Popagandhi

Our visa to green card journey

2026-03-16T00:00:00Z

(A shorter version was originally posted on Mastodon here:)

San Francisco as seen from Crissy Field. This is one of my favorite places in the place I now get to call my forever home.

In September 2018, my wife and I arrived in the United States to build our new lives. After 7 and a half years of paperwork, visa anxiety, job stress, we finally received our green cards in the mail this March.

From the moment we discussed moving to San Francisco, we knew that this was going to be a long game of sacrifices and major life changes. While we had a pretty comfortable life in Singapore, we knew that we had very little of a possible future together there. We don't have the same passport, it was getting challenging for her to get permanent residency in Singapore despite having spent a long time there, despite being half-Singaporean.

In the end, our decision to uproot and start over came down to this: my own country didn't provide any immigration benefits to the person I wanted to spend my life with.

So in 2018, we left. San Francisco was an easy choice due to my deep experience in tech. I found a job, and knew that as long as we were legally married somewhere, she could come too.

Based on the timelines that we knew about, from the experiences and stories of friends and family who had done this before us, we knew we were working with a ten-year timeline to try to get a green card. I'm not one of those people who lived all my life aspiring to live in America: far from it. I really didn't want to go. I had a very comfortable life in Singapore, even as a queer person. My Chinese and economic privilege brought me far there; the first few years of life in America were hell for me and I could not imagine ten years of that.

Ultimately, we took less time than a decade and the 7.5 years went by faster than that. San Francisco and the Bay Area generally started to feel more and more like a home. We struggled a lot logistically; we did not always know that we would succeed.

Here's how we did it.

The visa path

Most people in my position come to the United States on H-1B. That route is now extremely expensive for employers (more than six figures in total cost, primarily from the new $100K fee for a new H-1B). It was never simple, but it is now it is a huge hassle. Finding an employer who will sponsor a H-1B was already challenging in the last couple of years. It is now, in my opinion, an option that is available only if you have specialized skills that the most innovative and well-funded technology companies need.

As a Singaporean, I have always had access to a different route: H-1B1. I've written before about the H-1B1.

The H-1B1 visa is easier to obtain and renew than H-1B, but it comes with tradeoffs (it is also only available to citizens of Singapore and Chile). It is a shorter duration, non-immigrant intent visa. It is useful (because you're not in the same H-1B lottery, and employers don't have to pay $100K for it, therefore you are technically 'cheaper' than a H-1B worker), and it is also easy to get started (I was typically able to get a new job, go back to Singapore, get a new visa, within a week or two), but transitioning out of this visa into more permanent status is challenging, unlike applying for a green card from a regular H-1B.

As I did not plan to live in the United States permanently at first, I wasn't too concerned about this.

Sometime around 2024, San Francisco and the Bay Area generally felt more and more like home. Due to career growth reasons, I also switched to an O-1 work visa for people of extraordinary ability to give myself more flexibility in this area. In early 2025, I had two green card applications in the pipeline: both the EB-1A and EB-2 NIW green card applications were approved. I self-petitioned my EB-1A, which is one of the few employment-based paths where you do not need an employer, and my previous employer petitioned for the EB-2 NIW for me when I started my full-time role there.

All three paths, O-1, EB-2 NIW and EB-1A are challenging: you have to prove that you have special skills and experience in a specific domain. Due to my 18+ years of work experience in a technical area, I was able to prove in all three applications that yes, I deserve an O-1 visa and also green cards (multiple). Ultimately, as the 'line' for 'converting' my green card approval with my EB-1A application was much shorter than the EB-2 NIW, this is the one that I 'used' to complete the final step: actually receiving the green card. This is called the 'adjustment of status' process. If you are outside the U.S. when this step happens, for example if you're married to a U.S. citizen but living abroad together, you'll do 'consular processing.' When you hear anecdotes like 'people from India / China have to wait deacdes or a hundred years to get a green card', it means they're stuck at this step: they've gotten a green card approval through work, but they cannot actually receive the green card for the next decades or a hundred years, as they are in a much longer line (this line is based on country of birth).

