10 Things You Should Know About Erwan Heussaff

Erwan Heussaff on loving Anne Curtis, living abroad and staying fit not fat 

Erwan defines his outlook on life this way: “Make the easiest things seem the most difficult, and the most difficult things seem the easiest.”

To have 440,000-plus Twitter and 270,000-plus Instagram followers despite not being a TV personality is both impressive and rare. Go ahead and dismiss it as the product of being “the boyfriend of Anne Curtis” or “the brother of Solenn Heussaff,” but there is so much more to this multi-hyphenate than what many people label him to be. Here are 10 things you should know about Erwan Heussaff

1 It was a job promotion he got while living in Siberia that pushed him to decide to finally come home and work here in the Philippines.

“I worked for a company called Sodexo and I ran their operation for Far Eastern Siberia, which entailed coffee shops, restaurants, management camps, making close to 2,500 meals a day,” says the International Business graduate with a specialization in hospitality. “My contract came to term and they told me they wanted to promote me and send me to either Nigeria or the Falkland Islands. The job offer was amazing, problem is was you’re there three months then you get three weeks off. I had to just stay in the hotel if I wasn’t working. I mentally couldn’t take that. It pushed me to come home.”

He came home to Manila when he was 23, and now that he’s 26, he has taken on a new career path as restaurateur and business owner. What was he waiting for? “I had to feel that I gained — well, respect is a big word, but respect in the food industry here locally. I built the persona of The Fat Kid Inside so that when people thought of Erwan they automatically thought of food. I was waiting for that to happen. I’ve always wanted to position myself not as a chef or bartender, but someone that could speak both the language of the kitchen and the bar.” He now co-owns Niner Ichi Nana, Hungry Hound, Hatch22, and is soon to open Pink Panda.

2 Erwan cooked his very first dish — by himself — when he was only eight years old: salpicao.

“We used to vacation a lot in Montreal and I remember I was listening to my older sister Vanessa and her friends talk about salpicao, how they missed it and how they wanted to eat it. And her friends started talking about the recipe. I was fat back then already, I was a kid who loved to eat. So I rushed home, looked at the ref and saw that all the ingredients she had spoken of were there. Okay, might as well try, just by memory. It turned out really good,” he recalls. “Once I realized that cooking was knowing about the taste and remembering the feeling, I realized it wasn’t that hard. If you love to eat then you should love to cook.”

3 On deciding to lose weight and get healthy after being fat for over a decade: “You come to a point where you don’t recognize yourself anymore.”

“All throughout age eight to 18 I yo-yoed up and down, from fat to chubby. Nineteen, 20, 21, I was all-out obese. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and not recognizing who I was. Of course I could see my face, I just felt like whoa, what have you become. You look at yourself without your shirt on and you start getting timid and shy, you’re embarrassed, you hit rock bottom and it hits your self-esteem. That’s when I decided I needed to make a change.” He was working in Greece at that time and it was his fit, gym-going workmates that pushed him to exercise.

“I put myself through all the diets. Atkins, South Beach, all those cabbage soup diets and juice diets. I realized the only things they all had in common was low carbs and low starch. Just by making those switches, everything became okay. In the process of losing weight I would still eat a massive rib-eye steak and fried eggs, no problem. I just wouldn’t eat the mashed potatoes,” he explains. “When people ask me ‘What can’t I eat?’ that list is way too long. So this is what I tell them: you can eat vegetables and protein, but that’s it.

“If you’re about to eat something and the ingredients in that thing do not fall within the realm of vegetables and protein, you should avoid eating it.”

4 Erwan in numbers:

12: Number of hours he trains a week for triathlon, seven days a week.

7: Number of pop-ups he has done for Manila Pop Up, with partners Deejae Pa’este and Mike Concepcion.

7: Number of contributing writers on his website, thefatkidinside.com. Erwan uploads all content and does all the photo and video editing as well.

245: Number in pounds of his heaviest recorded weight. He was 5’10” and 20 years old. (His weight now ranges from 150 to 160.)

4: Number of languages he can speak. “English, French, at one point Spanish, in Russia I took intensive classes. I learn a language through necessity.”

5 Having worked at various hotels around the world, he has had his share of dealing with the oddest situations such as possible sexual assault to gold-seeking guests.

“In China, I was room service supervisor. We got calls at two or three in the morning, people requesting burgers, that kind of thing. I remember one night, one of my waiters came back in tears, his shirt ripped. Basically what happened, there were two big gay guys and they literally assaulted him. I had to talk to them, and I was scared. But I said, ‘We can do this two ways, either we call the Chinese police now, and when that happens I can’t promise where you will end up, or you just leave right now.’ So they quietly left the hotel,” he recalls.

