In early April 2022, I arrived in Singapore with expectations for the future. Three years and four months later, unexpectedly, we ultimately had to choose to leave this small country. Carrying the memories of life, work, and family from these years, we embarked on a new journey.
Life
During these three years, we have always lived in Holland Village, in the same house, never moving because the surroundings were incredibly convenient.
First, transportation was extremely convenient. There was a taxi pickup point downstairs, a bus stop across the street, several other bus stops nearby, and a metro station within a few minutes' walk. Whether for work, shopping, or weekend trips, commuting was very easy.
Secondly, shopping and dining were also very convenient. There was a Shopping Center across the street, with a Cold Storage supermarket downstairs and clothing stores, gift shops, hardware stores, photo studios, and hair salons upstairs. Another supermarket, FairPrice, was in the basement of the building to the right of the street, which we frequented most. The first floor had bakeries and cafes, with restaurants, banks, gyms, and clinics upstairs. The surrounding hawker centers, restaurants, and bar streets were diverse, and the One Holland Village mall had another Cold Storage, along with numerous restaurants, cafes, beverage shops, cake shops, and gift shops that could meet various daily needs.
There were numerous banks nearby, including DBS, HSBC, OCBC, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, making financial services very convenient. There were also many clinics in the community, allowing for immediate healthcare for daily health issues, making life both convenient and reassuring. There were many children's play facilities around, and over these years, our children had almost played in all of them. There was also a community library downstairs where children often borrowed books to read at home, always finding fun and quiet moments during weekends or leisure time.
Singapore's public facilities were also very human-friendly. Singapore's laws and building regulations require public buildings, housing estates, shopping malls, and metro stations to be equipped with barrier-free passages, convenient for wheelchairs, baby strollers, and shopping carts. Therefore, almost all pedestrian walkways, metro exits, and mall entrances have elevators and cart slides, allowing smooth passage with baby strollers, shopping carts, or heavy luggage without worrying about being blocked by stairs. Additionally, many communities, pedestrian walkways, and bus stops have connected overhead walkways that shield from the tropical sun and allow comfortable walking during heavy rain. The entire environment is clean and safe, making one feel secure even when returning home alone at night.
Singapore also has many parks, with almost every park equipped with playgrounds or water parks suitable for children. We often visited different playgrounds and water parks, which were almost always free.
In my view, most importantly, the environment here is especially child-friendly. Safe streets, rich play facilities, dense green spaces, and community activities allow children to play and explore the world freely; libraries and interest courses are everywhere, making children's growth both safe and fun. It can be said that from community to public facilities, Singapore has truly created a "children's paradise".
Corresponding to these conveniences and comforts is a relatively high cost of living.
During the first year in Singapore, we would habitually convert every expense to RMB and compare it with domestic consumption. In comparison, we always felt reluctant to spend money. During that time, I would typically have lunch at the company, with an average cost of around 7 Singapore dollars. After gradually adapting, this average rose to over ten Singapore dollars, sometimes even reaching over 20.
Household expenses were similar. Initially, we often cooked at home, with weekly expenses around 150 Singapore dollars, totaling about 750 Singapore dollars per month. However, as we adapted to the new environment, we gradually relaxed, occasionally dining out, with weekly expenses ranging from 500 to 1000 Singapore dollars, spending at least 4-5000 Singapore dollars on dining per month.
Overall, our life in Singapore over these three years made us deeply feel the city's convenience, comfort, and safety. Convenient transportation, comprehensive public facilities, clean environment, and good security made daily life easy and reassuring. Rich educational resources, child-friendly public spaces, and community activities also allowed children to grow freely. However, convenience and comfort cannot cover all issues, and the high cost of living and certain deeper incompatibilities ultimately became the prelude to our departure.
Work
Compared to China, I quite liked the work environment here in Singapore, not referring to specific office facilities, but to the overall atmosphere and culture.
Wages are typically paid at the end of each month, with current month's salary credited in the same month, unlike many domestic companies that sometimes delay payment until mid-month.
Regarding holidays, many Singaporean companies typically offer 14-20 days of annual leave, plus public holidays, with total vacation days generally more than in China. Moreover, these holidays are rarely adjusted with weekends, truly allowing people to rest and arrange family life, making the balance between work and life more apparent.
As for overtime, Singapore's work culture generally emphasizes efficiency and results, rather than "sitting in the office for long hours". Overtime is usually only due to tight projects or task requirements, not cultural pressure. Most industries and companies do not have frequent overtime like some domestic enterprises, allowing employees to relatively freely arrange the rhythm of work and family.
Additionally, the workplace here is relatively stable, without the commonly discussed "35-year crisis" or "40-year crisis" in China. As long as capabilities and experience match job requirements, age is not a significant limitation, with career development depending more on individual abilities and performance, rather than age or unwritten rules. I was almost 37 when I came to Singapore, and this environment allowed me to confidently invest in work while balancing family life.
After arriving in Singapore, I experienced three jobs, each bringing different challenges and gains.
The first was at Bybit, participating in the ApeX project development, which was my first true immersion in an international team locally. The fast pace and high standards quickly helped me adapt to the work mode here and significantly improved my practical experience in the blockchain field.
Later, I moved to ORA (formerly HyperOracle), responsible for developing an on-chain ETF product. This job was fully remote, saving commute time and allowing me to spend more time with family. However, due to the boss and some core members being in North America, the reduced communication frequency due to time differences significantly slowed the project pace, making me realize the limitations of remote collaboration in pace control.
