake in the early hours and only falling asleep just before the sky starts to brighten. Starting 2026 with a body that still feels like it is stuck in 2025 was not part of the plan.

    And yet, being home helps. Eating familiar food, being around family, and hearing English all around felt like a quiet relief.

    This month is going to be a full one. Relocation arrangements, our Chinese wedding tea ceremony in two weeks, and the goodbyes that come with closing one chapter and opening another. It has been emotionally heavy at times, especially with a growing to do list that occasionally sits uncomfortably in my stomach. I am really looking forward to settling down and finding my way back into a routine.

    2025 has been an amazing year. Full, generous, and life changing in ways I am still unpacking. As 2026 begins, I am trying to stay grounded. Excited, yes, but also present. One step at a time feels like the right way forward.

  • Home is Where You Are

    It has always been a dream of mine to own a home of my own, and I know I am not alone in that desire. Ever since I started working and handling what people call adult money, this had been my goal.

    In Singapore, that dream can feel far-fetched. Housing prices are high, especially for individuals who are not forming a traditional nuclear family or who have exceeded the income ceiling. Still, in my late twenties, I was fortunate enough to earn enough to seriously consider owning a property on my own. I went for multiple condo viewings, imagining what my future home might look like, ready to settle into a life I had carefully planned.

    Then Julian came into my life, one of the best things that has ever happened to me. And with him, my plans shifted.

    That was when I realised it was not a property I was searching for, but a home.

    Buying a property can easily become an emotional investment if you do not fully weigh your financial options and the trade-offs involved. Our eyes are now set on a future home in Munich, where our children can grow up with space, nature, and the kind of outdoor lifestyle Julian experienced. It was something I missed growing up in a dense city.

    While our relocation to Paris may feel like a detour, or a step further away from that goal, we see it as part of the journey and an opportunity as we find our way forward.

    These days, it has become small talk between us whenever we spot a beautiful piece of furniture or a home appliance on discount. We imagine and smile. We are learning to practise a little more patience. And I cannot wait to see what we will build together.

  • On Life Lately

    Life has been so brutally administrative that I’ve started smelling papery or Eau de Photocopy if I’m pushing it. I feel like I have been filed, stamped, and processed all at once.

    First came the EU Blue Talent visa application, with over seventeen documents to be assembled by me, global HR, immigration lawyer and a handful of people who probably never expected to feature in my immigration journey. I was skeptical from the start, especially after doom scrolling Reddit threads declaring you will almost never get it right the first time and that French processing will take ages. And yet, my approval came within a day or two. Singapore efficiency really is a performance enhancing drug for administration (P.S. my application was processed in Singapore through the French Consulate).

    In hindsight, I think the trifecta helped: being Singaporean, holding a Singapore passport, and being hired directly by a French company. Plus my unspoken superpower, which is labeling every document, printing them in order, and submitting everything on the same day. I saw the processing officer’s appreciative/admiring eyes when she noticed the tabs. Her love language got to be act of service.

    I also renewed my passport recently and, of course, it was ready the same day. Spoiled? Yes. Grateful? Absolutely.

    Then came the question of relocating Xia, my five year old rabbit. I never imagined having to choose whether she should follow me to Paris. Rabbits are delicate, and one good scare can put them in danger, so I genuinely was not sure what was best for her. I even paid a pet medium to hear her thoughts lol. Long story short, the answer was yes, bring her, and so I began yet another round of admin.

    Julian has taken on most of the research, saving us what would easily have been thousands in pet relocation fees. From rabies vaccination to microchipping, I felt awful putting her through things she did not ask for, all for my selfish desire to keep her close. But Xia handled everything like a champ, A plus patient as always.

    Temporary housing was next. That was thankfully one of the quick wins, a nice place just twenty minutes from both our offices, sorted without too much drama.

    Now that the dust has settled, at least for this week, I can finally breathe a little. There is still more paperwork waiting for me in the coming weeks, because France will never run out, but getting through this round feels like crawling out from under a mountain of forms. Sitting down and writing my thoughts, marking this tiny victory for myself, feels like a small but necessary celebration. So I took Julian out for a quick errand, ending the day with an iced matcha latte and aapple pie crumble cheesecake. I can already feel the holiday vibe nearing.

  • First Pour

    Let’s be honest – nobody actually enjoys their first pour of beer. We all pretend, but that first sip? Pure betrayal. I had mine when I was around five. It was Chinese New Year, the kind where the whole family squeezed around the telly watching Hong Kong action comedies that were chaotic, nonsensical, and somehow perfect. Dad would sit there with his can of beer and a plateful of gua zii. He always looked so relaxed when he drank – lighter, warmer, like something in him softened.

