S'porean actress Chen Yixin, 26, moves to Paris to find out what's life like 'somewhere new'

Local actress and influencer Chen Yixin has moved to Paris, and is documenting the experience in a new Instagram series.

The 26-year-old is the daughter of actors Edmund Chen and Xiang Yun.

She announced the move in the first instalment of her social media series.

She wrote in the caption: "26, and somehow it feels like I'm only just starting. I’ve wanted this for a long time. Not to become someone new, but to find out what happens when I give myself a little more room to be me."

"It's my hundredth time taking this"

In the video, filmed sitting on her bed, Chen opened by admitting how long it had taken her to record.

She said: "It's my hundredth time taking this. I don't know why, there's no one in the room, and yet, I think I'm always just afraid of saying the wrong things."

She said she had held back from talking to the camera because so much of her personal life is already discussed.

She said: "For the longest time, I kept most of myself to myself. I didn't want to give any more ammunition to be picked apart."

Chen said she used to want to be accepted, and to give no one a reason to talk about her. She has since realised that was “never going to happen”.

She said: "They're just going to be saying what they want to be saying."

She added that she has never claimed to be perfect, pointing to her tattoos as an example. People see them as marring her skin, she said, but she is happy with them. She wondered whether part of her was acting out due to the pressure she puts on herself.

Growing up online

Chen reflected on having her adolescence documented publicly.

She said: "There's digital footprints of me growing up, which is really not the most ideal for a young girl. Of course it's not as big as it seemed in retrospect. A lot of the things were very magnified because I was still really young. I'm still very, very sensitive to unnecessary noises. So that affected me a lot."

She said she had grown disconnected from her own content, with things she wanted to share but did not dare to.

She also wrote a letter for the video but decided to “go rogue” instead because she wants to build a community that knows and loves her for who she is.

She added that she had written many songs about her life that she had never dared to share, and was trying to build the confidence to do so.

"Now here I am, the one choosing to put my life on the internet, which is very ironic,” Chen said.

Why she moved

On why she moved, Chen said she wanted to find out what her life could look like somewhere new.

She said:

"I have to trust the process and I have to grow. If it's not now then when. Even saying this statement myself, I know I'm very lucky to even be saying it."

She added: "I just have no friends here, so why not have you guys as my friends? I'll be chatting a lot more with you guys, so stay tuned."

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