About Ivy

Hello! My name is Ivy.

I was born in the morning of December 19, 1985 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia although my passport says that I am Singaporean. I studied at Jakarta International School, Singapore American School and finally graduated high school from the International School of Kuala Lumpur in 2004.

In June 2008, I graduated from the University of Toronto with a BA (Honours). I majored in political science, with a concentration of political theory. I also minored in rhetoric and East Asian languages.

Ivy the Social Media / PR Person

I have since returned to Singapore to become a corporate communications officer at major Asian telco. See my LinkedIn profile for more info. My primary responsibility is to monitor and engage the local online community. But I also spend a significant amount of my time managing events, corporate sponsorships and other web-related projects.

With that said, everything written at nanyate.com and other related profiles, unless stated otherwise, are my personal views and in no way associated with my employer.

Ivy the Third Culture Kid

I am a classic adult third culture kid – multilingual and an avid fan of world cultures. A third culture kid is someone who grew up overseas, and have embraced 1) the culture of her parents, 2) the culture of the foreign land in which she has resided, and 3) the culture of the communities she belonged to in the foreign land she resided. For more information, go to Wikipedia’s entry on Third Culture Kids.

I have spent my 23 years living in 5 different countries: Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Canada. As a result of my nomadic life, I currently speak 9 and a half languages; English and Hokkien natively, Mandarin fluently, French passively, Cantonese and Malay colloquially, Spanish, Indonesian and Korean basically. And the half of a language is my latest interest – Japanese. I have been teaching myself hiragana, basic grammar and have been watching lots of anime to improve my comprehension skills.

Ivy the ENTJ

According to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), I am an ENTJ – or as Keirsey calls it, the Fieldmarshal. ENTJs love efficiency. Everything we do, everything we think about ultimately boils down to “how can I make the world run a little better?” In our effort to run the world like clockwork, we have the tendency to make (others’ and our own) emotions a low priority.

Ivy the Agnostic Theist

I choose not to have a religious affiliation, as I do not believe that my relationship with a higher force needs human mediation. I am a firm believer of a higher force; and there is no need for me to prove it.

Ivy the Social Democrat

Due to the controversial nature of my political entries, I have chosen to avoid writing about politics. But for those who caught a glimpse of it, I am a social democrat. This means I believe in fair trade, and some level of state regulation. A free economy cannot possibly run itself efficiently, and is highly prone in income inequality.

Yes, this means I am the bastard who advocates for more taxes. But I’d like to go to sleep knowing that less people are out starving in the streets, while I work towards becoming the next Bill Gates.