2026 : The World Feels Smaller, Yet More Fragile
2026 did not begin particularly well for the world, and by extension, for Singapore too.
The year opened amidst global uncertainty. Trump’s return to aggressive tariff rhetoric and protectionist economic policies once again injected volatility into global markets. Economists have repeatedly warned that prolonged trade fragmentation could significantly weaken global growth, and Singapore being our small but hyper-globalised economy, remains especially vulnerable because survival has always depended on external connectivity rather than domestic scale. Cuz EOI, and Services.
Then came the Hormuz conflict. The Strait of Hormuz handles roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil trade. Any instability there immediately affects aviation fuel prices, shipping insurance, and transcontinental flight routes. Airlines began rerouting flights to avoid conflict zones, increasing operational costs and ticket prices. Naturally, long-haul leisure travel became less attractive, especially for our inbound target markets from the US and Europe. Cruises cancellation, Asia Tours cancellation, Tourism declines.
See, Tourism is deeply geopolitical. A conflict thousands of kilometers away can directly affect whether a Bicycle tour gets 2 pax or 20 pax. Im saddened to see the terrible stats, we have days without bicycle tours, though this was our bread and butter. Inbound tourism into Asia slowed, and Singapore felt the ripple effects. At the same time, Singapore’s largely deregulated tourism landscape saw a massive influx of tour products and freelance operators. Lower barriers to entry meant greater competition, but not necessarily greater demand. Pax-per-tour diluted significantly compared to previous years.
Many operators shifted toward “2-to-go” pricing models simply to survive. Ironically, this drove prices upward for professionally operated tours, while lowball solo guides became increasingly competitive due to minimal operational overheads. Established companies struggled because backend systems, staffing, insurance, partnerships, and logistics cannot simply make sense of the low margins.
So our strategy pivoted more aggressively toward local tourism. Initially, it was meant to be a temporary cushion, like a way to survive this period until market recalibration naturally filtered out unsustainable players unable to scale long-term. Little did we know, the workload would increase tremendously. Local tourism came with far more hotline enquiries, expectation management, customization requests, and increasingly cynical or entitled remarks. Hospitality labour today is no longer simply service work. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild described this as "Emotional Labour", the commodification of emotional regulation itself. Sometimes it feels less like tourism, and more like absorbing society’s frustrations professionally, especially our clientelle of Seniors in Singapore.
Side Questing and Communal Spaces
While the tourism landscape does not seem particularly optimistic from my perspective, I found myself embarking on more “side quests.”
For some reason, I became a regular at Ann Siang Sounds — an open jam session where musicians gather simply to exist communally through music. Glad Lydia enjoys tagging along too. There is something comforting about spaces that exist without needing productivity metrics attached to them.
I also started attending more local gigs and underground pop-ups, whether it was 526 or smaller independent shows. Jasper definitely influenced me on this phase. Though not everything I attend leans toward hardcore or heavy music, I increasingly gravitate toward lyrical and emotionally driven works.
Perhaps age changes what resonates. I watched "Secondary the Musical" for the second time, with Sheng and Family, and Lydia and Trixie too. What makes the musical hit so hard, especially for people from the education sector or adjacent industries like guiding, mentorship, training, youth work....... is that it does not portray teachers as either heroes or villains. It portrays them as exhausted humans trying to survive an institution while still wanting to care. That is very Singaporean. Teachers in Singapore are expected to care deeply, but not too deeply. To inspire, but not over-involve themselves. To mentor, but still maintain bureaucratic distance. The musical keeps asking: Who defines that line? The teacher? The school? Parents? MOE? Society? And honestly, that is why the math teacher character worked so well. The “Inside Out” style conscience theatrical device is one of the production’s smartest theatrical innovations. Lilin the teacher’s internal emotions are externalized into characters representing Empathy, Humour, Cynicism, Panic, Discipline, and Optimism. It visualizes teacher burnout. It dramatizes emotional labour. It shows how every response teachers give students is negotiated internally before being spoken externally. That is why certain scenes deliberately remove humour entirely. When stakes become emotionally serious, humour disappears because the “Humour” conscience literally no longer dominates the response mechanism. It is brilliant theatrical psychology. So then that actor went to prepare for the next scene. So that scriptwriting. At any point, an actor is either on stage or preparing for next scene, no moment was wasted. Brilliant! I come from a generation where teachers often still crossed professional boundaries emotionally......... which not necessarily in too appropriate but also not too inappropriate, but anyways it's a deeply human way. Teachers who stayed back after school. Teachers who called homes. Teachers who intervened in lives beyond curriculum delivery. Teachers who challenge dota to add or subtract homework. I feel that the musical mourns the gradual erosion of that emotional intimacy under increasing administrative pressure, metrics, safeguarding protocols, workload intensification, and institutional burnout. And perhaps that is why Secondary feels less like a musical and more like collective memory for students of my generation. For Lydia, she still enjoys it, perhaps afterall, she is "That girl of fiveteen"............. "What do you think?" hhahahas.
