singapore 1999 to 2013

I was a salesman: Promoting and marketing anything nature.

This is me at the front counter of the Botanic Garden Shop, we had that lease until 2008. Yes, we did have staff to handle the retail sales, but I enjoyed being at the counter as well, as much as I could when the shop was busy - and it often was! It is a great way to meet the customers immediately face to face and find out what they want. In essence, saleswork is just about helping people, making them feel good, finding out what they need. Sure, if you can make the company grow and support nature in the same time, so much the better!

Notice the 1999/2000 Christmas/New Year greeting cards behind me across the window from friends and suppliers. This year (2021/2022) Bee Choo and I received one - 1 - card in the mail: From Victor Mason in Indonesia (see the 'Bali' tab).

14 years of selling, writing and publishing nature books.

My Second Life started in 1999

As you would know from the last tab, 23 August 1999 I arrived in Singapore on a one-year Employment Pass as Marketing Manager in Bee Choo’s company, Nature’s Niche Pte. Ltd. I kept getting that pass renewed until 7 April 2005 when I became Singapore PR, Permanent Resident. In spite of the name, PR status is not permanent, according to Singapore immigration regulations it has to be renewed every five years. But so far, my so-called Re-Entry Permit has been renewed successfully; the current permit expires 31 August 2024, three months before that date I have to apply again.

After I arrived in Singapore, I got back in touch with all my old Singapore friends, I started playing badminton every week with my old oil-field buddies Wee and Wong, a few others as well now and then. My friend Iain told me that a new life of mine had begun. I said: “Iain, I have had several different lives already so far: In Norway, the UK, Denmark, North America, Indonesia, China …” “No, those periods were all the same life”, Iain said, “Your second life starts now”. As usual, Iain was right.

Bee Choo and I worked our butts off, but it didn’t seem like that at the time, it was just how we lived. We ran the Botanic Garden Shop which was open 9 am to 7 pm every day; the shop never closed a single day for any reason for 10 years! We had to go there ½ hr early in the morning to get ready and usually only left 7:30 pm or so at night, after doing the final tidying up and closing of the daily sales accounts. Bee Choo had other staff of course to work at the counter, but the two of us where there much of the time; at the back, there was a tiny office/storeroom where we could do the admin work. The company had another shop inside the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve Visitor Centre, and we were expanding our online sales and wholesale business as well, it was my job to develop these business segments. We drove up to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to buy and sell books in bulk, sometimes also optical equipment, five or six times per year; I knew that North-South Expressway like the back of my hand. Sometimes we would make a quick stop at nearby Fraser’s Hill for some much needed R&R, see the ‘Fraser’s Hill’ tab for details.

Something weird happened to me on a personal note. My X in Denmark, who had been so happy to see me go in 1999, realized that Bee Choo and I were an item and that we were planning to marry, and she threw a fit. Her clothing company was facing bankruptcy, in 2000 she sold our matrimonial home in Skødstrup to raise cash and kept all the money for herself – but then lost that as well the next year. Maybe the life of a single mother ‘welfare queen’ is not all it is cracked up to be after all. So my X started calling Bee Choo and me day and night, harassing Bee Choo and telling me she would kill herself if I didn’t ‘come home’. That wasn’t much of a threat to me, I said: “Be my guest”, but poor Bee Choo hadn’t signed up for all this nonsense and didn’t like it one bit. My X told me she would give up custody of our three kids, so I made plans to bring Adam (9 at the time) to Singapore, I would send the twins (13) to a Danish boarding school once I gained full control. But surprise-surprise, my X got cold feet, she never signed over the kids to me; she needed them for her welfare schemes and child support payments. I will tell you, you don’t really know a person until you have divorced him or her!

Well, the issue simmered down, nobody killed anybody, Bee Choo and I married 1 April 2002, we all got on with our respective lives. I paid child support till my Danish kids turned 18, after that I helped support them through their university education, Simon and Adam never got too much of that anyhow. However, somewhat to my disappointment, my X and I couldn’t be friends any longer, the way my parents were after their divorce. She and I never really met again, except briefly at my mother’s funeral some 10 years later.

