On ten years of blogging here: my journey on Blogger

Hi guys, today is the 10th anniversary of my blog. It has become a big part of my life in the last 10 years and I realize that some of the regulars who visit my blog these days weren't there for the early days, so let's take a short trip down memory lane. I'll use the Q&A format and answer some questions about what it has been like to write a blog for the last 10 years. 

Why did you decide to start writing a blog? 

It all started 10 years ago after a business trip to Singapore and I was getting all these emotions - walking down Orchard Road and remembering what it was like being a teenager doing the exact same thing, but I was now an adult back after a long time away in the West. It was actually just the mundane little things like walking into a 7-Eleven and everything feels so familiar, then I look at the prices of the drinks and realize that I've been expecting 1990s prices when so much time has passed since I've left, of course the prices have risen since. Thus I thought writing a blog would be a good way to share those emotions, I have always enjoyed writing in any case thus this was something that just came naturally to me. 

Was the blog initially a success? 

Hell no, quite the opposite! The first few weeks, I was getting a few hits a day - looking back at those early posts, they were pretty poorly written anyway. I thought, oh dear, it's a waste of time, nobody's interested in what I have to say, then suddenly it went viral thanks to someone who shall be unnamed. He is a Singaporean attention whore (I shall abbreviate that to SAW) on social media and I refuse to mention his name - we have a mutual friend and SAW this my blog post, you see SAW doesn't have a lot to say for himself, but he likes provoking controversy by attacking others and he decided to go for me. So in one of my very early blog posts, I was merely discussing my feelings about being back in Singapore after having lived in the West for so long, SAW then launched a blistering attack about "好马不吃回头草" - ie. you've already given up on Singapore, you've escaped to the West, so what the hell are you doing back here in Singapore then? Fuck off back to London you traitor etc. Ironically for SAW, no publicity is bad publicity and thanks to SAW sharing the link to my blog, I went viral in a big way. In September 2011, I only amassed 188 hits on my blog but by October 2011, thanks to SAW drawing attention to my blog, I amassed 90,347 hits on my blog that month.  That was enough for a few other prominent Singaporean bloggers and early social media personalities to pick up on my blog and share some of my articles. So ironically, I owe SAW a debt of gratitude for launching my blog to the Singaporean public. So without his stinging attack on my blog back in 2011, I probably would still be getting very few hits on it and I may have given up on it. 

How many posts have you written? How many people have seen your posts? 

I have done a total of 1828 posts to date including this one, that's about 182 a year or 15 a month. Though looking at my recent activity this year, I posted just 4 times in July 2021 but I have posted 6 times so far in August 2021. I think this reflects the fact that I used to rush out shorter posts with hardly any hyperlinks but now I write far more comprehensive pieces with properly researched links to external sources and past articles to give my readers the chance to explore the topic in depth - I realize that I do get a rush of traffic every time I post something but I'm not willing to sacrifice the quality of the content of my blog by rushing articles out. Overall, I've amassed 11.53 million page views so far and whilst the majority of them are from Singapore, I am getting readers from countries all over the world. In fact, the country which round out the top five are the US, the UK, Malaysia and Australia - then bizarrely enough, followed by Russia in 6th place. Yes I can speak some Russian, but I never post in Russian and the Russians never ever been my target audience.

Did you expect this many people to have read your writing? 

No, quite frankly. It has exceeded my expectations. I've been a published author, I've taken part and won many creative writing competitions when I was much younger, I've even dabbled in journalism over the years contributing freelance articles and it's never for money - it's firstly for the love of writing and then it's the satisfaction of knowing that people have read what you have to say. It's easy to get the first by publishing a blog of course but to have over 11.5 million hits so far on my blog, oh that number is just crazy. It brings me much joy to know that my writing has been read by so many. 

What have people been most interested in when it comes to your posts? 

Oh here's the golden rule about blogging: you wanna get hits, talk about what people are interested in, something topical that's grabbing the headlines and never talk about yourself. Nobody is interested in me, why would they? So for example, amongst my top 10 most popular posts, I've talked about famous people like the late Lee Kuan Yew, Alvin Tan (the notorious Malaysian dissident, now in America), Anton Casey , Sun Ho, Kong Hee and Xiaxue. Other popular topics include health and fitness, winter wear and further education. So in essence, the vast majority of my readers either come here to find information about someone famous who is making the headlines or they are here to find useful information about a topic that they're interested in. I do talk about myself on my blog sometimes but I realize that those posts are the least likely to get many hits, but hey, I don't care or mind. Sometimes I just need to write things down and share my feelings with my readers - so even if only a small handful of my most loyal readers read it, then actually that's fine by me. 