When I submitted my EB-1A paperwork in January 2025, I weighed it as a joke: it was almost six pounds in weight. I was inspired to work on my own EB-1A application as I'd read several blog posts about how to do this, felt I met the criteria, and didn't want to spend 10-20 grand on an immigration attorney for this piece. In my next post, I'll write about my own EB-1A self-petition adventure and how I did that.

What all of this meant for us IRL

For years, our lives were organized around immigration constraints. I felt a deep fear of losing any job, and as jobs started to feel less and less secure through Covid-19 and the poor job markets of 2024- onwards, I started to feel I had to make plans to never be in a position where losing a job meant I had to leave. I like describing this part of my life as, 'as an immigrant, I had to have backup plans for my backup plans.' Indeed, I did.

The general rules were:

Keep employment stable enough to avoid being in a position where we had to leave suddenly
Plan around the 60-day layoff clock: if that could not be avoided, we needed to have a backup plan immediately
Retain excellent legal counsel: your employer's attorney isn't your attorney, so best to get yourself one, even if it's expensive, it's worth every penny
Keep personal copies of everything: every visa stamp, every passport, every I-539, every I-797C, every communication from USCIS (all of these acronyms will make sense to you when you are in the process)
Budget for filing costs, travel, and uncertainty: a few times, we had to leave the U.S. to get back to Singapore to get a new visa by a specific time.
Use almost all of my American paid vacation time (I was lucky to have jobs with paid vacation time!) to return to Singapore to procure new visas, visa stamps, stay in status always and never overstay

On 3: we always had to prepare enough resources to retain my own immigration counsel. Immigration attorneys provided by employers are there to provide immigration advice primarily for your employer: they don't need to have your best interests at heart. I needed someone whose only job was to watch out for our immigration interests and our household's stability. That was money well spent, because when it came time to do the 'adjustment of status', we could show that we followed the law and did everything right. This would have been extraordinarily difficult without additional counsel.

For the first few years, our lives were defined by the work visa renewal grind. Your mileage may vary, as if you're on an O-1, H-1B or L-1, it might feel less.. grindy. (The tradeoff of getting an 'easy' work visa is also that I had to spend more time and resources getting it renewed more often, as it was much, much shorter. They were valid for 18 months at a time, and you get 'stamped in' to the country for 12.)

For this entire period of 7 and a half years, we lived on one income. My spouse could not legally work during this stretch. We knew this going in, and we planned around it: she completed college and grad school while we lived frugally in our Tenderloin apartment. We traveled mostly by transit and on foot and bike.

Now that we no longer have those job restrictions, she can take any job in her field. Just in time, too. As a newly minted psychotherapist, she has plenty of job opportunities in the Bay Area that she now does not need a visa for.

We did everything 'right'. I'm proud of it. But it's still one of the hardest things we've ever done logistically and emotionally. Many days, I felt like giving up.

Privilege, randomness, and injustice

Any form of international immigration is challenging, hard and difficult. Any form of international immigration also requires skills, planning, paperwork, privileges and resources. The simple and unfair lottery of birth also factors in a major way, no matter where you are from and where you are moving to.

Some things that helped me:

I was not born in a country with extreme visa backlogs (like India, China, Mexico, the Philippines).
I had a passport that was generally treated with low suspicion.
I had never previously been denied a visa.

Some things that did not make it easy:

Being in a queer cross-national marriage in systems that were not built for us. Even to get married at all, we had to have the resources to go to another country (New Zealand) in order to get a visa for another country (the U.S.)
Living in constant fear that losing a job or missing a procedure or making a visa mistake could cost us months or years, or worse, disqualify us entirely.

In 2022, one of my last work visas was approved in Singapore but my spouse's was not. We were separated for months with no clear plan or path for reunification. One day, I'll write more about this in detail, but it showed me that immigration dysfunction in the U.S. is truly a bi-partisan issue, and I am skeptical of anyone who thinks otherwise.

While trying to navigate all of this, I was thankful for some of my privileges and resources, but I also saw how immigration issues can separate families, create life-changing anxiety, and prevent people from starting or continuing their lives with their loved ones. It got me to dive into how 'legal' immigration was also being suppressed and reduced, even though claims were being made about how 'they' were 'only' against 'illegal' immigration. That's another story for another time.

