My life should have ended that day.
I was driving back from Ipoh to Penang when my Charade spun out of control on the highway. Miraculously, I walked away without a scratch — except for the realisation that something inside me had reached breaking point.
For seven years, I had sold workstations and servers at Dell. I was good at it — the introverted girl who hid behind a telephone line ended up winning top salesperson more than once. But the pressure-cooker rhythm came with a cost I didn’t yet understand.
While recovering at home after the accident, I finally got the chance to appreciate the orchids my father tended, watched my spunky mother take on contractors twice her size, realised how much of their lives I had missed.
For the first time, I understood that nothing — time, family, health — is guaranteed. So I did the unthinkable for someone at the peak of her career. I left a job with a five-figure salary armed with just a vague childhood dream of writing. With the freedom to follow my curiosity, I explored worlds I never had the chance to when I was in corporate.
I went on my first solo backpacking trip to Kuching, where I ended up staying in the longhouse of a Sarawakian I met in a B&B. It became my first travel article for The Star. My second story was written after watching the Chippendales dancers on stage. Tickled by how the audience went wild (some threw underwear at the dancers!), I thought, how many Malaysians get to experience this? I went after the cutest dancer – who turned out to be a former IT guy! – and scored an interview.
My cheeky, early scoops caught the editors’ attention and eventually led to my column in The Star called Navel Gazer, where I continued to write about people we often overlook: bus conductors, taxi drivers, stall owners, train operators. Many of my stories helped revive and draw queues to hidden gems. This was before the age of social media of course.
Years later, some of these stories made it into my book, Made in Malaysia: Stories of Hometown Heroes and Hidden Gems. At the launch in Nu Sentral, surrounded by over a hundred people including the kind Samaritans I’d met along my journey as a freelancer, I realised my work had never been about food, travel, or lifestyle.
It was about giving people back their humanity and dignity. Over time, my writing and the platforms I write on have evolved. I still chase human stories but today I also help founders, leaders, and organisations unearth their own.
That accident on the highway was the best thing that ever happened to me. It taught me that when life hands you a second chance, you don’t waste it living someone else’s story.
You learn to tell your own. And if you’re lucky, you help others tell theirs too.
Alexandra Wong, Penang