Which is one aspect of blogging that you dislike? 

Oh this is a common problem across all social media platforms - I hate the trolls. These are people who are so desperate for attention they just come and pick a fight. They don't have the social skills to engage people with a cogent argument and a theory that makes sense, they simply come in, hurling insults and spoiling for a fight. They usually manage to pick fights with other trolls whilst I just censor them and refuse to give them the attention they crave. But let me show you how ridiculous these trolls are: I left a comment on Youtube ages ago on a video called 'Languages of Singapore' done by a channel called Langfocus. It was a reasonably good videos but I didn't agree with Paul the Youtuber on a few points, so I left a comment which actually attracted a lot of attention since I did make a lot of valid points about the linguistic landscape of Singapore. Then this troll came in, left a response as to why he hates Singapore and Singaporeans so much - I'm like, dude, the rest of us have having a discussion about the languages of Singapore, you're just a troll. I'm not a fan of the PAP and I've chosen to leave Singapore years ago but this troll has not even chosen the right forum to voice his hatred of Singapore, but that's the essence of troll behaviour: these people resort to trolling as they have no social skills to attract attention online the normal way. If this is how they behave online, can you imagine what they must be like in real life? Geez. Having a blog does put me out there on social media which means I do attract such trolls every now and then, but I have learnt to cope with it - I just ignore them. I refuse to give them the attention they are looking for. 

You've stopped referring to yourself as Limpeh - why is that? 

Yes I have stopped referring to myself as Limpeh and just started using my real name Alex. I think the whole Limpeh thing worked for a while, like I was trying to make a point about my roots - that I'm this Hokkien-speaking working class guy from Ang Mo Kio who wouldn't look out of place eating a bowl of laksa at your local hawker center but I've managed to establish myself halfway around the world in London. I think my readers get that point already, so I don't need to shove that whole working class Hokkien roots thing down my readers' throats on every post. Besides, my name is Alex; so I think by using my real name, I'm showing my readers that I'm not trying to create some kind of alter-ego online to project a certain image or idealized version of me - but they are getting to know the real me and that is why I use my real name. 

Do you try to help people with your blog, such as by giving advice? 

I think so, if someone comes to my blog with a question, I will always try to answer it - be it by engaging them in the comments section or even writing a blog post on the topic. It is a frustrating process of course because some people ask a question, then either reject the answer because I'm not telling them what they want to hear (oh then they get defensive and tell me I am wrong etc), or they simply disappear and I thought, great - I spent all that time and effort writing this for you and you couldn't even be asked to say, "nah I disagree with you, goodbye." So take further education for example, I have a degree in geography and I'm quite honest about how useless it is - I did a geography degree for all the wrong reasons: I enjoyed it at school and thought I would study a subject that I genuinely had an interest in. It was fascinating to learn about the different countries in the world and on top of that, I managed to get a scholarship to fund my degree at UCL. All that sounds like pretty valid reasons to do a degree in geography but the one thing I failed to consider was how the hell I was going to find a job armed with a degree in geography. So I shared my personal story about what I went through and how I ended up working in finance, a field which has absolutely nothing to do with geography and boy, the amount of really angry hate mail I got from students studying geography. There was so much hate. Basically, they only wanted me to say, "a geography degree is the best degree in the world, your future will be so bright because you have chosen to study geography - congratulations! Everything is going to be just so perfect!" Yeah right - reality check please!

How do you deal with people like that then?

