Tim Yap: From shy guy to celebrity
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“Honestly, I have never had a
dream that has not come true. I work on it, I act upon it, I don’t let
it remain a dream. I wake up and I move.”
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Do you know Tim Yap? I thought I knew him well, but apparently, I don’t. “Lots of people think they know so much about me, but they don’t,” he says at the start of our conversation. One of the most colorful celebrities in the country is the product of an equally kaleidoscopic life story. Here are 10 things you should know about Tim Yap:
1 He got his gift of
remembering people’s names from reading yearbooks.
“I’m a closet loner. I grew up alone. Everybody was already
in school and I was left alone at home with our pet and our maid,” Tim shares
about growing up as the youngest among seven children. “I would always pick up
reading materials. The first reading material was the Encyclopedia Brittanica
and then the kiddie encyclopedia. And after I read both encyclopedias, all
volumes, I had no choice but to go for other reading materials. My sisters’
yearbooks! So every time their friends would come over I would say, for
example, ‘Bianca Monica Gonzalez ganyan!’ And they would go, ‘Oh, my god, how
do you know my name?’ Because I saw their names in the yearbook. So my gift
when it comes to remembering people’s names and faces comes from reading the
yearbooks of my sisters.”
2 He got his passion
for travel and adventure from his being a batang palaboy.
“Because all my siblings were always out and my parents were
working, and my dad partying, I would make takas and just go around. I walked,
took the jeep, trike. We lived in Binondo and what’s next to Binondo? Avenida.
Recto. I was a batang palaboy of downtown Manila,”
Tim shares.
He did encounter many shady characters at the time. “I was
with my classmates in Harrison
Plaza and I went to the
toilet. Someone really went to me, grabbed me, said, ‘Boy, halika.’ I turned
white and ran away! Another time in a movie house, I went to the toilet, ayan
nanaman. There was this guy that was about to touch me. An old man with his d*
*k out and hahawakan ako! Namutla ako sa takot and I ran away.”
3 His interest in
culture and food started when he became the chaperone of his sisters.
“I was always the chaperone of my sisters on all their
dates. My parents never allowed any of my sisters to go on dates without me. So
early on in life, I was used to going to the best restaurants. They would bring
them to all these places na pampa-impress. I was always just there, like a
handbag, on another chair pretending not to listen,” Tim says. “I went to a
Stevie Wonder concert, I went to all these wonderful steak restaurants. I saw
how all these people put their best food forward. And that’s when I also began
observing people.”
4 Tim was so shy as a
kid that he bought himself Andrew Matthews books like Being Happy and Making
Friends to come out of his shell.
“As a kid even in grade school I was already very attuned to
the arts. And when I saw in the newspaper there were Repertory workshops, I
pleaded with my mom to allow me to be part,” Tim recalls. “When I did the workshops,
they made us go onstage one by one and say something about ourselves. I went up
on stage, and all I was able to say was, ‘My name is Timothy Yap.’ I was the
pinaka-shy kid. I went down from the stage. I was so bothered. I wasn’t able to
say anything about myself! I went to National Book Store and I got the Andrew
Matthews book. Being Happy, Making Friends. And that book changed my life. Can
you imagine me, needing tips to make friends?”
Aside from his shyness, he had quite a number of blunders.
“One time in school, I was the representative of my batch. ‘Ladies and
gentlemen, please welcome the students of Grade 3!’ I said. Eh, grade 2 kami
nun. There was another time, storytelling contest. My story was ‘We Filipinos
Are Mild Drinkers’ by Alejandro Roces. Doble kara ako. Tawa nang tawa yung mga
tao, akala ko kasi tama. Yun pala baliktad nagawa ko! Despite that, I still won
the contest. In a way my bloopers in life have always ended up being turning
points.”
5 He once had a
teacher who often called him to say, ‘Tim, magbalik loob ka na sa Diyos,’
because he would often be out of class or out late at night.
“I did a show called Lost In Yonkers for the 25th
anniversary of Repertory. The
cast was Zeneida Amador, Baby Barredo, Joy Virata. O diba, sila kaagad
katrabaho ko. It was an all-star cast with two new kids — me and Sheila
Lina. But my school didn’t allow extra-curriculars, because I didn’t have time.
So what I did was to tell the guard that I asked permission from the principal.
I escaped from St. Jude, took the jeepney, sabit, to go to Shangri-La to
rehearse. I would go back to St. Jude
and my driver would be waiting for me. My mom didn’t know. Nobody allowed me to
do it, but I had to push through. I wanted to do it!”
It was only when the poster for the show came out in the
papers that his parents found out about it. “’Tim Yap? Is this you?’ They don’t
know me as Tim. They had to shorten my name to fit the poster. And I go, ‘What
Tim Yap? What an ugly name! I’m Timothy Yap!’ Nagalit pa ako,” he says of the
story of his name. “My parents didn’t really understand my love for the arts,
my nightlife, my going to parties. Which parent would understand that nga
naman? And when I do it I do it to the extreme. Rehearse till late, go out till
late. In the end they would find out from other people about what I would be
doing or what I did. Then they would be proud of me.”
6 When Tim was
growing up, there was a time that his family lost what they had, including
their home that burned down.
On what trait he got from his dad Manuel: “My dad’s being a
people person. I remember my late dad, he would take me walking around Chinatown and everyone would be waving at him, greeting
him. He would be shaking their hand like a mayor. My dad was like a magnet of
people — he had charisma and a sense of fashion. When we were kids, Rustan’s
would be closed and we would go up and the only other person shopping there was
Imelda.”
