Blissful. That’s how Andie Chen describes his life now as a stay-at-home dad. That word would have probably been “hell” if you checked with him two weeks ago. But things are very different now that he has settled into his new role as his kids Aden and Avery’s “primary caretaker” in Taipei, where they currently reside.

In case you haven’t heard, the Chen family relocated to their “second home” some two months ago as the actor has some job opportunities on the horizon. Andie and wife, actress Kate Pang, also felt it was a chance to expose their kids to another culture.

“Our long term plan has always been to have two bases, so Kate and I will be working in Singapore and Taiwan. My wife is Taiwanese, my kids are half-Taiwanese, and I am a Taiwan PR, so to us, this has always been a home for us. My kids have been living in Singapore all their life and I think since we have an opportunity to live in another country and meet different people, why not?” he tells 8days.sg.

The decision was a rather spontaneous and “rushed” one, but not totally out of character for the self-professed “impulsive” couple. Andie brought up the idea in June and the next thing they knew, they were packing their bags and moving their brood to Taipei in time for Aden, six, to begin his primary one school term in September.

The 35-year-old emphasised that they are not migrating and will be shuttling between the two cities for work. “We are just spending more time in Taiwan now. I feel there's something here for me as an actor, and that I need to be on this journey. If my family is willing and we can afford it, then we should take the leap,” he says.

And they did. But first, he has to contend with being a stay-at-home dad until Kate, 37, who is back in Singapore for work, joins them in December.

The transition hasn’t been easy, to say the least. Andie had just lost his good friend and “support system”, Taiwanese actor-singer Alien Huang, and then he had to quickly adapt to life as a single parent. Though Kate’s mum and sister help out with some of the chores occasionally, Andie felt like he was “being thrown in at the deep end”. “I had to [get used to the new surroundings], take care of the kids, and I didn’t have my wife go through it with me, so I felt very overwhelmed and frustrated during the first week. But I didn't have a choice because this was a decision I made,” he sighs.

But with practice comes improvement. And now, Andie’s embracing life as a stay-at-home dad, though a lot of it still feels a bit surreal.

“After I send the kids to school, I will go to the supermarket with my recyclable bag and buy food, come home, cook lunch, clean the floor, clean our rabbit’s poop, and I'm like who is this person?” laughs Andie. “I never thought I would be doing these things.”

When we tell him how impressed we are with his self-taught hair-braiding skills, he laughs: “I want to be just as good, if not better, than my wife! I thought if I'm gonna tie my daughter's hair, then why not plait it? I know she likes it ‘cos she likes her hair pretty and she likes Elsa from Frozen, so the next thing is to learn how to do a French braid, which is a bit harder. I hope to master it before Kate returns.

“I've been watching YouTube tutorials, especially videos of dads tying hair ‘cos I feel guys have a different sense. I think it is very sweet that my daughter trusts me and is willing to sit there for 10 minutes for me to tie her hair nicely.”

Andie admits that life now, though stressful, has been surprisingly rewarding and insightful. We could hear the joy in his voice when he tells us about how he and Avery, four, cuddle to sleep every night (he calls it “pure bliss”) and how he feels being a stay-at home dad is his “calling”.

Come again?

“I don’t mean it in the sense that I don’t want to do anything else anymore. But there are elements of being a stay-at-home dad that I want to be doing for the rest of my life like washing my kids’ clothes, helping them pack their school bags, stuff like that. They seem very mundane but if you don't do these things, you wouldn't understand their life in that amount of detail,” he explains.

He adds that the new experiences have awakened him to a “whole new perspective” and his relationship with his kids has gotten stronger.

“I've always been close to my kids, but I've never been this close. I feel like they are very free to be vulnerable with me, like Aden shared that he felt his Chinese isn't that good compared to the rest of his classmates and the pressures in school like learning fan ti zi (traditional Chinese)… I feel they trust me a lot more and that is the yardstick that I'm doing an okay job,” he shares.

“I’ve also learned that my time with my kids is finite. They will need me for 10, 12 years, after that they will have their own lives. So if I don't invest in the time that I have with them now, I might regret it.”

Photos: Andie Chen, Kandiefamily/Instagram