If you had told me that I would been the connective tissue for this community, especially from the east to the west, I would have laughed. I’m always in awe of the brilliance this community has brought together, but like the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together.
I cofounded Asian Wander Women, a 1.1K+ online Facebook community that inspires women to be location and financial independent. During 2020, Ivy and I decided to build a group with a small subset of friends who were like-minded and passionate about building their own businesses—they came from San Francisco, Toronto, New York, and organically found us through second and third degrees of connection.
To share the wide range of characters in our community, you should understand the power of interconnectivity and finding like-minded friends that have paved their own paths.
You have Grace, who quit IDEO Japan and became the cofounder of Orca, one of the most popular Solana cryptocurrency exchanges. There’s Bonnie, an Australian Chinese from Hong Kong who has been based in Singapore for the past ten years and now taking a short career revert in London with her new love interest. There’s Sally, a 500k+ influencer, digital agency owner, and OnlyFans creator who works with high end luxury brands and clients.
Laura was also an early trailblazer who quit her Twitter job and became a famously published comic artist when she released a short comic called “The Wuhan I Know” in response to the growing sinophobia during the covid-19 pandemic. And lastly, we have Angela, the ex-lawyer who left her prestigious Dow Jones corporate job to surf in Mexico and figure things out—she later found her partner while surfing and decided to create her own llc to help small business owners protect themself legally.
As for me?
That year, I found myself staying in Singapore and became The Fang Girl. I started vlogging about my life as a tech employee and community strategist. I became a source of truth, showing what life could be like living in another country like Singapore whilst working in tech and building a whole new life here.
This journey of mine inspired a wave of interest from my fellow viewers around the world who wanted to live in Singapore and go beyond what we knew about this country, which was surface level knowledge from Crazy Rich Asians. I get DMs and people reaching out all the time who want advice on how to live and work in Singapore.
This happened so much that now I only take paid calls only on Superpeer. But because of that initial reach, I was able to attract like-minded women who eventually became friends and now part of my community. In Singapore, we have thrown networking events, meetups, dating mixers, and book club. Now we’re even hosting a buildathon that will run for three days online on zoom and discord.
The archetypes of our current community members include:
- remote entrepreneurs who rotate in various cities
- digital nomads who create content, write, vlog, or coach
- those who have a home base, but travel often
- relocated workers who live overseas on an employment pass
- aspiring remote entrepreneurs or employees
Perhaps it’s due to the traditional mindset that school and parents instilled in us, but school never really set us up properly to live the lives we wanted. We were all fit into boxes, taught to conform and live within the confines of what society wanted us to do. Nevertheless even more so within Asian society and culture.
This community serves to inspire, connect, and knowledge share amongst the women who have pioneered their own journeys. While the path stepping forward may be daunting and lonely, it feels better to do it with others who are doing the same.
In the next couple of months, I hope to turn AWW into a multi-media channel company that helps to bring forth the stories in our communities, while inspiring and encouraging women to pursue their own version of success. All tied by a desire to be location independent, Asian Wander Women will become a force to be reckoned with. A kind and genuine, but powerful force that will redesign and open up paths for women around the world.
For now, if you’re interested in supporting, you can:
- Follow us on Instagram
- Join our online Facebook community
- Email or reach out to us at hello@wanderwomendao.com for partnerships or collaborations