At the same time, I decided to drop Tag Archery. I simply no longer saw enough progression or meaning in continuing it. Not every hobby survives every phase of life, and that is okay.
Serious Ventures LLP
This year also marked the legitimization of the side venture.
Finally got the ACRA registration and corporate bank account settled for the boardgaming events company. We decided to call it Serious Ventures LLP — because we play seriously. The idea was never just entertainment. It was about extracting values through game-based learning: sociology, negotiation, trust, systems thinking, psychology, cooperation, and conflict — all compressed into physical experiences.
Together with Tristan, we conceptualized a larger “season pass” ecosystem for physical boardgaming communities. The goal was to encourage continuity, identity-building, and genuine social commitment instead of transient one-off participation.
More importantly, I wanted Jasper and Tristan to have something they could truly call their own. They rejected the idea of conventional part-time work because many such jobs today feel disconnected from long-term growth unless the industry itself is your calling. Modern youth increasingly seek autonomy, ownership, and meaning rather than merely surviving paycheck to paycheck.Perhaps this venture becomes a pathway where hobbies evolve into something sustainable.
My broader hypothesis is this: AI tools are currently alleviating workloads, but are still too expensive or unreliable to fully replace human workers at scale. This creates a paradox where people technically have more convenience, yet increasingly crave authentic human interaction. Especially in post-pandemic society, loneliness has become deeply structural. I found myself attending blindfolded conversations, stranger dialogue sessions, “Friendzone” social events, and many other non-dating communal experiences. Sociologist Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone discussed the decline of communal participation decades ago. Perhaps what we are witnessing now is society desperately trying to rebuild fragmented social capital in new forms. That is why I genuinely believe the boardgaming scene has potential — not merely commercially, but socially. People want belonging again.
And for survivability, the strategy naturally extends toward corporate trainings, team bonding, thematic amazing races, and experiential learning. So yes, I may finally join BNI networking sessions properly to generate leads for both businesses. Huge investment, but perhaps necessary.
Paving For the Next Generation
One of the brighter moments this year was the cruise trip with Nickolas, Jasper, Tristan, Ray, and Ray’s family. Exhausting honestly! Cruise activities from morning till night, then boardgaming until 3 or 4 am.......... but deeply memorable. I'm so glad Jasper is thoroughly entertained by the performances and shows, Tristan is with me on most of the trivias. What struck me most was hearing them mention that our Malaysia trips genuinely changed their perspectives and motivated them to pursue more experiences while still young. Tristan mentioned me and my group allowed him to be motivated to push more in his lives, to have directions and goals. Wow, thank you! Gerrard texted too, about navigating his social standings and passions. He also mentioned he sees me as a guidance and local expert. Thanks! DQ recently mentioned the positive influence I have illuminated upon them. Wow! touched! As for Lydia, unfortunately, she did not have a strong start, so regardless of her efforts and hardwork, her progress can never fight those that had a head start. And her perspective of Jasper being a last minute lock in and make it, is too simplistic. There is a certain degree of cognitive development needed that he got from logical thinking and gaming that got him to comprehend his academics at the last minute. Not everyone gets this. To me, as long as there's growth, it's enough. She mentioned one day that she sees me more than a friend but to a brother and how I kindda bring her closer to her actual brother Jasper and am thus grateful for it. Wow. That meant a lot.
