Lester (34) & Charmaine (33) Making a Life, Not a Living

From running a marathon in North Korea to living the Van Life for 6 months and everything in between, Lester and Charmaine to me, represent a way of life that is both so close within reach yet so far out of sight. For many of us, it is there for the taking – ‘slow living’, but I reckon only a small fraction can muster the courage to fall off pace, out of the race and to live life on our own terms.

We caught up over a meal at their cosy flat in August, going around the table sharing where we were on our own creative journeys. I went away feeling a little less anxious, a little more excited about the uncertainty that lies ahead on mine.

Photo by @samuelgoh

“We don’t really have proper work titles to describe the work we do but we identify the most with being Creatives. We do simple video production, run our family’s home-based curry bun business (@eatmycb), engage in a myriad of random creative projects we are entrusted with and mostly, laze with our dogs @btostory.”

“We belong to the category of people whose work and leisure are very much intertwined. Very often, we turn our leisures into work and we seek leisure in the work we do.”

A monthly sight for the past two years – with collaborators-turn-friends from The Merry Men Works

“When we are free, we also enjoy meeting travellers on Couchsurfing. We’ve been hosting and ‘surfing’ for 10 years. For us, it is one of the best ways to travel. While we can’t travel the world now, we’d like to bring the world to us.”

Introducing Singaporean Breakfast Set A to Nadine & Guiherme from São Paulo, Brazil.

“We were Creative Media Design classmates in Singapore Polytechnic – a course that had a broad curriculum which exposed us to a wide range of creative practices. In hindsight, it probably helped us to be versatile and adaptable in our current work. It was also great in helping us figure out our strengths and weaknesses. At the core of it, our lecturers ingrained in us the importance of having a creative idea, regardless of the medium.”

“At our age, with 25 years of working experience between us, we still find ourselves very inexperienced at the things we do.”

“Before working for ourselves, we both spent 6 years in design and advertising agencies. Lester then co-founded a tech startup at 26 after reading one too many Jack Ma and Elon Musk books, and failed at it two years later. After which, he did an internship at a video production house when he was 30 because what ever video knowledge we had at that time, was learnt on YouTube. Charmaine then took on these secondhand knowledge from Lester.”

“We fear not having a stable salary, not living up to societal expectations, not keeping up with our peers. But mostly, we fear giving in to our fears. For they say, feed someone a comfortable salary and they forget their dreams.”

“Two years ago, the pandemic rendered our family of four freelancers (dad, mum and us) ‘non-essential’. So Eat My Curry Bun was born out of circumstance.”

“Over the years, we have dived and dabbled in various work, often led by passion rather than a plan because success is not a metric we are after but the experience is what we want.”

“So we consciously try to take up different projects, meet different collaborators and put ourselves in unfamiliar places in hopes that the more different input there is, the more perspectives the output will have.”

Eatmycb Pop-Up at BTOStory just a couple of weeks ago; with brand new Bunny Chow and Tofu dishes. When asked how they thought to have a little cafe-esque gathering, Lester said, “Just wanted to try-try.”

“It’s like traveling. Every time we take a trip or an adventure, we return refreshed and rewarded with new insights, new inspirations, new approaches, and a newfound drive to do what we do. We become braver to take on projects we’d never thought to partake in previously.”

“If someone were to ask us where we see ourselves in 5 years, we wouldn’t be able to guess. Even 5 months is a long shot. Some may see this as a lot of uncertainty and instability but after many 5 months-es, we’ve learnt to be adaptable and at peace.”

Photo by @samuelgoh

“Lester has a rather unhealthy creative process. He pegs the satisfaction of his work with the amount of pain and struggle he goes through during the project. He often works best under stress. If he hasn’t been to hell, the work’s not his best. It’s a realisation he has come to based on the many past experiences he has had. (Someone PLEASE help him detach from this way of working).”

“Charmaine is the consistent teammate. Once she’s handed a task, she becomes a bulldozer that charges ahead with no restraints.”

Photo by Ivan Yak for @themerrymenworks

“As different as we may be at work, we share very similar values and ideals. There’s no ego between us and we are very objective driven. We know that even the harshest criticism towards each other is well intended and very much for the betterment of the work and nothing personal to our relationship. This mutual understanding is important because we live and work together 24/7.”

“We see life as a creative project in itself and we try to create opportunities for us to experience and express ourselves.”

“The ad we created to sell our campervan at a used car marketplace“

“One of our favourite projects was living out of an old DHL van for 6 months in New Zealand. While we learnt how long our reserve battery could power our laptops for, how much water we used to brush our teeth, how much space we needed to feel comfortable, we also learnt a lot about what we’d work for even where there are no rewards.”