“In Greece, my title was conflict manager. It was a resort with 2,000 capacity, and I would sit in an office just with lines of guests wanting problems resolved. I had to deal with the stupidest things sometimes. There was once a customer who goes, ‘I paid x amount for this room, why is my bed not made in gold!’ It was pretty ridiculous,” he says with a laugh.

He’s worked as a dishwasher, waiter and supervisor, too. “I always chose to work at hotels because I find hotels are micro companies. When you are there you do so much in all these different departments,” Erwan explains.

6 If somebody asks to take a picture with him, he always asks them, “Do you know my name?”

“Here, if people think you are famous or some sort of a celebrity, automatically you are an artista. But most of my work doesn’t depend on that. When someone asks me for a picture, I go, ‘Do you know my name?’ And some people say, ‘No, but you’re Anne’s boyfriend, right?’ When it’s like that, I just don’t take the picture. But when someone comes up to me and says, ‘I read your blog,’ or ‘Thank you so much for helping me lose weight,’ that makes me the happiest person alive. I’m not the most smiley person. I mean, I’d love to do a cooking show but locally, directors always ask me to make pa-cute, and that’s not me. It will look fake. There’s this status that people want to put you in and I try much as possible to make people understand that I like doing things the way I do things.”

7 Erwan defines his outlook on life this way: “Make the easiest things seem the most difficult, and the most difficult things seem the easiest.”

Despite juggling several roles from restaurateur to triathlete to blogger day in, day out, you will also spot him doing all his own research and behind the bar mixing drinks for customers. “I am very OC. Not cleanliness OC, but more of, if something does not have a purpose, it shouldn’t be there,” he admits. “Everything that looks tough to you, you have to visualize it as the easiest thing you will do today. Then everything that seems easy, you put it at the end of the day and concentrate a lot on it. Because usually things you perceive as easy you don’t pay attention to as much. So that’s how I approach everything.”

He is both a multi-tasker and a micro-manager. “I am always on the go and I like being efficient, so when I am stuck in traffic you can imagine how crazy I go,” he says. He conveniently brings all his work around with him on his Note 3. “Its the only phone that almost replaces my laptop. I can do most of my work wherever. I like the fact that you can do two things at the same time,” he explains. “And I actually have two.”

8 He has lived in seven different countries.

1. Manila, Philippines: He was born and raised in Manila, and moved to study abroad when he was 17.

2. Paris, France: “Paris for me was always a given,” says the son of French father Louis Heussaff and Filipina mother Cynthia Adea. “I really wanted to be there for college.”

3. Shanghai, China (for six months): “We had the opportunity to do an internship and I remember that was when China was just awarded the Olympics. I was in a dormitory with bunk beds and 15 Chinese guys, tiny locker, communal showers, we were literally in the ghetto. It was terrifying at first but when I got to know them they became like family. I’ve never seen happier people. It was just such a great experience.”

4. Hanoi, Vietnam (for six months): “I wanted something a bit more offbeat and I’ve always wanted to try cities where I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know anything about Hanoi. It was amazing, the food was crazy. It was at Sofitel Metropole and I was assistant to the F&B director.”

5. Rhodes, Greece (for six months): “Because it was a more fun destination. I was in the island of Rhodes which is basically like a party island. We worked really hard but we also had a lot of fun.”

6. Bangkok, Thailand (for five months): “They sent me for training. Bangkok was awesome.”

7. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia (for two years): “It’s freezing. Four months a year it’s about 20 Celsius, the next eight months are 20-below Celsius. Where we were is an ancient city, where the prisons were. You get there and you are given a pamphlet on being careful with brown bears. Tile buildings, communal gas lines and water lines. It was such an amazing challenge. That was a point where I really wanted to do an MBA, I wanted to be the most interesting candidate.”

He did, however, put his MBA plans on hold. “I had a lot of friends coming out of Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, all the schools I wanted to go to for my MBA. They were all unemployed, so what’s the point I would rather focus on work experience first.”

9 Random Erwan trivia:

What you do when you have time to relax? “Watching series. I love Top Chef, Big Bang Theory, Breaking Bad.”

You have the most of what item in your closet? “Cardigans.”

Favorite restaurant in the world? “There is this one restaurant Anne and I went to on the west coast of France called Cap Ferret, it’s the oyster capital. It was this oyster bar where the owner grabs the oysters by crates from the sea, puts them in his own cultivating pond, scrubs it right in front of you and opens it in front of you. We ate maybe 30 oysters each with just the best bottle of rosé, and crusty French bread with salted butter. It was just fantastic.”