Nevertheless, we persisted

There are many things about the U.S. that feel deeply broken. But this was still the first place that gave us a legal foundation to build a shared life as a queer couple from two different countries that both didn't recognize our marriage. We looked at some Singaporean-foreigner queer pairings back 'home' and acknowledged that we did not want a future full of no legal recognition, and forever visa runs. We felt especially justified in this decision when, in early Covid-19 times, many of our straight and queer friends who had foreigner spouses with different visa statuses, lost jobs and had to leave and they were separated for many months or years, during that horrible period of no international travel anywhere.

Did we have other options and opportunities? Probably. For various reasons, this one still felt the one where we could both thrive in, after the initial period of logistical and emotional suffering. It felt like a hazing period but with a clear view of what could happen after that. I don't say this lightly. I don't recommend it for everyone, but it felt like that for us, and we still chose it.

Before coming to the U.S., I was aware of friends who were in the green card process and therefore could not leave at all, sometimes for years. As I used to travel internationally for life and work a few times a month (or week?) I found this unusual. I used to ask them: is America worth it?

In 2026, my answer is yes, with caveats.

It was brutally difficult. It was grossly expensive. It caused us a great deal of stress. But now, coming out successfully on the other side, it was worth it for us. It may not be for you.

My wife is about to graduate and become a psychotherapist after world-class training at a great public university that we could afford here.

I am about to start another software company, and permanent residency status changes what I can build and how I can build it. We can now plan life in years, not visa cycles. I've never started a software company in San Francisco, and I suspect that now that I can do this easily, that already impacts (positively) many possible outcomes for the company I'm about to start. (I'm being cryptic, but it's a software company in a space that is 'hot' right now, that aligns my passion and values, and where the majority of funding for this type of work is happening right here where I am.)

I still think, often, about what we left behind. What I left behind, specifically, as a person from a 'good country' with a 'good passport' who had all of the comforts and privileges of being able to have any job I want, do anything I want, back there. But that utopic ideal of my 'home' was also a mirage: none of it was a vision of life that included my spouse in it.

So this is really our life and our home now. It really, really sucks in some ways, but it means the world to me that we have emerged from the other side of a very long and seemingly unending tunnel.

What I'm Up To (March 2026)

2026-03-04T00:00:00Z

Back to founder mode

I am back in founder mode. More shortly.

Rebuilding this website

I spent a lot of time improving this site: design system cleanup, typography updates, accessibility fixes, search improvements, and image pipeline migration.

Writing and publishing rhythm

I am trying to write and publish in a steadier cadence again, especially here on my own site.

Spring projects

I am working on a few experiments at the intersection of product, AI, and public-interest technology.

Year of the Fire Horse

2026-03-04T00:00:00Z

We celebrated Lunar New Year a few weeks ago, and as usual, I was 8000 miles away from home. What does home even mean now?
I have not left the U.S. for three years. That must be some kind of record for 'no international travel' for me.
This month feels like the start of a new season of life. Our 8 years of 'visa anxiety' has come to an end. The pets we started our lives here with are no longer here.
Sabrena is done with grad school soon; we can finally travel
In a bit of a 'life reset', the events of no 3 also mean that I now have a lot more control over my life
I seem to have promised a variety of friends, trips to see them once we were done with our paperwork
Right now, that list comprises: Mexico City, Guadarajala, La Paz, Mumbai, Surabaya, Kuala Lumpur, Kathmandu, Bangalore and Chennai
In short, I'm right back where I started!

What I'm Up To (January 2026)

2026-01-10T00:00:00Z

Refreshed design

Spent some time changing up this site's look and feel. Can you guess what inspired me?

Celebrated the new year cozily

This new year, we were snug and cozy, as we have been for a number of years. Still the best way to ring in the year.

Catching up with old friends

It's the season for catching up with old friends. This past week, I've spoken to lots of people I've known from a long time ago, from all over the world. Good times. I miss you all.

Penne Pals

I started doing a pretty fun thing I call Penne Pals. The idea is I want to talk to anyone, anywhere, as long as they're not trying to sell me something. I put up a cal link and people book time. There are some rules, of course. No agendas, and no MLM / religion / startups. I've probably talked to hundreds of people I don't know this way, and learned so much.

