The World I Want My Daughter to Know

A World Bigger Than the One I Know

The first time I went abroad, I was sitting on an airport bus.

I had just landed at Incheon International Airport for a six week student exchange program in South Korea, and the bus was taking me towards Seoul. I sat by the window, watching unfamiliar buildings and Korean signs pass by. I couldn't understand most of what I saw or heard, but somehow that made everything more interesting.

It was my first time leaving Indonesia.

Then I heard a song by Jessica Jung called Big Mini World.

Two lines from the song stayed with me:

“I don't wanna live in a mini mini world
I want to know a world I haven't known”

I don't think I fully understood why those words affected me so much at the time.

Maybe I didn't need to.

For those six weeks, I was already experiencing them.

I was seeing a world I hadn't known before. I was walking through unfamiliar streets, hearing conversations I couldn't understand, trying food I had never tasted, and slowly getting used to the strange feeling of being somewhere where almost everything was new.

Then I went home.

Years later, that song became strangely difficult to listen to. Whenever I heard it, I was taken back to that bus ride. I could almost see the scenery outside the window again, feel the movement of the bus, and remember what it felt like to be young and looking at a world that suddenly seemed much bigger than the one I knew.

And sometimes, I cried.

It has been almost ten years since that bus ride.

I am no longer the person sitting on that bus.

I have a career now. I have a wife. I have a daughter.

And somehow, those same words have started to mean something different to me.

Back then, I wanted to know a bigger world for myself.

Now, I find myself wondering whether I want my family to know one too.

I don't know yet where that world will be. I don't know if we will actually leave Indonesia, or where we would go if we did.

But I have started asking myself a question that I never had to ask when I was twenty:

What kind of environment do I want my daughter to grow up in?

Perhaps that is where my thoughts about building a career abroad really began.

Not with a particular country. Not with a particular job. Just with a memory from almost ten years ago, sitting by a bus window in South Korea, looking at a world I had never known before.

Why Europe?

Once I started seriously thinking about building a career abroad, the next question was obvious: where?

I didn't have a specific country in mind. In fact, I still don't. What I knew was that I wanted to look beyond the places I already knew. So I started looking at different countries, different job markets, and different ways of life.

At first, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and several countries across Europe all came up at different points. Eventually, though, I found myself paying more attention to Europe.

Part of the reason is professional.

As a frontend engineer, I have gradually found myself moving closer to the intersection between engineering and design. I enjoy building interfaces, but I also care about the systems behind them: design systems, accessibility, component architecture, interaction design, and the relationship between design and code.

The more I explored the international job market, the more I noticed opportunities that aligned with the kind of engineer I want to become. I found companies looking for people who work across the boundaries of engineering and design, and I started seeing roles that felt much closer to the direction I have been taking with my own career.

It made me wonder whether I had simply been looking in too small a place.

But career opportunities are only one part of the equation.

Indonesia is my home. I grew up here. My family is here. Most of the things that shaped who I am happened here, and there are many things about living here that I genuinely love.

I don't want this to become an article about everything that is wrong with Indonesia. It would be unfair to a country that has given me so much, and it would also be dishonest. Indonesia is not simply a place I want to escape from. It is the place I know, the place that raised me, and the place that will always be part of who I am.

Loving where you come from doesn't mean you have to believe it is the only place where you can build a good life.

At the same time, there are things about living here that have become increasingly difficult for me to ignore. Some are mundane, like the amount of time spent commuting or how much effort everyday life in a large and crowded city can require. Some are professional, like the relatively small number of opportunities for the particular direction I want my career to take.

And then there are things that are harder to measure.

They are about the environment I want my family to experience every day. Basic things that I used to take for granted, like the air we breathe and the water we use. As a father, I find myself thinking more about whether these things will still be something I have to worry about when my daughter grows up.

I don't expect a country to be perfect. But I do want to live somewhere where basic necessities like clean air and clean water feel like a given rather than something I constantly have to think about.

Having a child has a strange way of changing the questions you ask yourself.

Before becoming a father, I mostly thought about what kind of career and life I wanted for myself. Now, I find myself thinking about what kind of environment I want my daughter to grow up in.

That doesn't mean I believe another country will automatically give her a better life. Every place has its own problems, and moving abroad comes with plenty of challenges of its own.

Europe has expensive housing, high taxes, difficult winters, cultural differences, and the challenges that come with being an immigrant. I would be exchanging some of the conveniences and familiarity I have here for things that I haven't experienced yet.

So I'm not looking at Europe because I think it is perfect.

I'm looking because it is different.

And sometimes, different is worth exploring.

The more I looked at European countries, the more I found things that matched what I was looking for. There are professional opportunities that align with the kind of engineer I want to become, but there is also something beyond the job itself. I am interested in experiencing different cultures, different approaches to work, and a different way of organizing everyday life.

More importantly, I want my family to experience that too.

I want my daughter to grow up knowing that the world is bigger than the place where she was born. I want her to encounter different languages, cultures, ideas, and ways of living. I want her to have the freedom to decide what kind of life she wants for herself when she is old enough to make that decision.

Maybe that sounds like a lot to expect from moving to another country.

Perhaps it is.

But I'm slowly realizing that I'm not really searching for a better country.

I'm not searching for a better country.
I'm searching for a better fit.

I don't know if I will find that fit in Europe. I don't even know if I will find it outside Indonesia. But I know that it is something worth looking for, because the decision is no longer only about the career I want to build. It is about the life I want to build with my family.

The World Ahead

I still don't know where this journey will take me.

Maybe I'll find the right opportunity in Europe. Maybe I won't. Maybe, years from now, I'll look back at this period of my life and realize that staying was the right decision after all.

But for now, I'm willing to look.

Because I don't want to choose a country simply because it seems better on paper. I want to find a place where my family can grow, where I can continue becoming the engineer I want to be, and where my daughter can discover the world in her own way.

Almost ten years ago, I sat on a bus leaving Incheon Airport and listened to a song for the first time. I was alone, young, and excited about a world I had never known.

Today, I'm still curious about that world.

The difference is that I'm no longer looking for it only for myself.

I'm looking for it for us.

“I don't wanna live in a mini mini world
I want to know a world I haven't known”