Favorite dish in the world? “Boiled potato with butter and salt. There’s nothing better.”

Cheat day favorite? “Corned beef.” Only Sunday is his cheat day.

Regular reads? “Flipboard has all my feeds from CNN, Buzzfeed, BBC, Rappler. I check The Daily, Figaro, Saveur, Food Network, and Huffington Post food section.”

Favorite follows on social media? “I prefer Instagram now and I usually follow hashtags, not one person. #craftcocktails, #foodporn, #organic, #weightloss, then I just go through everything.”

10 #thefatkidinside: what started out as just a hashtag is now his personal advocacy.

(As of press time, the hashtag has 13,000 posts.)

“My friends and I would say things like, ‘This donut makes the fat kid inside of me so happy.’ I am sure a lot of people have said that, but at that time there wasn’t much on the Internet about the fat kid inside. At first it was really just to gauge the market, make myself a personality of food. I didn’t realize how much of an impact it would make on certain people’s lives. I would get long e-mails, close to a thousand words, people telling me how they lost weight, how they can play with their kids more, how they can do things they couldn’t do when they were fat, even people that are bullied. I didn’t realize that something that came so naturally to me, telling people what or what not to eat, or how to live a healthy life, would emotionally affect people. I realized I have an extra responsibility of keeping that going. And now I’m using the blog to try to push Filipino food as well.”

* * *

His blog’s millions of views and half a million following on social media will come as no surprise when you get to know what Erwan is really all about. That passion as profession bit may be a cliché but he is proof of why it is a cliché. He sticks to what he knows and what he loves, pushes it to the limit, so, albeit reluctantly (and come on, with that face, and that hair?), he is a star.

http://www.philstar.com/sunday-life/2013/11/10/1254840/erwan-heussaff-loving-anne-curtis-living-abroad-and-staying-fit-not

10 Things You Should Know About Tim Yap

Tim Yap: From shy guy to celebrity

“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.”

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.

http://www.philstar.com/sunday-life/2013/10/20/1247090/tim-yap-shy-guy-celebrity 

10 Things You Should Know About Lea Salonga

Lea Salonga on life as Kim, Sonia, Eponine, wife & mom

When I was in show business here, I always felt that I didn’t really fit into the mold… It’s interesting. What I do I think is appreciated here much more now. Singers are feeling like, ‘O, I don’t have to make birit pala.’

It is safe to say no one has come close to the accomplishments of this woman who conquered the world with her voice. With over three decades of experience and international recognition to her name, she is truly in a league of her own. Here are 10 things you should know about Lea Salonga.

1. She believes that “every young person should live on their own before they get married.”

“I was 28, and my mom was living with me. I had to decide. You have to claim it, you can’t ask permission. After a gig in Singapore, she went home, I went to New York on my own, I packed her stuff in boxes and sent it home. I don’t think she liked me for a while for doing that,” Lea shares. “It was something I needed to do to carve out my own space.”

“You realize, ‘Oh, I have to do the laundry, clean the kitchen, make the bed, do my groceries.’ And when you have no one else to depend on to do even the most menial everyday tasks; you don’t take for granted then what your staff does for you because you know exactly what they are doing. It lends a different insight.”

She shares that she is most excited when she gets to go to New York. “I feel that is the city where I grew into myself as a grownup. I figured out more of who I am as a person, what I like and what I don’t like. My outspokenness really came out, my being very blunt. Not really braver but the less I cared about what other people thought.”

2. She felt out of place in the earlier years of her showbiz career.

“When I was in show business here, I always felt that I didn’t really fit into the mold that everyone else seemed to fit in. That I was a little different, and I didn’t know why. I couldn’t sing the way Regine (Velasquez) did at 16. I was doing films and there were love teams but I was, I don’t know, not in the way like, say, Lotlot (de Leon) was doing it,” Lea reveals. “When I headed over to the UK to work, I felt like… there were people who appreciated my voice, as is. My looks, as they were. And once audiences were applauding, and there were standing ovations at the end of shows, I think it was a realization that, ‘Oh, what I have is appreciated pala.’

“It’s interesting. What I do, I think, is appreciated here much more now. Singers are feeling like, ‘Oh, I don’t have to make birit pala.’”

3. She was a “Global Pinoy” when the term was not even invented yet, and there are others like her that she looks up to. The common trait she admires in them? Humility.

