Multigenerational Legacies

In Singapore, some millennials and Gen Zs are taking over their family-owned businesses to preserve a bit of tradition and to honour a final wish

- Sng Ler Jun

Some say Singapore owes its success to the legions of small businesses that have set their roots on the sunny island. After all, behind the lion city’s towering skyscrapers, lush foliage, and fast-paced environment, there exist several heartland businesses that have withstood the tests of time.

These heartland businesses — think provisional stores (the locals call them ‘Mama shops’), Traditional Chinese Medicine halls or hole-in-the-wall bakeries — spruce up only in residential estates, offering a dizzying array of goods and services to those living within or patronising the neighbourhood. Many of these are mom-and-pop shops, run and succeeded only by family members. Their clientele, too, also goes generations deep.

Here, L’OFFICIEL SINGAPORE speaks to three Singaporean millennials and one Gen Z who have forsaken climbing the corporate ladder and have innovated to keep their family businesses alive.

NOON EYEWEAR

Tucked away in a nook within the dense neighbourhood of Serangoon Central in north-eastern Singapore lies a humble optical shop that pays homage to a father’s last wish.

“Before he passed on, my father had wanted my siblings and I to each own a spectacle shop,” says Goh Shi Song, an ex-social media influencer and one of the three second-generation owners of Everfaith Optics and its sister brand NOON Eyewear. The former dates back to 1983, when it was first set up by the late Goh Sun Tjing who saw business prospects in optometry in the 1980s.