Finally, I started NamePump with friends, fully investing for over half a year, balancing product, technology, and operations while constantly addressing market uncertainties. However, Singapore's sudden Web3 industry policy tightening in June 2025 directly impacted our business, ultimately forcing us to cease operations.
However, for me, the biggest drawback was actually English. While I could handle basic communication in daily life, in work environments, especially during meetings and communicating with colleagues of different nationalities, English proficiency remained a clear limitation. This not only increased psychological work burden but also became a potential obstacle in competing for higher positions and larger projects. Additionally, with Singapore's job market highly concentrated in specific industries, if language and professional backgrounds do not completely match, career development space becomes somewhat limited.
The changes in the external environment further amplified this sense of uncertainty. In June 2025, Singapore suddenly tightened its regulation of the Web3 industry. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) introduced and immediately implemented the Digital Token Service Provider (DTSP) system: Any company or individual registered in Singapore and providing digital token services to local or overseas customers must be licensed, otherwise facing a fine of up to 250,000 Singapore dollars or even three years of imprisonment. More importantly, the license application conditions were extremely stringent - high paid-up capital, resident compliance manager, annual audit, and a comprehensive anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing system - significantly raising the industry's entry barriers and almost eliminating the previous flexible international operating model.
This sudden turn from "policy-friendly" to "high-pressure regulation" made the previously relatively stable professional environment uncertain in a short time. For me, the combination of language limitations and industry uncertainty ultimately became one of the key reasons we left Singapore.
Education
One important reason for initially choosing Singapore was to provide better education for our children. Singapore's education system is highly regarded globally, especially in the K12 stage, with outstanding academic performance and a bilingual policy that enables students to have strong capabilities in both English and their mother tongue. We originally hoped that our children could establish a solid academic foundation here while broadening their horizons in an open and diverse environment.
To be honest, there were also very personal reasons behind this decision. My wife has always valued learning and deeply understands the importance of educational opportunities. She hopes our children can have broader choices and perspectives. Therefore, she has always strived to provide the best education possible, ensuring they do not miss growth opportunities due to limitations.
In fact, our economic capacity is not particularly abundant. To allow our children to receive better education, we made many sacrifices in our daily life and bore significant economic pressure. However, we believe this is a worthwhile investment.
Over these past three years, we sent both children to relatively good international schools. Although our investment in their education was not low, we genuinely witnessed their growth - becoming more confident and independent academically, and displaying more curiosity and tolerance in life.
For instance, our young daughter was just over two years old when we arrived, barely understanding many things. Now, English has become her first language, expressing herself naturally and fluently, while her Chinese has almost disappeared. We bought her many English books, and she reads them faster than I read Chinese books. Her foundations in mathematics, science, and arts are solid, and she maintains high learning interest. She has also learned piano, violin, and swimming, expanding her interests.
Our older daughter was in first grade when we arrived, and the changes over these three years have been even more significant. For example, she could finish a thick English version of "Harry Potter" (about 760 pages) in three days, whereas I would probably take three months. This language ability and reading habit are something we could hardly imagine in our home country. Additionally, her skills in painting and swimming have long surpassed mine.
Watching our children grow step by step, we became more convinced that despite the stress and trade-offs, this educational experience in Singapore will be an important asset for their entire lives.
Leaving
The decision to leave Singapore was not a sudden impulse but the result of long-term and multi-dimensional considerations. Over the past three years, we lived, worked, and raised children here, experiencing its convenience, safety, and diversity, while also facing high living costs, career development limitations, and constantly changing industry policies.
Initially, we thought we would stay longer. The children adapted well in school, made many friends, and we gradually integrated into the rhythm. However, life is never just about comfort and preference; it also requires long-term sustainability. My language disadvantage made me feel a career ceiling, and industry policy changes added uncertainty to my original career plans. Meanwhile, the long-term pressure of education and living costs forced us to recalculate our future financial plan.
Ultimately, we realized that if we want our children to have a more secure educational path and create more space for ourselves in career and life, leaving might be a more rational choice. This is not a negation of Singapore; on the contrary, we still love its cleanliness, safety, and inclusiveness, and are grateful for the opportunities and experiences it provided. However, every life journey has its beginning and end, and perhaps our chapter here should come to a close.
Where to go after leaving was also a question we pondered for a long time. We hoped our children's education could be smoothly transitioned while reducing long-term economic pressure.
We considered returning to China, such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, or Foshan. However, our children would find it difficult to adapt to the domestic education model and would only be able to choose international schools, which, upon investigation, have tuition fees almost equivalent to Singapore's.
Another option was Malaysia. We focused on comparing international schools in Johor Bahru, Kuala Lumpur, and Penang, finding Penang had the highest overall cost-effectiveness. Last month, we specially visited Penang to investigate schools and surrounding living environments, ultimately deciding to start our new life here.
After comprehensive comparison, the education costs here are about two-thirds lower than Singapore's, and living costs have significantly decreased. Take housing, for example: the house we're currently renting is half the price of our Singapore residence but three times the size, with a sea view. Daily food is also much cheaper. The first meal we cooked at home yesterday cost only 11 Malaysian ringgit (about 3 Singapore dollars), which would cost at least 15 Singapore dollars in Singapore.
However, we haven't truly settled down yet. We're currently here on a tourist visa, and whether we can obtain a long-term visa is still uncertain. Especially since I currently have no job, the visa issue seems more complicated. Despite this, we are still willing to face the upcoming challenges with an open mind. Regardless of the outcome, we hope to create a more stable and broader growth environment for our children while finding our own place in this new life stage. The road ahead may not be easy, but we look forward to it being equally worthwhile.
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