On what he learned from his mom Benita: “Unconditional love.
And she was super hardworking. There were really good years and there were
really tough years. In the years when we were at our poorest financially, when
I think my dad had suffered a stroke, my mom was the one who took over the whole
business and she had to start from scratch. My mom showed me an envelope and
she said, ‘Everything that we are earning I am saving for your tuition.’ One
time I got home from school and where we lived, bahay, bodega, opisina, andun
lahat, I saw it burning. Smoke and fire trucks all over. I saw my mom and she
was hiding her tears. Biglang she stopped herself from crying and said, ‘Ah,
no, ’cause we’re going to move to another house.’ But it was obvious to me that
it was all slowly burning down. She was still strong, she made me not look, she
didn’t want me to see it all go to ashes. We went to another house in Tayuman.
It was so small, all double beds. And my aunt was with us, she was crying. I
said, ‘Why you crying, auntie? We’re happy, we’re not sad.’ That time made me
realize that it wasn’t the financial state, we were together and we were okay.
My mom worked hard to bring us out of that.”
7 He has something he
calls “serendipity travels” in which when he travels, he opens his map, drops a
pen, and wherever it falls is where he will go.
He remembers very well the time he was the subject of
malicious blog posts and nasty rumors. “I was in Paris then. I remember my friend Pam Pastor
would tell me about all these things that were happening in Manila, the people trying to pull me down. I
had a choice. Should I just stay here and sulk and cry in my room? Sabi ko no,
I should go out.” He recalls it was around 2005 to 2007 when it all came one
after the other. “Pam told me, ‘Grabe yung mga tao dito, they are like vultures
preying on you.’ So I opened my map, dropped a pen, pak. Nahulog sa Versailles. When I went
to the Versailles
gardens I saw this sign: “No access to the public.” What did I do? I climbed
over it. It was an untamed part of the site with tall grass. I saw from afar
this monument, iisa lang siya. When I got near it, I looked up. It was a young
man facing a vulture, parang haharapin niya, he was facing it, he was ready.
For me it was such a goosebumps moment. I climbed it and embraced it. Once you
embrace these things in your life as part of life, that made me unafraid of all
the obstacles.”
On critics and bashers: “They don’t really faze me. I would
be more protective of the ones I love. When I would do something new, I would
check all the comments, even the negative ones. I would reply, ‘I will try to
do better.’ Kat Holigores told me this: ‘When darkness tries to envelop you,
shine your light, because darkness is afraid of light.’ So tama nga. I don’t
allow darkness to eat me up; that became my guiding principle.”
On mistakes he has made: “I think if there were mistakes it
was me being excitable but never ill-intentioned. It taught me how to take
three steps back before jumping into something. It made me careful but not too
cautious, it’s made me know who to trust and who not to trust. I fall down,
calmly pick up the pieces, and step right back up. I’m built for the marathon.
You see, other people’s understanding of you doesn’t make you who you are.”
8 Tim Yap in numbers:
5: average number of hours of sleep he gets a night
7: establishments he co-owns: Aracama, Prive, Opus,
Republiq, Café Republiq, Tides, 71st and Gramercy (opening soon) and another
new place coming up 2014. Long ago, he did promo boy and flyering jobs outside
clubs when he wasn’t even allowed to go inside clubs.
100-plus: number of blazers and coats he has in his closet
8,000: amount in pesos he got as a kid as talent fee for
being a dragon boy. “My role in Chinese weddings, is before the bride and groom
can enter their house, the dragon boy has to go around, and I had to roll
around in the bed, with photo shoot!
17: age he moved out of his family’s house. “I wanted to be
independent, all my savings I used and rented a place in Makati.”
9 He doesn’t have a
single idol he looks up to, but a few mentors he asks advice from.
His mentors’ most valuable pieces of advice:
Freddie Santos, director: “Life is not about how many times
you say yes, but how many times you say no. Because your no’s will empower your
yeses further.”
Boy Abunda, TV host and manager: “Follow your dreams but
always keep your feet on the ground. And love your mother.”
Vic del Rosario, Viva Entertainment: “Conquer. Fly. Soar.”
George Yang, McDonald’s Philippines: “You can build an
empire and still focus on your passion and your art.”
Tim also looks up to international icons like Andy Warhol
(“For his far-reaching mindset when it comes to making people appreciate art
and pop culture”), Tom Ford (“How he is able to elevate things and add
sexuality to it”), and Ian Schrager (“For his evolution from club owner to hip
hotel builder”).
10 He has never had a
dream that didn’t come true.
“Claudine Trillo, one of my best friends, knows this. One
time she asked me, ‘What is that?’ I said it’s my dream book, and its very
personal. She looks at this particular year and I said that those were my
dreams at that time. She says, “Tim! Sh**t! Check, check, check, check,” he
shares. “May bago na akong dream,” Tim declares during the interview. He has
already met with financiers and creatives and will be working on this dream
project in a new industry, soon.
“Honestly, I have never had a dream that has not come true.
I work on it, I act upon it, I don’t let it remain a dream. I wake up and I
move.”
* * *
It may seem like Tim was destined to be everything he is now and more,
but his attitude and life show that it is your free will, your ability to turn
negative into positive, your mistakes into eureka moments, that drive you where
you want to be. And just when I thought I had him figured out, he declares,
“You know what, I am at a point in my life where … I am feeling a rebirth!” Yet
again, Tim is all geared up to surprise us.
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