Started an AI research lab

For the past year, I've been working on AI red teams and evals. It's been rewarding work, and I am so energized by new clarity on some very specific areas of investigation that I'd like to follow. We even have a website! It was great to see all the things I've done in this space, on one page.

Making Things With My Hands

2025-07-10T00:00:00Z

In a world that feels like it is coming undone, I find a lot of solace in making things with my hands. The biggest breakthrough I developed was when I decided I don't need to be good at everything that I do. I can just.. do things.

That goes against my programming as a competitive over-achiever, but it was ultimately what gave me the mindset I needed to.. do the things I need to feel less shitty about the world.

Things I did:

Attended an intro to pottery class
Started a doodle notebook
Picked up a water brush and a palette of colors
Learned how to develop film (black and white, and color) at home
Learned how to print film negatives of various sizes in a darkroom (black and white, as well as color)
Fold origami
Code this website entirely by hand

Some things stuck more than others. I'd like to learn bookbinding, as well as to go deeper into pottery. Like I love saying: my hobby is having hobbies. I don't want or need to ever hustle with my hobbies.

I think I am just done with hustle, full stop. I enjoy making and building things, whether it is software, or a thingamajig. That is enough for me.

What I'm Up To (June 2025)

2025-06-27T00:00:00Z

Building a new website

I am working on a new website to feature my marine and nature photography and writing. It's also a way for me to learn 11ty's new features.

Gave a talk at North Bay Python

In April 2025, I gave a talk at North Bay Python just outside Petaluma, CA. I talked about my experience leaving 'tech' for 'fin tech' (at the Monterey Bay Aquarium). Blog post here.

Spoke at an all staff meeting

I was asked to speak about my experience with my many intersectional identities, at a work all-staff meeting. Post and slides here.

AI red team / ethics work

I was lucky to have been able to spend the last 9 months working on various aspects of AI ethics, red team work and research. This is a core area of my academic and professional interest at the moment. I don't write about that much but this newsletter post captures more relevant information about what I got up to in this space.

In-laws' visit

Sabrena's family visited from France. We spent a lot of time together but I was especially proud to be able to plan a whale watching trip and aquarium visit with them.

June gloom and doom

Here in Monterey and San Francisco, we are in a foggy and cold-ish time of the year. It is not unexpected (this happens every year!) but it feels especially relevant given that we are now officially unable to leave this country due to something known as 'adjustment of status'. This is usually a thing that bodes well because it means we are one step closer to some degree of 'stability' (with regards to 'immigration'). But at this point, everything feels meh. I am relieved, but I am also feeling all kinds of meh.

Whale Watching

2025-06-07T00:00:00Z

When I was a teenager and didn't know anything about whales or lesbians, I heard Margaret Cho say 'lesbians love whale watching. they fucking love it.'

I didn't know what any of that was.

Well, Margaret Cho, you were RIGHT. I fucking love it.

A whale named Pepper.

A whale named Little Dimple and her calf. Who is somehow, sadly, not called Littler Dimple.

All dolphins are whales. But not all whales are dolphins.

Mola-mola always astound me with their.. strangeness. I love them.

SQUEEEE. OTTERS.

In flight pelagic cormorant left before I could ask, can I kelp you?

We saw ALL of these on a three hour sunset whale watching trip with Monterey Bay Whale Watch. It's a company led by marine biologists, and everything is extremely professional. The marine biologists onboard knew all of the beautiful animals by name and sight. I learned so much! I shall commit to trying to go at least once a month (best employee perk for me)!

My Talk at North Bay Python

2025-05-27T00:00:00Z

In late April 2025, I had the opportunity to talk about my interesting career trajectory 'From Fintech to Fin Tech'.

If you told me a decade ago that I would be working at an aquarium, I don't think I would know what to think. I hadn't discovered my love for marine life, puns, or marine puns at the time. My life is so much richer now.

Here's the video.

Belated New Year

2025-04-09T00:00:00Z

In January this year, I wrote this about how I felt being away from 'home' for the Lunar New Year again:

This lunar new year eve, I am usually home in Singapore.

I am seven years old, and I wake up to the smell of roasted chilli, poached chicken, and cabbage soup.