Apl de Ap: “I’m impressed with people like Apl because of his upbringing. Through life circumstance, choices, luck, opportunity, everything came together for him. It’s like, wow. And he is humble about it all despite an incredibly hectic, nonstop life. I asked him when it’s time for you to marry and, with absolute certainty, he said ‘She’s gonna be Filipino.’”

Dado Banatao: “He is such a huge deal in the Filipino community. And I think the great thing about him is he is always giving back. And he has remained humble about it all. He always thinks of home even if his family is based in California.

On Pinoys who live abroad but “forget” they are Pinoy: “It’s in your DNA to be a Filipino, how can you just turn your back on it? I can understand if you’ve had some traumatic experience in the Philippines that you want to detach yourself from your past and build a new life for yourself. I get that. But if you lived a pretty good life and you leave and then you choose to detach yourself just because you’re in America or the UK… it’s shameful to forget where you came from. It’s also hurtful.”

4. One of the most expensive “purchases” she’s made in her life is her brother Gerard’s tuition to Berklee College of Music.

Lea was 26 then. “I think I took the ate thing really seriously. In my upbringing — and my mom will also say this — my dad was not always around. So I think I felt the need whether consciously or unconsciously, to step up. And since I am doing well naman financially, okay this is going to go to him. What am I gonna spend it on? A Birkin or a Chanel? Those are things. And they will deteriorate over time. Things are temporary. But his education and investing in that, until the day he dies may ROI yun. As long as he continues to work in the music industry, continues to enhance the beauty of music, enriches the lives of the artists, the orchestras he gets to conduct, the concerts he gets to direct — come on, you can’t place a numerical value on that. An investment in education is always sulit.” Gerard graduated summa cum laude from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

Another big investment she has made is her New York City apartment. “I still own it and when I am there I get the best sleep. My husband knows that! I know where the grocery is, what is open at 3 a.m., how to take the train, everything.”

5. On what she’s like as a mother and wife: “Conversations at home really have nothing to do with my job or my husband’s, its really focused on the home and Nicole.”

“The two of us as a team, we have to figure out the stuff for the house,” Lea says about her husband, Robert Chien. They are on the Paleo diet together, a discovery they made when Robert was looking for alternative medicines to treat asthma. “We took all the grains out, stayed with white rice, eat fruits and vegetables and grass-fed pasteurized meats and eggs. We read labels like anything! We are not strict with our daughter but she eats healthy.”

Lea shares that she sleeps in whenever she does not have to be up early for work (“I don’t do early morning wakeups!”) but she does pick up Nicole in the afternoon. On being a mom to a born performer: “I know a lot of parents are like, ‘Oh my God, that’s my child!’ But me, no. When she comes out, out comes the camera phone, you take a video. It’s a lot of fun! We rehearse her at home, make sure she is memorized. Paulit ulit, but not too much that she gets tired or she’s not excited anymore.”

6. The three most meaningful roles Lea has ever played:

1. Sonia, They’re Playing Our Song: “That one mattered because it was mirroring my life as it was happening. I consider that role a godsend. It was through that that I was able to work out my issues in life, my own relationship drama. Doing the show helped me realize what I was supposed to do. I will always look upon it with a lot of love.”

2. Kim, Miss Saigon: “Not so much for the role, but it’s about feeling appreciated for my own talent in another country. It’s unimaginable when you have those first audiences, it’s a different race of people, and they appreciate your work.”

3. Eponine, Les Miserables: “Because that role was always traditionally cast as a Caucasian role. So when the time came and the offer came, I didn’t have to audition, and I was like.. this is the chance for me to prove that this non-traditional casting will work. This was a French lady in Paris in the 1800s. It’s like: Me? Really? I did what I could so that when I open my mouth and sing this role, you will believe that I am Eponine. That was my goal. Never mind the salary, it was smaller because the role is smaller. There’s a bigger reason why I was cast in this and I had to keep my eye on that. It meant so much that these big producers had faith in this little Asian woman to get away with it.”

The three shows that every non-theater-watching Pinoy must see: Avenue Q (“It is so funny, you’re taking something so beloved and you’re twisting it and it’s demented and it’s cute but it’s so wrong it’s right”); Wicked (“It’s very empowering for a lot of young girls, or for anyone who feels like they don’t fit in anywhere”); and Rock of Ages (“Musical theater is identified as a very LGBT, very gay art form, and this is the most testosterone-filled musical I have ever seen, another one that is so wrong that it’s right”).