In the past, my own “side quests” relied heavily on wandering around the city randomly, stumbling into communities accidentally. Their generation has something different now: consolidated platforms, recommendation algorithms, Discord servers, Telegram channels, TikTok ecosystems. Discovery itself has become systemized.
Also managed to drag Jasper deeper into Magic at Magic Attic. Now he is becoming an excellent assistant for the venue. As for his band, Pretty Girls Cry, is steadily growing too, going into bigger spaces, possibly Baybeats, maybe even larger stages soon. Very happy seeing all these developments. I have always believed: do things while young, because energy is a depreciating asset. Time is undefeated.
My Own Struggles
Personally, things have been harder lately. Academics are becoming increasingly heavy, while AI-detection systems are growing stricter. Ironically, despite transparently declaring all AI usage, assignments still get flagged, requiring proof of non-plagiarism. Out of eight modules, two submissions were rejected initially. Extremely disheartening. At this point, I honestly understand why many students feel exhausted. Institutions are trying to regulate AI despite the systems themselves still being unable to reliably discern what is genuinely AI-generated versus merely polished writing. There is a certain Foucauldian irony in all this: surveillance systems attempting to regulate knowledge production while themselves remaining flawed. Honestly, I would rather sit for handwritten exams again. So at this stage, I simply want to graduate. The pursuit of knowledge itself increasingly feels secondary to clearing institutional hurdles. Which is unfortunate, because political science and sociology genuinely improved my quality of tour guiding tremendously. Understanding urban systems, migration, governance, nationalism, class, and identity gave me richer ways to interpret Singapore beyond superficial storytelling.
Recently, Adele’s I Drink Wine speaks to me more each day: “Why am I seeking approval from people I don’t even know?” or "Sometimes the road less taken is best left behind".......... And strangely, California by 88rising resonates too : “Fake faces, I erase ’em, California…I don’t wanna be the one that’s left behind.” I no longer interpret the song purely as chasing fame or success. To me, it now represents disillusionment with the mythology of success itself. The “California Dream”, the wealth, status, influence, endless ambition.... to me, are increasingly feels hollow when the very systems symbolizing prosperity are themselves crumbling under polarization, conflict, loneliness, and instability. The world feels far scarier now than it did growing up. And perhaps that is why I no longer obsess over “making it big.” I just want the people around me to be informed enough, emotionally resilient enough, and socially aware enough to navigate whatever future emerges from this mess.
Maybe that itself is enough purpose.
And honestly, I am still at the same existential stage.
Whatever I do still feels trivial sometimes. Futile. Pointless. The only purpose I seem to cling onto now is creating platforms for the people around me. I have more or less accepted that I will probably never become “big” in the conventional capitalist sense. Never the kind of wealthy success story parents compare against during dinner conversations. But maybe that is okay. Everything I do has always leaned more toward meaning-making than profit maximization. I don't consider myself privileged but lucky enough to not fall through the cracks. Max Weber once described the tension between instrumental rationality and value rationality. Modern society rewards efficiency, scalability, and monetization, but some people still operate based on intrinsic values instead.
Health-wise, there were some scares too.
Around April, I developed an extremely persistent cough that lasted weeks. Honestly feared it was TB, Covid, or something serious. By the third week, the doctor confirmed it was severe acid reflux instead. Irregular meal timing and inconsistent eating habits had triggered it. At one point, the coughing became so violent that blood vessels in my eye burst. Completely painless, but visually horrifying. Apparently adulthood means discovering the body keeps score. Need to stop skipping meals. Need to reduce acidic foods. Ironically, everything else like my lungs, blood pressure, cardiovascular health, remains extremely good.
So yes.
That is probably the domestic update for the first half of 2026 from me.
Look forward to May's Japan Trip sooooooon!!!!!