There’s a bustle in the kitchen. My grandpa is stirring a pot, making his signature chilli paste that we all won’t eat our food without. My grandma is fussing over the roast duck, soy sauce chicken and whole fish and prawns.

I walk into the kitchen, in search of a snack. No matter how busy they are, they always have time to feed me.

Have some hae jor, beancurd rolls stuffed with pork, shrimp and chestnuts. Have a bit of everything.

My grandma calls me her ‘little baby mouse’, because I eat so slowly and carefully.

I watch TV until my cousins arrive. I put on my good clothes (but I have to be forced to do it). I greet everyone: first in Teochew, then Mandarin, then English.

Happy new year! Happy new year! Happy new year!

Eat, rub my tummy, smell everything, laugh and poke my grandpa’s tummy. I do that every day, but especially on lunar new year, he is especially jovial and happy. I tell him he looks like a fat Buddha, and he laughs.

If you hold your chopsticks that way, ah girl, you are going to move very far away from home. Very far away from me.

How right he was.

What I'm Up To (March 2025)

2025-03-30T00:00:00Z

Got into Instant Film

I got a Polaroid SX-70 and that's unleashed a new passion for Polaroid instant film. I've been shooting instant film with Instax film, but Polaroid is a whole other beast. Far more finicky, but I also enjoy the experience.

Spent a month with my family

My parents came to visit me. We went to Monterey, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle. It was lovely showing them my part of the world. They were already very familiar with San Francisco, but got to see these other cities this time. We traveled by Amtrak, coach (Flixbus), plane (Alaska Air out of Burbank, best way to arrive in / leave Los Angeles), and caught a ride with friends (Monterey to Los Angeles). We ate well, saw waterfalls, saw friends. It was a lovely way to spend a month.

Continued to commute to Monterey

After 4 months going to and from Monterey (by shuttle), I've grown quite comfortable with the commute and life there. I have favorite spots (Ho Wah! Barba azul! First Oriental Market!), friends, and more. I like it.

Intersections

2025-03-30T00:00:00Z

For an all hands meeting at work, I was asked if I wanted to share a story about my life and how I got here.

It has not been the easiest, holding all of these identities and selves, often in places that did not welcome me. I think sometimes of Merantau: of finding a home away from home. All of my parts and intersections make up the messy and glorious bits that I have lived and experienced.

I turn forty this year. I want so much to tell the four year old self: it's going to be fine, you're going to have fun, one day you are going to put up beautiful photos of your life and tell your story to everyone.

What I'm Up To (January 2025)

2025-01-19T00:00:00Z

This is a jumbo sized update, because lots of things have happened.

Sea Life

I work at an aquarium now!

I started a ridiculously cool gig at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where I am building their first product management team. There's a lot to do, the people are wonderful, the animals are fun, the environment is delightful. I've been keeping track of some of the things that give me joy here (text-only Mastodon thread) and here (photos mostly). If I may say so myself, the photos are lovely.

I spend half my week out there, which I honestly don't mind. I go to the aquarium any time I want (which is, all the time). I am surrounded by marine puns all day.

It's funny this happened, because back in May I started listening to marine biology and deep sea ocean research podcasts whenever I was running. I thought, 'wonder if there are any cool jobs at the Monterey Bay Aquarium for me?' Turns out, they did.

Kismet.

Cookie, the love of my life, passed on in June 2024. She was 14 years and 8 months. This Mastodon thread celebrates my life with her. In time, I may want to publish a little memorial photo book.

Sabrena graduated

My wife, Sabrena, graduated summa cum laude from SF State University in psychology! Back to work for her though, as she also started her Masters in Clinical Psychology shortly after. I am incredibly proud of her. What an achievement

More to come, hopefully I'll update these pages more frequently!

Working on a book

I am writing a book! "Product for the People: A Guide to Building Mission-Driven Digital Services in Government and Nonprofit Organizations"

Too often, many product management books are about maximizing profit. Well, that's important, but people are important too. So I'm writing a book about that. More details soon!

Gulls at Alcatraz

2025-01-19T00:00:00Z

Nikon D810, 200-500mm lens. Alcatraz Island, just off San Francisco

In the early days of Covid-19, a friend said 'we're getting old let's do old people things', so we picked 'birding'. Looks like it stuck.

