Initially, I was going to write a typical bio—talking about my profession, skills, achievements, interests, etc.—but then I thought, Why would I do that? This is my personal blog, not a LinkedIn profile.

So I’ve decided to just freely write about who I am as a human being living in this world, and hopefully both you and I can learn something about myself. This is supposed to be a living document where everything is subject to change as I grow older and experience life.

Updated: 30 Dec, 2025

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I’m a lifelong creative

I’ve been a creative of some sort for as long as I can remember. Music is the most prevalent part of my creative life. I’ve been a hobbyist pianist since my parents signed me up for piano lessons when I was seven. As a kid, there were a few years where I took painting and drawing lessons, and I also wrote many notebooks’ worth of stories. I started my first blog back in elementary school, some 20 years ago. While nothing tangible came out of these activities, they shaped who I am as a creative now and are a major reason I ended up as a creative professional.

I care a great deal about aesthetics and design

I’m a sucker for beautifully designed things, from applications: Things 3, Craft, iA Writer (my main writing app), MindNode, Pixelmator Pro, Monocle, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, etc.; to hardware: Apple Studio Display, redesigned Mac mini, CalDigit’s Thunderbolt docks, Humanscale monitor arms, the Aeron chair, etc. My love for amazing design is one reason I’m all-in on Apple products—the most beautifully designed hardware and apps are often found exclusively in the Apple ecosystem. I’m actually brand-agnostic—I’ll go wherever great design is.

In my creative works, I often obsess over details pertaining to aesthetics and design. For example, I’ve spent many hours trying to tweak the typographic design of this blog—I’ve tested many typefaces (and I’m still not satisfied) and tweaked details like leading and line length for days on end. When creating motion graphics for my YouTube videos, I spend way too much time tweaking details such as the animation for motion graphics.

I consider this both a strength and a weakness of mine. It’s a strength because my obsession over design has encouraged me to learn and be better in my craft—it got me a career in video production. It’s a weakness because I often spend more time tweaking the look than creating actual content. This trait also makes it really hard for me to use stuff that I think is terribly designed but I cannot avoid (mostly due to work): most products by Microsoft, Adobe apps, Canva etc. Having to use these apps irritates me more than it should and it makes my job less enjoyable.

I always try to consider the opposite perspective

I think our society has become way too divisive and I’m always hyper-aware of the risk of being trapped in my own echo chamber without realizing, and so for whatever view and opinion I have, I often try to think, How could someone argue against this view/opinion? What are some flaws in my view/opinion? As a result, I don’t really have a strong opinion on anything and I’m always open to hearing different opinions. I think this habit is from all the argumentative essays I wrote as an English major in university and it’s one of the reasons why I believe majoring in literary studies is way more useful than most people think.

My career isn’t my priority

While I like my job (luckily), I currently have no desire to climb any career ladder. I’ll do my job to the best of my ability, but I don’t want to voluntarily do anything beyond my job description (and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that). With my job being a permanent position and protected by a strong labour union, I aim to have a “long and thin” career where I just do my job during work hours and not think about work once my shift is done so I can do things I enjoy, like playing the piano, gaming, baking, blogging, spending time with family and so on. Life is too short to slave away for money.

I think AI is doing more harm than good to humanity and our planet

That is my general stance but, admittedly, I’m still having many internal debates about this because AI certainly can be very useful in ways other than benefiting the richest of the rich. I hope to explore this topic in a future blog post.

I’m proud of my Cantonese heritage and Canadian citizenship

Having been born and grown up in Canton—the origin of Cantonese culture—I always took the Cantonese language and culture for granted. However, after over 12 years of living in Canada and hearing about the drastic decline of Cantonese speakers in Canton due to government suppression in the last decade, I realized how important Cantonese is for me as a cultural identity. I started to explore music from the golden era of Cantopop (1980s–90s), learn Jyutping (a romanization system for Cantonese) with the hope of teaching it to my kids in the future, speak Cantonese to Cantonese speakers in Toronto, and engage with Cantonese learners online to help keep the language alive.

As a Canadian citizen, I love Canada; Canada is home. It’s not perfect—no country is—but I align with the overall morals and values that Canada holds. I’m proud that Canadians have united together and started the “Buy Canadian” movement in response to the Trump administration threatening our sovereignty. I’m proud and relieved that many Canadians, unlike Americans, had the common sense to grasp that a political party’s past actions don’t represent its future ones and to strategically elect someone with actual expertise and work experience in economics to lead Canada instead of someone who campaigned on division and hate.

I’m an atheist but support freedom of religion

I think religious beliefs should be treated like our genitals—you can have them, you can be proud of them and they can make you feel good, but don’t show them to other people unsolicitedly and definitely don’t shove them down people’s throats.

The only somewhat religious thing that I sort of entertain is karma, or more specifically, the idea of “you reap what you sow.” I don’t really believe in it but it encourages me to be a better person, do more good deeds and be considerate of others.

More about me

• My favourite TV show of all time, which had a huge impact on my attitudes in life, is a Japanese superhero drama series called Kamen Rider Kuuga
• I’m very particular about my hair and very afraid of changing my existing hairstyle
• I have meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD), which gives me dry eye often, especially after prolonged screen use and being in an environment with low humidity
• I’ve never smoked, and I don’t drink except for the occasional sip or two
• I used to be a metalhead, but I hated live metal music. It was way too loud and chaotic. With the exception of orchestral music, I prefer listening to recordings
• I love physical dictionaries and used to collect dictionaries for fun. I pre-ordered the newest edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary as soon as it was announced
• I’m a coffee snob and drink black coffee brewed with freshly ground, high-end light roast coffee beans and special water made specifically for brewing light roast coffee
• I’m half–Hakka; I can understand limited Hakka Chinese but not speak it
• I hate and am extremely uncomfortable with large social gatherings like generic work parties
• I prefer to stay at home when I have free time
• I’m extremely hard to offend
• I love Brussels sprouts