Quite frankly, whether or not you have a bright future or not has little to do with what you studied at university as there are so many other factors at play. But are these people interested in a sensible, mature discussion about all these other complex factors? Hell no, they only want confirmation that they have made the right choice and they only want me to agree with every choice they have made so far; if I point out an inconvenient truth like how few jobs there are in fields like meteorology directly related to geography, they get extremely angry and then attack me with personal insults, as if I am some kind of traitor who has turned my back on geography by taking a job in banking. I don't even want to dignify their hate mail by quoting them here, but it is unreal how emotionally immature their response is. I'm more than happy to have a conversation about their job prospects and their career choices with a geography degree but they're not looking for looking for that kind of discussion - oh no, it's either "you have to agree 100% with my point of view or I am going to start insulting you and that's non-negotiable." No thanks, I can't even begin to find a decent reason to want to engage with people like that with such poor social skills. A lot of people come here yelling and screaming at me, trying to make me hear their point of view because they don't agree with I have written - my response is simply, "calm down and let's have a sensible discussion. Feel free to start your own blog to share your point of view on the topic as well, but kindly behave yourself when speaking to me here." And if they can't behave themselves, I just censor their comments and ignore them. 

Why do you still want to blog then, after 10 years?

I think a lot of my motivation can be traced by to my childhood - I grew up in a poor, working class family in Singapore and it wasn't just the lack of money that was a major factor in shaping my childhood, it was the lack of knowledge, information and guidance. It was one thing to go without fancy toys, exotic holidays and nice clothes - the lack of information was a far bigger hindrance to social mobility. It was not like my parents were deliberately trying to sabotage me but unfortunately they were simply not in a position to offer any kind of guidance at all, they were ignorant primary school teachers and knew nothing about the big bad world beyond the school gates. It is what it is, you play the hand you're dealt but what I want to offer my readers is the chance to ask questions and seek answers. There were a few people in my childhood who had been very kind to me, they helped me out when it came to certain things that my parents never could. So yeah, it's good karma I believe - I've been shown a lot of kindness in the past and this is my way of returning the favour, This is why I am happy to speak to strangers asking for help without asking anything in return - I have been shown great kindness in the past and thus I want to keep on spreading the love. Okay, not every blog post is dealing with useful information for working class kids, sometimes I just wanna write about topics I am passionate about but people do know that if they leave a comment on my blog, even if the question has nothing to do with the topic of the blog post, I am always happy to respond and chat, if I think something positive could then come out of that conversation. 

Have you ever thought about moving to a different platform on social media? 

I did have a good go at making a Youtube channel but good grief, it was way too much work for too few hits - I simply wasn't a hit on Youtube I'm afraid and I just didn't see enough reward for the amount of hard work I was putting into it. I am on Instagram as well and that's far easier to just take a couple of pictures or a super short video, then upload it very quickly. I only use Facebook these days to keep in touch with old friends, so I am basically here on Blogger and on Instagram. I have no intention of using other platforms like TikTok or Twitter. Instagram is far more visual so it's good for me sharing my experiences but when it comes to sharing my thoughts and ideas using a blog is still the best way to do it.

Have you changed a lot in the last 10 years? What does the next 10 years hold? 

I was 35 when I started blogging and that was when I was still very much up for trying new things and had a more carefree outlook. But now at 45, I feel like I have a good 10 to 15 productive years left in my working life after that I intend to retire. Even at the beginning of this year, I was quite content making a good living whilst being self-employed and working part time. But now I'm in a position to actually make a lot of money, I've shifted gear again and gone back into full time employment; it's just my curiousity. I now work with people making an insane amount of money. I've been invited for a housewarming next weekend and this guy not only has his own pool but his own tennis court - that house is like a small boutique hotel but it's just all his house. That's the kind of people I am rubbing shoulders with at work so yes, I'm genuinely intrigued. I'm thinking, well he doesn't seem that intelligent to me - I certainly think if we both took an exam tomorrow, I would definitely outscore him but why does he have his own tennis court and swimming pool? What's he doing to make that kind of money and how do I do that? I know I am intelligent but merely being intelligent doesn't mean you know how to make a lot of money - you've got to have a way to monetize any skill you have. It is almost embarrassing when this guy with his own tennis court introduces me to people and says, "this is Alex and he is scarily intelligent - he speaks 25 languages." But I'm like, yeah that intelligence isn't paying the bills and it certainly doesn't buy me my own tennis court and large swimming pool. So that's the next ten years - can I really make some serious money? 

Okay so that's it from me. How long have you been reading my blog? Have you followed me on this journey or are you admittedly not that interested in what I do but more interested in the topics I cover? What else would you like me to write about on my blog in the future? Well, I can promise you the next few years of my life will be very interesting and that's a good enough reason for you to keep coming back for more. Please do leave a comment below, many thanks for reading.