Here, a photo of some baby Western gulls on Alcatraz island, which has many types of birds, including falcons, and herons and more. While Western gulls are kind of 'boring', I do love how these baby gulls have spots on their heads.

Postcard from Monterey

2025-01-19T00:00:00Z

I have a new job, which also means new views! Million dollar views, in fact.

I so love this part of the world: when Sabrena and I first moved to California back in 2018, we were so excited to finally be somewhere where we could travel with our dog, Cookie. We booked a trip and came to Monterey for my birthday that year. I wanted to see the aquarium, and I wanted to experience being in a hotel room with Cookie. We got that and so much more.

7 years on, I now work at Monterey Bay Aquarium. How I got to this was pretty fun: I like going on long runs, and I like listening to podcasts on topics I know absolutely nothing about. Back in May, all of my running podcasts were about marine biology, marine science, oceanography and deep sea research. The podcasts often reference Monterey Bay Aquarium and our partner org, MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute). I was obsessed with the stories about deep sea research, and the Into the Deep exhibit. I resolved to visit again, and to see the exhibit.

A view of Monterey Bay.

While looking up information about the exhibit at the aquarium, I noticed that they were hiring a Director of Product Management — which is what I do! I applied, of course.

The rest is history. Never in a million years did I think I would end up with such a cool position. I have an interesting commute where, once a week I take a shuttle from SFO Airport that takes me right into downtown Monterey. While there, I spend a couple of days, in a cute little room I rent. I live with a few other queer people, we like cooking for each other, and watching Interview With the Vampire at night, so it's been quite ideal, actually.

After five years of almost fully remote work, or working two blocks from work, I was ready for a change of scene. I love to travel but can't travel too much internationally at the moment, so this was perfect for me.

Invasive ice plants near the water, right outside Costco in Seaside

Sabrena came to help me setup the IKEA furniture. It was sad not to have Cookie there with us this time, but I'm getting to get familiar with the Monterey, Pacific Grove, Seaside, Marina areas. The coastal trail is my favorite: I can bike or run or walk to work quite easily, without ever coming across a motorized vehicle. Last weekend, I ran to several Korean markets in Marina and Seaside, where I came across the happy 'secret' that Marina / Seaside have tons of great Korean grocery stores with homemade banchan and many types of homemade kimchi.

The produce that we get at San Francisco farmer's markets also all come from here, so the produce is cheap and good and plentiful. It's going to be hard living anywhere else after this. Good vegetables go for '3 for $5', which is a great deal (here in Monterey and in San Francisco).

Some days, I grieve the life I left behind in Singapore, but I also know this for a fact: we've built ourselves a wonderful and beautiful life here.

Even though the world feels like it's too much somes days, I feel unreasonably lucky to be here, to be able to work on things I care about, to be surrounded by people who give a shit about the world. And to be able to eat delicious food.

A Whale of a Time

2024-10-17T00:00:00Z

Nikon D810, 200-500mm lens, somewhere near the Farallon Islands

Once or twice a year I try to get on a boat out to the Farallon Islands with birders in the Bay Area. Pelagic birding is my absolute favorite type of birding: being able to get out in the ocean and see a huge amount of sea life of all types is a treat.

In June this year I had the opportunity to head out there again. And this was a lucky shot.

Mission Street Photowalk

2024-10-12T00:00:00Z

I love the Mission. Specifically, I love the less gentrified parts of it. There's still so much life and culture; DJs spinning records on the street, bands playing live Latin jazz, record stores where you can explore cumbria, and Indigenous dance groups that perform at the many plazas.

Despite its many problems, the Mission is where I default to for food, adventure and fun. And to just generally feel alive.

I took all of these photos on my iPhone yesterday.

an iphone photo of a window with very symmetrical features

Windows.

an iphone photo of a guatemalan sandwich

Universal Bakery has a wonderful torta de carne asada. With a huge block of salty cheese. It's the perfect sandwich for me.

an iphone photo of colorful mosaic tiles

I love the colors of the Mission.

an iphone photo of colorful stairs

More colors.

an iphone photo of a school

Ever since I started shooting medium format on film, I've much preferred square or 1:1 photos. It helps me see the world in a different way.

Cookie the Cavalier

2024-08-06T00:00:00Z

A few things happened.

