Returning Home to Singapore Felt Like Both Opportunity and Failure

“So … why are you back?”

I can’t count the number of times I was asked this question in the three months after I returned home.

I’m an international student from Singapore who studied at local schools for 12 years before leaving for the U.S. At Princeton, I had many firsts: meeting people from different backgrounds, traveling alone, being given free rein to embark on so many endeavors. My first summer after freshman year, I did an international internship in Bulgaria, a country I had never set foot in before.

Coming home this time felt like both opportunity and failure. I had come back for an internship I wanted — working as a visual journalist for a major news publication — but so many others in my year were setting off across the world. It was also puzzling for people in Singapore, as most who go abroad are expected to seize overseas opportunities.

And I felt trapped. Constant questions of “What are you going to do after graduation?” and “What can you do with sociology?” weighed on me. I felt myself regressing into a precollege version of myself: limited, afraid of stepping out of bounds, questioning every decision that didn’t feel practical.

But Princeton didn’t just teach me to see possibilities; it taught me to live them. At school, I was encouraged to learn, go, and do it — anything from interviewing a Chinese farmer in the middle of New Jersey to shadowing an artist-advocate in Trenton. I began looking at home with more curiosity. Perhaps there was more to this place than what I had thought for 18 years.

For work, I would head out every day with my camera, photographing everything from heads of state to criminals to everyday characters. Once, I had just finished photographing Singapore’s prime minister at an event when I got a call from my editor, telling me to go photograph a fire. Heart pounding, I leapt into a taxi, before leaping out again to grab photos and videos of the situation: firefighters carrying hoses into the fire, victims being given oxygen masks, and flames licking the sides of the building. The job of a journalist is often contrary to human instinct: to run toward the fire instead of away from it, to assess surroundings instead of hyper-focusing on the most obvious thing. But if the first two years at Princeton had taught me anything, it was to throw myself into various situations and adapt.

Another time, I headed to an island off the coast of Singapore to find a story to pitch. People there live in village-style houses opposite to the city life typically associated with Singapore. As I talked to locals, they shared stories about growing up on this island and the slowly disappearing community. I found myself reflecting on how much diversity was contained in this tiny red dot on the map. I didn’t have to go to the edges of the world — I simply went out with my camera and an open mind. It was the mentality I had learned at Princeton: You can do anything if you set your mind to it. Know what you want. Be bold and pursue it.

Princeton stays with you wherever you are. I met with several other Princetonians who were in Singapore for work or travel. They enthused about the convenience of transport, the variety of activities, and most importantly, the food. These were things I had taken for granted and really let me see my country through new eyes. The opportunities to connect with peers and alumni were a beautiful reminder that I now had a new community in a place I had always known.

It’s a strange feeling returning home after being away, but I’m grateful to have gone and come back with a new lens. I may be back, but I’m not back as the person I was.