    One year, when Mom wasn’t watching, he tipped the can toward me. I took a sip. It tasted so bad I couldn’t even pretend… like carbonated punishment. Compared to my Coke Original, I genuinely questioned why any sane adult would voluntarily consume that.

    Fast forward many years. Sometime after high school, beer came back into my life (socially and cheaply). It was the most affordable way to get that light buzz that makes the world feel less heavy. Back then, the point wasn’t flavour; it was escape in a bottle, ease disguised as a drink. I didn’t love beer, but I loved what it allowed my mind to forget, even briefly.

    But as the years went by, something shifted. I stopped drinking to forget and started drinking to enjoy. Bit by bit, sip by sip, I grew to appreciate beer – the way it can be smooth, or crisp, or creamy depending on where you are and who you’re with. I found pours I genuinely love: the rich velvet of Guinness, the nostalgic comfort of Taiwan Tsingtao, the easy sweetness of Blanc 1664. It became a companion to conversations, to travel, to quiet nights where I just want something familiar in my hand.

    Maybe that’s how it works. You survive enough of life, and your palate expands. The drink that once tasted like fizzy regret becomes something you choose because it brings you back to people, places, and moments that matter.

    so wherever you are, and with whatever you’re drinking

    cheers.

  • The Long Goodbye

    Unwritten by Jade

    Lately, I’ve been spending more time with my grandma. She’s 92 now; still sharp in spirit, but softer around the edges. These days, she’s mostly in her wheelchair, growing tired more easily, sleeping longer, and gently refusing when I ask if she wants to go out for a walk. So we stay in and I listen.

    Sometimes she talks about the past, about people and places that blur together now. Some stories start mid-sentence, some trail off. I don’t correct her. I just let her voice fill the room. There’s a tenderness in hearing fragments of her memories, even when they no longer line up neatly.

    Every now and then, I still sneak her out of the house for a short meal somewhere familiar. We’ll share porridge or noodles, and I’ll hold her hand as I wheel her slowly through the streets. Her grip feels smaller now, but it’s still steady, still warm. These little escapes feel like borrowed time, precious in their ordinariness.

    It feels a little morbid, to be thinking about how to say goodbye while she’s still here. But volunteering with terminally ill patients has changed the way I see time. It’s made me aware of how fragile presence can be, how quickly the everyday can become memory. I’ve seen what happens when people run out of chances to say what they mean. And maybe that’s why I want to start saying it now, while I still can.

    Goodbyes don’t always come suddenly. Sometimes they begin quietly, in afternoons like this when you start noticing what’s fading, when you realize love is no longer about fixing but about being.

    I don’t know when that moment will come. But I can choose how I spend the time that’s left: by listening, by sitting close, by loving her fully while she’s still here.

  • Work in Progress

    Unwritten by Jade

    People often tell me, “You’ve got your life together.”

    It’s meant as a compliment, the kind that lands between admiration and assumption. They see the calm, the achievements, the decisions that look intentional. They see the girl who plans ahead, who seems to always know what she’s doing.

    But the truth? I’m still figuring things out, like everyone else.

    I have a running to-do list that lives on my desk, most of it underlined in red marker, half-finished tasks staring back at me like quiet reminders that control is often just an illusion. Some days, crossing an item off feels like victory. Other days, the list itself feels heavier than it should.

    And if I’m honest, I know I’m doing better than most of my close circle. I have a job that both men and women often tell me they envy. I have the time and freedom to do the things I love, to travel, to write, to pour myself into work that feels meaningful. From the outside, it looks like I’ve won some kind of balance. But even within that, there are nights when the quiet gets too loud, when the weight of keeping it all together feels heavier than it looks.

    I overthink. I second-guess. I make plans and then question them five minutes later. Some days I wake up ready to take on the world; other days I’m just trying to get through the noise inside my head. There are mornings when I move through life with confidence, and nights when I quietly unravel behind closed doors.

    People see the version of me that’s composed but not the one that still battles self-doubt, or the fear of not being enough. They don’t see the late-night moments where I replay conversations, or the quiet anxiety of wanting to be strong for everyone and yet secretly needing a break.

    Having it “together” isn’t about perfection, it’s about persistence. About showing up even when your voice shakes, or when the red lines on your to-do list remind you how unfinished everything still feels. It’s about being both proud of the progress and patient with the process.

    So no, I don’t have it all together.

    But I have awareness. I have effort. I have heart.

    And maybe, for now, that’s enough.