2008 proved to be a particularly busy year for all of us. In February, Bee Choo took Mark (he was 5 and still not in school) to Thailand, while I stayed at home and worked, we had our usual little Malaysia trips, and 1 May to 19 May 2008 I travelled to Ecuador with one of our family friends, Professor Ng Soon Chye to photograph Neotropical region birds. It would be my last trip as a freelance bird photographer, I took my last bird picture the next year on a Malaysia trip and sold off all my – by then antique – SLR film equipment shortly afterwards. We moved out of the Botanic Garden Shop later that year and shifted our retail business, back offices and storeroom across to Orchidville off Mandai Road. Our staff ran that place 24 August to 9 September 2008 while I, Bee Choo and Mark travelled to Alaska to meet my old friend Bill at his mining camp in the Brooks Range, see the ‘Alaska 2008’ tab for details.

After we moved to Orchidville, I started working for our new company, Draco Publishing and Distribution Pte. Ltd., although I would still help out Bee Choo in her new shop and with Nature’s Niche business in general, on and off as required. But by the 2010s I felt that the book business was turning into a sunset industry. The company still made money, but selling nature books was gradually getting to be more and more like pulling teeth. Most of our titles had to be sponsored to make financial sense, and I just didn’t enjoy that type of business so much. Hornbills of the World (2013) became the last book I did for Draco. I started reinventing myself as a Financial Analyst that same year; to qualify as such, I passed my first test with the Institute of Banking and Finance 22 November 2013. A new epoch in my life had begun.

working for nature's niche

So, here it is: The Botanic Garden Shop. Bee Choo and her company Nature's Niche Pte Ltd secured the lease in 1998, I joined the following year and we operated the shop till 2008. By then our landlord, National Parks Board, had a different CEO, it was all about $ and cents for him, so he tripled the rent forcing us out and today an ordinary souvenir outfit has this excellent retail space.

Never mind, it was fun while it lasted, I enjoyed every minute of it. But looking back, it was also a lot of work, so maybe 10 years with this pace is plenty. Here is my new boss 31 Dec 1999 at the counter while we are closing up for the year, testing one of the new Swarovski binoculars that had come in. The new POS system and inventory and customer base software was all state of the art for those days.

In early 2000 we arranged a 'One Year Survival Celebration' party for our friends and customers - they were often the same people!

This is me in my white polo shirt company uniform addressing our guests outside the shop itself. Bee Choo had renovated and designed the shop from scratch, she selected the merchandise and dealt with our 100-or-so different suppliers. My job was just to chat up the customers and make them feel good! Right, I also had to update our website and process our growing internet orders, as well as negotiate and manage the book wholesale distribution contracts we secured along the way.

When it comes down to it, sales work is a matter of helping others, that is the way I look at it. You help your customers by listening to them, you find out what they need and give them what they want at a fair price. Marketing and trading should be win-win, in the end all are better off that way: Customers, suppliers, staff - and yes, you as well! I have read my share of How to Win Friends and Influence People-type of self-help books; but my favorite is this one by the late Iain Ewing who died at only 69 in 2014. It came out in 1992, this is the 2010 9th printing that I still keep on my shelf, kindly dedicated by the author.

Although Singapore is a happening place, it is also a fairly small market, especially for something like English language nature books. While the Singapore population was some 4 million on paper at that time, our potential customer base was probably less that 10% of that. So we couldn't just sit at the Botanic Garden Shop and wait for customers to drop by, we had to reach out. When BirdLife International had their World Congress in Malaysia in October 1999, Bee Choo and I drove up and set up a stall selling bird books at the venue: The Awana in Genting Highlands. This is the view from the hotel balcony.

On the road again the following year: At the International Hornbill Conference in Phuket, Thailand, 2001. Bee Choo and I tagged along to sell binoculars and telescopes, we were the local agents for Swarovski Optik at the time. I wasn't so sure about going through Thai customs with a suitcase packed with expensive optics for sale, but in the end no one bothered me.