The main one being, my soulmate, my soul, the love of my life, Cookie pie, passed away. I am bereft, but not afloat.

It feels like a brand new chapter in my life.

Cookie the Cavalier sitting under an airplane seat

Cookie, born 1 October 2009 in Petaling Jaya, died 20 June 2024 in San Francisco.

She was deeply loved through all 14 years and 8 months of her life. There was not a moment where she was not surrounded by tremendous love, warmth and care. She passed, surrounded by people who love her. She was snacking on treats until the end.

Because of her, I learned to love my new home in San Francisco: fog, rain, cold and all. We went everywhere together. We saw everything. We ate: all the time.

I have a thread on Mastodon with more photos and stories about our life together. While I miss her a lot, I am also looking forward to learning more about how to exist without her. She was such a big part of my life that I'm afraid she was almost central to my identity for almost fifteen years.

The One About Scallion Pancakes

2024-05-10T00:00:00Z

I have a weird story about scallion pancakes. It goes like this.

Around this time last year, I was walking down my street in San Francisco when a woman waved something at me. I thought she needed help with something, so I went closer. Instead, she clicked something (she was waving a torch, the kind you ignite gas stoves with), and she held the flame in my face.

I had no idea what she was doing.

She said, "I'm going to burn you!"

"Why?" I was really confused.

"Because you're Chinese."

Oh.

That's what was happening. Until that point, I had largely avoided the worst of that stuff. I had no idea what to do. A bus arrived. I got into it.

As I was leaving, she kept pointing it at me, and she said, I'm also going to burn your dog! She is.. also Chinese!

I know she wasn't well.

I know that she needs help.

But I didn't know what I would do when that happened to me, finally.

Not much, maybe other than a lot of crying. I got to take time off work. I had therapy. I talked to a lot of people. I thought often of the moment, of what had happened, and I don't remember anything else about her now (I am face blind, that helps). If I saw her again on the streets (this happened around the corner where I live), I would not recognize her. But I remember the flame that she briefly lit, and how it changed everything about my life and my experience of the city that I had, up until that moment, thought of as home.

I don't think of her very much now. But it comes up when I least expect it. For example, when I took out a package of Trader Joe's Taiwanese Green Onions Pancake.

Now, it's probably a perfectly fine product for most people, but it's going to be forever remembered in my home now as The Time I Had Trader Joe's Scallion Pancakes and Absolutely Lost My Shit.

Somehow, the act of eating a frozen scallion pancake had unearthed all kinds of.. feelings. Mainly, why the hell am I here? There's racism, and there's frozen scallion pancakes! I would never accept frozen pancakes for any meal back home! Least of all scallion pancakes with COCONUT OIL made for WHITE PEOPLE, that aren't even flaky or layered.. or good!!!

I was inconsolable.

My wife never buys them anymore. She calls it my crying pancakes.

(We really like this one. It doesn't make me cry.)

My pancake nervous breakdown, that probably wasn't really about pancakes, but about immigration, identity, immigration, anxiety, concern about the state of the world and my personal safety, led me to book a flight back to Singapore.

More than anything else, I just needed to know that I was going to have the safety and comforts of home in my family house with my parents and with food I like. Where I was never going to have to eat anything frozen, ever. So I did that, shortly after my pancake breakdown.

And the first meal that I had when I got there was a scallion pancake. From here. Freshly made. By hand. Not frozen. Available for breakfast. For a buck or something. It was really good, and I did not cry.

But my parents could not understand why I so desperately wanted to eat a scallion pancake. It was not something I would crave, or ask for. It's not even really... Singaporean at all.

I could not explain how: between two scallion pancakes, one frozen and one fresh, laid the entire spectrum of my sadness and grief as well as my happiness and joy. I get to be queer, autistic, and to be with the person that I love. But I also get fires in my face, and frozen scallion pancakes that make me cry.

