Subscribe
Cyberpunk self-portrait of Jenxi

About

Jenxi Seow

I am a Malaysian living in Shenzhen, China. I spent my childhood and teenage years commuting daily from Johor Bahru to study in Singapore, and then returning home. Having to travel four to five hours a day to cross the border was a character-building process. I finally moved to Singapore when I started my undergraduate studies.

I graduated from the NUS School of Pharmacy. I practiced as a pharmacist for seven years before quitting my job to pursue entrepreneurship in creative work. I left Singapore for Shenzhen, where I’ve come to call home.

A little history

After discovering the internet, I wanted to create fan sites for Japanese TV drama Beach Boys and Gundam. I taught myself HTML and CSS, I published my first webpages on Geocities in 1998. When I needed custom graphics for the sites, I taught myself Photoshop to create the images I needed.

When blogs became the rage in 2000, I created many blogs before I built this site in 2002. See the section below for more details.

I started building websites as a freelancer in 2004. After accumulating ten years of experience, I co-founded RubyCoded with my friend Matt in 2014 to offer high quality design services.

I picked up my first digital camera in 2009. and became obsessed with photography. I taught myself photography and finally found my passion in street photography. My portfolio contains some of the shots I like from my long term photography projects.

Matt and I are coffee enthusiasts and we were lucky to be handed the opportunity to realise our dream of opening a cafe in 2015 in Shenzhen. We broke even in three months, but the coffee culture was not as vibrant back then.

Matt returned to Malaysia in 2016 to start a family and I moved on to provide design services to trading companies in Shenzhen.

In 2018, I met Giovanni, an Italian based in Shenzhen. We hit off immediately and shared common vision and passion. We founded CheeseFlow with the mission of bringing good products to the international market. We do this by helping brands with brand strategy, design, marketing, and after-sales service.

Creative muse

An aspiring artist and author. I enjoy creating with my imagination. The possibilities are endless if you tear down the boundaries around your mind.

“Beauty is not a word. It’s a world. See the world through my eyes as I strive to record a legacy that would last long after I’m gone.”

Jenxi Seow

I love reading wuxia novels and I translate them into English on WuxiaSociety to bring these masterpieces to the English-speaking audience. These Chinese works have much potential for exploration in English literature.

Besides wuxia, I also translate work for clients, with a particular focus on game localisation from Chinese to English. I get to enjoy the plot before anyone else, without having to grind through the games. The projects allow me to analyse the game narratives for inspirations and ways to improve my storytelling.

Translation is a way I give back to the community too. I’ve been building websites using WordPress since it was released in 2003. In return for the decades of benefit I get from the open source project, I contribute to the WordPress Polyglots team.

I grew up watching Gundam anime and share my passion for mecha series at MechaBay, a database for the mecha genre that also functions as test bed for design my experiments.

As heavy users of gadgets and avid readers of tech news, Matt and I founded BakingPixel to share our opinions.

I collect photo books of notable photographers to learn through studying their works. The art of photography is something I need to slowly learn to appreciate and develop my style.

I have an apricot toy poodle called Xiaobao, literally Little Treasure in Chinese. He is my sidekick in life and a constant reminder of the other dogs in our family in heaven.

About this website

I started this blog to be a test bed for my web design experiments. It has evolved into a platform where I share my musings. It has seen many iterations since 2002, but one thing remains constant over the past 20 years: my journey of self-discovery.

The site first ran on MovableType. It loaded fast as a static site, but the drawback was the need to build the site each time something changed. This led me to migrate to WordPress within a year and the site has been powered by WordPress all these years.

Strong opinions, weakly held

Here’s a public record of my views, inspired by Devon Zuegel. I’m a staunch believer that we should be passionate about our opinions, but show even more enthusiasm to challenge and change them.

  • I want to be mindful of my life. I’ve gone on autopilot for certain parts of my life and while there’s no point in regretting, I don’t want it to happen again
  • I want to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable makes me authentic. This is how I can connect better with others. Cocooning myself in a shell makes me pretentious and I’ll loose the chance to find a kindred spirit.
  • I will keep learning because I know there is a lot I don’t know. In fact, the more I learn, the less I know. So one can never stop learning.
  • I will always be ready to share what I’ve learnt with others who I think will benefit from or be interested in it.
  • I try to be present when I’m with others. I don’t let myself be distracted, unless it is a real emergency that requires my immediate attention. If that is the case, explain the situation and apologise.
  • I let people know when they have done something that helped me a lot. I don’t want to not have the chance to do so, or only express myself when it no longer matters.
  • I will avoid being negative. I have been toxic at a certain point in my life. Everyone has their problems to deal with in life and don’t deserve to share mine.
    • That said, I there are a few people in my life whom I know are always there for me. I know I can share my negative thoughts, as long as I ask for permission first. They are the ones who I know will be honest and say no if they are not ready for a toxic dump.
    • This is different from hiding struggles from my friends. I’m very transparent with my struggles and being vulnerable means they know I want them to be there for me. They know I will be there for them too.
  • Likewise, I will not let toxic people in my life. Life is too short to be wasted on such people. The naysayers. The pretenders. The false friends.
  • I will be very selective with the people I spend my time with. Our time is limited. Only spend time with those who matter.
  • Don’t argue with fools. Smile and nod. Move along.

My interests

Connect with me