I have lost count of how many events I participated in while working for Nature's Niche. Nature days, flower shows, gardening exhibitions and environmental outreach occasions in shopping centres, universities and function halls. I don't know where this is exactly, we are selling nature books and gift items, but I do remember packing in and out the inventory and the cash register - again and again.

Here we are invited to a school during a nature appreciation event; I am selling field guides and little nature nick-nacks to the kids and the teachers. This was long before each student had a smartphone with the world in it, so there was still a market for printed information.

And I do remember where this is: Bugis Junction shopping mall. I was manning the Nature's Niche stall during a Nature Society (S) outreach event. For three days, Friday to Sunday, 11 am to 9 pm. The aircon was freezing cold; I had one fashion shop blasting pop music in my ear from one side and another blasting similar music from the other side of the corridor. My head was spinning after 10 hours on my feet like that, talking to hundreds of people ... but sure, in the end the sales were worth it!

In the 2000s there was a rapidly growing market for information about nature in Singapore and South-east Asia in general. At Nature's Niche we started producing our own merchandise, including fold-out guides to birds, insects and orchids of Singapore. One of our sales staff could draw, and I provided the text for this bird guide that became one of our best-sellers with many reprints over the next 20+ years. In 2004, we founded Draco Publishing and Distribution Pte Ltd to separate out our publishing and wholesale activities from the retail and internet business of Nature's Niche.

the life of a salesman

As you stepped into Botanic Garden Shop, this is what you would see. A few times a year, Bee Choo would get an interior designer in to help out.

We sold nature-based jewelry and optics in this part of the shop, Bee Choo trained our staff to deal with these higher end products.

But as a category, books were 50% of our shop turn-over and most of our internet sales. Books on plants, gardening, ecology and all animal groups.

My work station in the small office-cum-store room we had at the back of the shop.

The view from my chair; adorable, isn't it? 2003, Mark is 1/2 year, Adam visiting for a while from Denmark is 11.

Nature's Niche also operated a shop here: At the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve Visitor Centre. In fact, it was here Bee Choo started out her company.

the tale of two bird books

The new bird books on Periplus Editions that I introduce in the 1993-1999 tab got finished on time. The first volume on SE Asia came out in 2000.

The second volume was the one founder and CEO, Eric Oey, was actually most keen to do: The first and so far the only bird guide to all of Indonesia.

The books were a lot of work as you can imagine, but a labour of love; here I have a meal/meeting with Periplus editorial and sales staff.

17 March 2001 we had the official launch of the two books together: Where else but at the Botanic Garden Shop!?

This is from the launch. In spite of what it says on the book-covers, I did NOT take all the photos, I relied on my network of friends to help me.

This is from the function room behind our shop where we had events, I show-and-tell about my work putting the books together.

life with bee choo

I married the boss!

I guess it is all executives' dream to score the owner of the company, am I right? But that aside, Bee Choo and I just clicked. It was lucky for me that I met her, because now, getting nearer to the end of my term, I can truthfully say that it is not that easy to find the right partner. Here I am at the Registry of Marriage 1 April 2002 with various brothers- and sisters-in-law and my late mother-in-law (1940-2016) as well.

Once Mark turned up later in 2002 we had to move into a place with a bit more space, and some better facilities for kids. Here the two of us sit at the new place, it was ready for T.O.P. August 2003; the first few days Mark wanted to 'go home', but he gradually got used to the new surroundings.

And fast forward some nine years to 18 September 2012; we celebrate my 60 years birthday with an auto-release selfie in the same sofa, there is just a bit more 'stuff' around us!

Getting a new home was so great that a couple of years later I bought another one! My job and our business were doing well, so were my books and my investments, I had multiple sources of income. It was after the 2003 SARS downturn, the Singapore property market was oversold (in my view, at the time). In April 2004 I put down a payment for this new unit at Amaninda Condominiums off Thomson Road and I got the keys in January 2005.

We furnished up the place and used it as an office for a while, our accountant worked here while she did our books. We also had overseas visitors staying here now and then; my Dad and Ingrid stayed here when they visited us in 2006. It was a quiet little place and I liked it.