What I'm Up To (May 2024)

2024-05-09T00:00:00Z

Gave a talk at 11ty Conf

My presentation was on, '11ty for 'non-devs'. While rebuilding this site in 11ty, I fell in love with building for the web again. So many things about 11ty just make sense to me. I truly believe that people who are technical-adjacent, but not web devs, can probably have fun with 11ty too. My talk was about my personal journey, why I think 11ty is the right tool for these folks, and why it's important to make building on the web fun again. (View the YouTube video here)

Visited LA

Did I mention that I absolutely love LA? I didn't expect to. I don't like cars. But, I love the people, the food, the neighborhoods. I had a wonderful time in East La and then in Sawtelle. More on that in a bit. I even said on Mastodon 'I like the food scene in LA as much as I like Bangkok's', which is no small feat.

Took so many film photos

I am still developing them.

My wife graduated from SF State!

With honors. I am so proud of her. Next stop: grad school.

Also a few life events that still feel too new to talk about, but I will, soon.

What I'm Up To (April 2024)

2024-04-17T00:00:00Z

Gave a talk at Singapore GovTech UX Week 2024

My presentation was on, 'Centering Marginalized People: in a world of artificial intelligence'. The main gist of what I think on this is, 'why AI? why now? what are you trying to do?' and also 'maybe we can start by going back to basics: try to do things that center marginalized people and you'll get more accessibility AND better AI'.

My dog almost died

We had a vet scare: Cookie is 15 years old this year. She suddenly stopped eating. We received excellent emergency veterinary care at SF AMC. It was pricy, like all emergency vet care, but our pet insurance went a long way. I don't think one should have senior pets in the US without good pet insurance. Anyway, the worst is over, but it was touch and go at one point. Cookie is all better, though she will always have a problem with her digestive system, but the worst is over and we found a way to keep her in a good state, for now. I even posted a retrospective of Cookie's life, but she survived. I'm not sorry: I am thankful for the miracle!

Work is intense right now

I've been working on some large projects at work. I can't talk about them yet, but they are impactful and significant. I like work. There's just a lot of it.

Soy, tofu, love

I've been enjoying my newfound Mastodon food influencer fame. Bit of a joke, but kind of not. There aren't really traditional influencers on Mastodon. But I get to pretend, and to do it in a way I prefer: nerdy, text-based deep dives into things that I really like.

For example, soy sauce. And tofu.

Rediscovered my love of kaju curry

I love cashew curry. When I spent time in North India, I found I didn't love the food of the Hindi belt (I have a hugely biased preference for south Indian, mainly south Indian coastal cuisine). But. Cashew curry, I loved. So I cooked it. It will now be a regular dish in my repertoire.

Did some thinking on what queer marriage means to me

Yes, it's arbitrary, and assimilationist. But I would not be able to have any of this life I now have, without queer marriage as an institution.

Re-upping my mango newsletter. How to buy and eat Indian mangoes. More recently: a list of tandoori restaurants, and a tandoori glossary. I have so many food-related projects now it's hard to keep track.

Popagandhi

Our visa to green card journey

The visa path

What all of this meant for us IRL

Privilege, randomness, and injustice

Nevertheless, we persisted

What I'm Up To (March 2026)

Back to founder mode

Rebuilding this website

Writing and publishing rhythm

Spring projects

Year of the Fire Horse

What I'm Up To (January 2026)

Refreshed design

Celebrated the new year cozily

Catching up with old friends

Penne Pals

Started an AI research lab

Making Things With My Hands

What I'm Up To (June 2025)

Building a new website

Gave a talk at North Bay Python

Spoke at an all staff meeting

AI red team / ethics work

In-laws' visit

June gloom and doom

Whale Watching

My Talk at North Bay Python

Belated New Year

What I'm Up To (March 2025)

Got into Instant Film

Spent a month with my family

Continued to commute to Monterey

Intersections

What I'm Up To (January 2025)

Sea Life

We said goodbye to Cookie

Sabrena graduated

Working on a book

Gulls at Alcatraz

Postcard from Monterey

A Whale of a Time

Mission Street Photowalk

Cookie the Cavalier

The One About Scallion Pancakes

What I'm Up To (May 2024)

Gave a talk at 11ty Conf

Visited LA

Took so many film photos

My wife graduated from SF State!

What I'm Up To (April 2024)

Gave a talk at Singapore GovTech UX Week 2024

My dog almost died

Work is intense right now

Soy, tofu, love

Rediscovered my love of kaju curry

Did some thinking on what queer marriage means to me

Food newsletter