PUBLISHED ONFebruary 13, 2023 11:15 AMByMelissa Teo Why I Do What I Do is an original AsiaOne series where we showcase people with uncommon professions and what it takes to get there.
While many of her peers are grinding away at a 9-to-5 job, Yeo Welwei spends her working hours at her family temple, Ji Zheng Gong Temple.
And she isn't just helping out with the odd task — the 27-year-old helps to run the business and even is director of the temple's memorial hall, Jin Yin Memorial Hall.
It may seem like an unconventional career choice for someone of her age, but the chirpy Welwei shares that she willingly took up this path without hesitation.
AsiaOne experienced her enthusiasm for her job firsthand when we visited her temple one sunny afternoon.
Decked out smartly in a black dress, Welwei personally took us on a tour of the beautiful space, including the newly-built memorial hall.
Throughout our time with her, she did have to slip out once in a while to attend to visitors.
But despite her evidently packed schedule, Welwei reveals that she still manages to squeeze out time for the things she loves, including her hobbies.
Starting from young
For 20 years, Welwei's parents owned a joss stick shop at Ang Mo Kio — which shuttered two years ago — and she spent the bulk of her childhood there.
In 2006, her father also founded Ji Zheng Gong Temple, where she also spent her formative years.
Coupled with her love for all things horror, Welwei naturally grew up being curious about the afterlife and her family's temple.
"Growing up in this environment, I just felt like it was just a very interesting thing for me to explore," she shares.
Eventually, Welwei began dipping her toes in the industry when she was around 13 years old by helping out with basic paperwork and other miscellaneous tasks.
She soon considered starting work proper at the temple despite her young age, especially after seeing her mother struggling with the family business.
"I was from a Normal Technical level. And then when I went to Normal Academic, I already didn't want to study because I wanted to work. I saw that my mum, she already needed help," she recounts.
Her desire to work almost prevented her from securing her Social Enterprise Management Diploma at Republic Polytechnic too, but after taking some advice, she finished up the course before going back to the family business.
"It just felt like a very natural progression for me to just go into this career. I've never had any doubts, I always knew that I wanted to do business," she says wholeheartedly.
Dreams and spiritual encounters
As Welwei is in this line of work, some may be curious as to whether she's had any personal spiritual encounters.
And while she has, she humbly tells us that these aren't as "amazing" as compared to her father, Yeo Chin Nam, a renowned Taoist priest and spirit medium.
One of the more memorable encounters actually involved her boyfriend and his family when the couple first got together a few years back.
Back then, Welwei had a dream where she saw a woman in a gold and black room calling out to her and saying: "Come and see."
In the same dream, she was transported to her boyfriend's grandmother's home where she spotted their family altar.
There, a voice told her that "the light is not bright enough".
After waking up, she told her boyfriend that she had a dream and asked him if his family had any spirit tablets that weren't in their home.
"We had only been together for three months, so I didn't know if I wanted to tell him," she recounts with a laugh.
Thankfully, her boyfriend listened to her and after asking his relatives, he discovered that there was actually an ancestor's spiritual tablet that had been around for 10 years.
Welwei then urged her boyfriend to go down and have a look to see if something was wrong with it.
That was when the family found out that for the past 10 years, the name and picture on their ancestor's spirit tablet were wrong.
And when Welwei finally got a chance to see a picture of the ancestor, she connected the dots and realised it was the same woman who appeared to her in her dream.
But though she's had her own fair of encounters, she reveals that these are not as thrilling as people make them out to be.
"I always feel like people expect a very awakening story, or for me to wake up one day and have something amazing happen.
"But it doesn't happen that way, it just happened very gradually. But of course, I didn't think so much about it because my dad has this background. So, it was something that was very natural for me," she explains.
Work-life balance
Life at the temple can get very hectic, especially during busy periods like Chinese New Year and Qing Ming Festival.
But despite that, Welwei still sets aside time to do things she loves, such as bodybuilding and dancing.
"It's all very different things from my religion. But I always tell people that at the end of the day, I am still human, you know, I still have my other interests that I also want to pursue.
"But I can still do it, you know, with a religious line of work," she shares.
Bodybuilding, especially, was something that she had wanted to pursue for a very long time.
Unfortunately, in the past two years, she was unable to do so because of her heavy workload.
But this hasn't deterred her and Welwei has been trying to find time to make things work.
"I realised that my work will always be busy. But I still need to take time to pursue what I want. So if I do well in my hobbies, then I'm more positive and better, and I can perform better at work," she wisely tells us.
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