This is Adam during one of his visits, fooling around with Mark at the Amaninda pool, the date is 28 July 2007. Adam is 15, Mark is almost 5; I was hoping those two could grow up to be friends for life, but that wasn't to be, see 'My kids' for this sad story. Adam stayed here again for a while after high school in December 2010, but he didn't want to live in Singapore and hasn't visited us since. I rented out the place after that but found it a hassle to deal with tenants. In November 2011 I took profit on this investment and sold out. I bought Amaninda for S$480K and sold it five years later for S$890K, not a bad return. I paid off my home mortgage with the S$400K, paid a bit into Bee Choo's CPF account and bought SGX blue-chip stocks for the rest.

In our household we divide up the jobs a bit like this: I take care of our home, maintenance and upkeep; Bee Choo buys and services our cars! In 2006 we got tired of the Ford Mondeo 2.0 Auto we had then, it was a decent cruising car but too powerful and thirsty for the city where we only got some 10-12 km per litre of gas. That year, Toyota came out with the 2G Prius Hybrid, and we were the 5th customers in Singapore to sign on. This is the Toyota owners magazine Oct-Dec 2006 issue: We helped out with 'An Interview with a Passionate Prius Owner'.

And here are the passionate owners, the poster couple for the new hybrid technology. Mark is turning four, but I still like to carry him around!

At the time, I thought that hybrid cars were the greatest invention since sliced bread - as you can gather if you are able to read the small print from this feature on your screen. But do you want to know something funny? Today I am not so sure about that any longer. There are big problems with hybrid cars, the added weight of some 400 kg of metal and wiring and a nasty lithium battery alone is an issue. At 20-22 km/l, the improved gas consumption doesn't really make up for the additional resources waste during production, both in terms of materials and of financial capital. I will get back to this in the next tab: '2013+'.

This period of my life was pretty busy - with regards to work, family and also with a lot of socializing. Here I attend the farewell party for my friend Clive Briffett (1943-2011) who moved back to the UK, settling in Oxford, in January 2001. It was sad to see Clive go, and to make matters worse he didn't live too long after that, see the 'Death' tab for more about him.

As part of our Nature's Niche work, almost every week Bee Choo and I would go out and meet friends, customers and suppliers to socialize and/or develop our business, usually a bit of both! Here we dine out with Albert Earl Gilbert (on the right) and his wife and a few other friends. Bee Choo is right behind photographer Jimmy Chew on the left; the date is 3 Dec 2009. Al is an American wildlife artist, he was in town on that occasion to oversee the production of his plates illustrating Joseph Foreshaw's amazing monograph on the Trogon family of birds.

And another night out with the Photographic Society of Singapore, sharing a table with the guest of honor Lady McNeice (1917-2012; seated, in red). I remember that evening 14 November 2009 for a number of reasons, one being that many of the guests were late because parts of the city centre were locked down and the traffic was chaotic: That was the same day that President Obama visited Singapore to attend the APEC summit.

some trips in the 2000s

Aussie Ken de la Motte (1956-2008) was one of Bee Choo's good friends (see 'My wife' for details). He moved to Hong Kong with his wife; 26 Feb 2001.

Bee Choo and I flew up to see Ken and Lydia the winter of 2001, here we birdwatch together on a hill in the New Territories.

I never went back to China after I worked there in the 1980s (see 'SE Asia 1980-1986'), so i never crossed this fence shielding Hong Kong.

On that trip, Bee Choo and I visited Mai Po Nature Reserve, it is similar to but so much better than our local Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.

Otherwise, Malaysia was our backyard in those years. Here we stopover at Pasoh Forest reserve during a business trip to Kuala Lumpur.

It is Bee Choo on the porch of this rented bungalow; we had the entire reserve all to ourselves for those two nights!

kenya 2002 and 2003

I have heard that some people pay money to go on a photo-safari to Africa. That is silly, when you can get paid to go - like I did in 2002 and 2003!

In 2002, I was contracted by John Cars (1945-2007; see 'Death' for my obituary of John), co-owner of Private Wilderness (PW), to write three books.

I visited three lodges that PW owned, Kilalinda was the first. I photographed 83 birds there and wrote and compiled this guide and checklist.

