Home is Where the Prata is

Forget viral YouTube videos about national pride or those uniquely Singaporean memes. All you need to do to feel patriotic this National Day is have a chat with married-off-to-Taiwan YVONNE LIM.

- Jonathan Fam

For the past year and then some, the 39-year-old actress-turned full-time mum has been leading a low-key, some would say hermit-like, life in Taipei with her American-Taiwanese former boybander-turned businessman hubby Alex Tien and their cherubic and very chatty 19-month-old son Alex Junior aka AJ. They recently moved into a spacious four-room apartment (she later lets on that it’s “something like a penthouse” when we bug her for details) with expansive floor-to-ceiling windows and an awesome view of New Taipei City. “But Alex designed it like a bachelor pad.” she sighs. “All grey and concrete and not baby-proofed at all.”

While she had intended to return to work, those plans have vanished faster than salted egg yolk buns from a bakery now that she's four months pregnant with her second kid. “I could see the light at the end of the tunnel but now the light has dimmed,” she jokes.

Gone are the days where she spends her time reciting lines and turning on the waterworks for the camera. These days, the only lines she recites are from nursery rhymes and her tears, reserved for AJ. Like the period when she started sleep training him. “He cried in the next room for two hours. I cried in my room for two hours too,” she smiles at the memory. A typical day in Taiwan sees Yvonne waking up at around 9am (“Alex is in charge of AJ's morning feed,” she says) and the rest of the day is spent cooking for, playing with, and taking care of AJ. "I don't really leave [the house] unless I really need to,” she tells us. She hasn’t really made any friends of her own yet (unless you count the wives of Alex’s pals) and she doesn’t go shopping, lest you think she’s living it up tai tai-style. “I’m definitely no tai tai and there really isn’t much to buy here,” she shrugs.