8world | Presenter Insights
This 8world Presenter Insights series looks at aging through two different turning points in later life. One man resists retirement until a jarring work experience and personal loss make growing older feel urgent; another discovers that retirement itself can hollow out the identity and routine he once relied on.
Together, the episodes treat aging less as a fixed milestone than as an ongoing negotiation with work, purpose, family, and self-worth.
- Role
- Producer | Director | Writer
- Location
- 📍 Singapore
Presenter Insights | At 64, he doesn't want to retire; an experience made him seriously face aging.
At 64, Chen Poh Shin has never seriously thought about retirement. Having worked as a writer, hairstylist and in F&B management, and lived in several cities across China, he has always believed there is more of the world to experience. But a four-hour stint at a fast-food restaurant made him realise that ageing was becoming real, while the death of a friend who went unnoticed at home for a week forced him to confront his fears about growing old. Back in Singapore, he became a licensed tour guide.
Presenter Insights | He Retired. Suddenly, No One Needed Him. "I Became a Nobody."
After spending more than two decades working overseas, a former executive enters retirement and finds the structure, status, and busyness of work vanish almost overnight. The episode follows how he reconnects with family, brings his experience into community life, and returns to model trains as he asks who he is when a job no longer defines him.