This is the title page of the resulting book, get a copy if you can find it online: This place is BEAUTIFUL!! I made it back in time for Mark's birth!

From Kilalinda, the staff drove me across to Campi ya Kanzi where I photographed another 115 birds.

I was out all day for 12+ hours, I never stopped for lunch to make this happen. But I loved every minute of it; I took one month of unpaid leave off.

some freelance work in the 2000s

I believe this is the last major slideshow I did, in 2001 for the NPS (S) to promote my new bird books. Slides themselves became obsolete soon after!

But I still dusted off my old analog equipment now and then, here at the Bunker Trail, Panti where there was a very photogenic Dusky Broadbill's nest.

This is the result from that day: The Encyclopedia of Birds (2003/2009), page 422. Spectacular nest, right?

Same nest in HBW, Vol 8 (2003). How do you build a nest like that, using your beak only, hanging from one strand of rattan? Isn't nature wonderful?

In the early 2000s I still did a bit of freelance work for the magazines; this is Silver Kris, Japanese Edition, Jun/Jul 2000 issue, pages 16 and 17.

Same issue, pages 18 and 19 with some of my usual recycled classic images.

some publishing work

Even while we 'only' had Nature's Niche, Bee Choo and I started producing our own range of postcards, booklets and souvenir items. All about nature.

The Flying Lizard, Draco sp, was our logo animal and we sold a bunch of this (somewhat promotional) greeting card.

We registered Draco Publishing and Distribution Pte Ltd in 2004. Using the design grid we developed for John Car's Africa books, we did this one.

It didn't sell as well as the twin copy to Fraser's Hill (see that tab for details), but it was still fun to make and worthwhile financially.

I love the Colugo! So I was happy to help put the talented naturalist Norman Lim's book about the animal together in 2007. Get a copy if you can!

This is a scan of the back cover.

moving on from nature marketing and PUBLISHING

2008

That year Bee Choo and I moved out of the Botanic Garden Shop and shifted our shop, office space and warehouse out to Orchidville, a 100 ha orchid farm off Mandai Road with lots of space. I started working for Draco Publishing and Distribution Pte Ltd.

Behind the front retail space at Orchidville, we had our offices and reception area, and behind that again I had my space for Draco Publishing. We had some friends over for a house-warming party on Bee Choo's birthday in October; Mark (in front) had just turned six and was a bit short of teeth; Bee Choo on the right shares birthday with Dr Leong Tzi Ming behind her.

Ebba Strange, 1929-2012

Something else of importance happened during this period: My mother passed away back in Denmark, she was a single mother and the two of us were close, in this photo from the 1950s both of us are a bit younger! . It was a huge loss, not just to me, but to my children as well, and to many other people who knew her. In the 'My mother' tab you can read more about her.

Bee Choo and Mark went to Australia for a long-planned trip, while I attended the funeral in Aarhus 10 Dec 2012; here my sister Lena speaks at the coffin. The event had some major consequences for me: I now don't have such close ties with 'the old country' any longer, and on a practical note, with my mother's house sold off, I don't have a place to stay!? Apart from a 24 hour stop-over in Copenhagen in 2019, I haven't been to Denmark since, as I write going on 10 years!

Orchidville II, 2013

In 2012, the Orchidville farm got evicted from the land they occupied off Mandai Road; the government didn't renew the lease, they needed that huge parcel for 'development' - today it is an enormous bus and train depot! But Bee Choo and I moved with Orchidville, out to a sprawling new estate in the west of Singapore. The owners of Orchidville was a great entrepreneurial Chinese family and always very fair to us as tenants, it was a joy dealing with them.

So, there you have it: Our new offices and warehouse in Orchidville II, from 2013 and onwards for a few years. I was winding down my nature book trading and publishing business. I felt I had done my share; my share of do-gooding, nature-awareness-raising and all that. Why had I failed? Why had nature and biodiversity and the wider environment crashed in exactly those years - the years I spent promoting it? That year, 2013, I went (back) into economics and finance, I felt that was where the answer to those questions lay.