2026/8/21 - Sorry, Francesca, I can’t do it again

August 18, 2025. The day I sent my first Hong Kong job application. I don’t even remember now which company it was for (and I won’t be checking; the spreadsheet where I tracked the first 250ish applications is staying buried), nor whether I received a rejection or if it was one of the many APAC applications that went into the void unacknowledged. I vaguely remember the grief that came when 200++ applications had failed to get me closer to Hong Kong. I remember reluctantly pivoting and opening myself up to Singapore. Close enough to HK culturally to perhaps serve as an eventual stepping stone, close enough to Bangkok geographically to perhaps be open to neighborly cross-border hiring? That was the logic, anyway, knowing Singapore would do nothing good for my heat sensitivity.

I also remember thinking it was crazy that I could apply to nearly 250 jobs in a place as tiny as HK and have nothing but tears to show for it. Memories of nights spent crying on my kitchen floor because it was just all too much and how could THAT MUCH EFFORT, that much blood and sweat and tears go absolutely nowhere? I

And then Singapore didn’t work either.

I pivoted again. At first, to places that preserved HK as a possibility (in my head, at least). China. East Asia. No dice.

So again, I, you guessed it, pivoted. Regional expansion, then continental. HK? Who’s that?

In the end, I applied to more than 520 roles across 24 countries on 4 continents.

It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.

And now? Now I just feel lost. Genuinely at a dead-end for the first time in my life. And I don’t know how I feel about that.

I don’t know what’s next. I don’t know why there has to be a next. Honestly, nothing feels worth it. “There’s a chance it could improve” does nothing to convince me the effort is worth the ROI (lack thereof, really) when “It could somehow get even worse” is equally possible. (And even more likely, knowing Bangkok and myself).