Hollowness, that’s how it feels for a project you have been working on for more than 4 years to come to a halt. See the big pile of steel being loaded out and sail out form the quayside was breath taking. All of us hit the bar almost right after waving goodbye to the monster at the quayside, was sure some of them had tears in their eyes.
People being demobed from the project almost immediately, had 2 of the closest colleagues in the project leaving on the next day after sail away. We drank at the bar until kingdom come, it had to be done.
The whole episode was like a dream, went for an interview in an empty office in KL one day without fully understanding the size of the project, and you end up spending 4 glorious years on it, 2 in KL and 2+ in South Korea. During this 4 years we have been blessed with 2 beautiful twins, had the best time of our life in Korea, learned the culture and language (sort of haha) and also witnessed out beloved country going down the drain with nonstop political bickering.
Of all the countrymen whom I have met in Korea, we all shared the same sigh, why a country like South Korea who started out a poorer nation 30 years ago is now generating 3 times the GDP of our beloved country, why we feel safer waling on the streets of South Korea than we will ever be in our own country? Why we feel the lethargic of the country’s future?
More and more professionals I know will opt to stay overseas, some getting PR and some even giving up their citizenship for the sake of their next generation.
Makes me wonder, where do we go from here?
Btw, God bless Lee Kuan Yew!