7. The three most memorable people she has worked with:

1. Steven Schwartz: “He was the one who wrote Pippin, Godspell, Wicked, and he also wrote lyrics for Pocahontas and Hunchback of Notre Dame. I got to work with him on a Disney Cruise Ship and we were billed in the same show. So it’s like, I get to sing from the movie Enchanted, or Colors of the Wind, Defying Gravity, I get to sing all of these songs that are his! I go from artist to fan girl to artist; it’s like I had to pinch myself a lot of times! I’m singing and he is at the piano playing for me!  It was wild.”

2. George Takei: “Because of what he’s done for the Asian-American acting community. He was on Star Trek in the ‘60s, and he was in a role of importance! He is an active member of the LGBT community. On so many levels he is incredibly inspiring. I think the first time I met him was at his house, I had to rehearse for Allegiance. I remember posting on Facebook, “Guess what, guys? I am in Sulu’s house!” Then it turns out, he turned into a fanboy naman! ‘I saw you when you were in London in Miss Saigon, I loved your performance.’ Whaaaat? Really?!” Lea gushes.

3. Julie Andrews: “Because it’s friggin’ Julie Andrews! And for her to say, ‘Please just call me Julie.’ Whaaat? My brain was about to explode! I did this recording with her for The King And I and of course I saw her in The Sound of Music that I probably watched a million times, I know all the music and memorized the timber of her voice, and I am in a recording studio with you? And you know my name? It’s bizarre! I have to take pictures to prove that it was true!”

8. Known to be passionate and vocal about social issues, Lea shares her thoughts:

1. Reproductive Health Law: “For me, more than the contraception, which is the one thing people seem to be putting the microscope on which is nakakainis… Truthfully the best form of contraception is communication. Medication or a device without the knowledge of proper usage is worthless. It’s age-appropriate education, even within a Catholic school context you can naman. It’s knowing about your body and knowing the changes that occur and why they are happening. The sex education has to encompass all that, especially in the public school system. Education should also be between husbands and wives.”

2. LGBT rights: “I have a half-brother who is very, very, very gay, many cousins, best friends who are all members of the LGBT community and for me to not say anything would be hypocritical. There is a lot of prejudice. People think it is abnormal. No, it’s just another normal. There are so many shades of human being and there shouldn’t be a prejudice against anybody who is gay. It’s all about fighting for equal rights cause equal rights are human rights. They are human beings, treat them with respect.”

3. Corruption and the pork barrel issue: “For any country loving citizen, the list of where that money could have gone just enters your mind. I feel for the politicians who are spending it legitimately. Don’t judge them based on how much they spend, judge them on where it went and if it’s legitimate. I would vote for the senator who spent P100 million on legitimate projects, and not vote for the one who spent P20 million on his garage. For me the money is not to blame, it’s the greed, it’s the coveting of. I think it’s the easy access to it that needs to be looked at again. I am a little hesitant to say abolish the fund, because my instinct is to say may napupuntahan din. It’s the accountability, the responsibility.”

9. Lea Salonga in numbers:

50: Amount in pesos of her first talent fee at Repertory. “When you’re six, P50 is a lot of money.”

0: Percent rejection rate in auditions as a kid. “My batting average was pretty damn good, from age 6 to 12, everything I auditioned for, I got.”

20: Number of shows she has done. (She literally counted in front of me, enumerating every title one by one.) 298 was the most number of shows she did in the span of one year and three months, for Miss Saigon in the UK.

100: Average number of games across multiple platforms that she and husband Robert own.

2,000,000: Number of followers on Twitter on her account, @MsLeaSalonga, as of press time.

10. At 42, there isn’t any dream role she would like to play anymore or job she would like to do, but she sees herself performing for the rest of her life.

“What else? I don’t know. I think I’m good. I think I am good with however my life has turned out, I actually get to create dream roles now and I get to originate things,” she says. “I think I will always be performing, I don’t think I can take that away. Because I really just enjoy it. I like getting up to sing, I like the challenge of learning new material and singing it in front of an audience. I have really gotten the taste for coaching. I got a first taste of it with Beauty and the Beast, for KC (Concepcion) and Karel (Marquez). Parang it whet my appetite. So when they asked me to do The Voice, I said, yes, yes, yes, I absolutely want to be a part of it. You get to help shape an artist.”

* * *

A performer at age six who still keeps going and won’t stop achieving. A living icon who inspired many other artists to break barriers as well. With a mindset that ought to be a goal for all of us: “I actually cannot say that I have any regrets about anything I have selected or elected to do in my life. It’s a pretty darn good life, I really can’t complain.”

http://www.philstar.com/sunday-life/2013/09/29/1239225/lea-salonga-life-kim-sonia-eponine-wife-mom 

10 Things You Should Know About Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng

Publishing mogul Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng’s dream: To own a tiny bookstore 

Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng’s first job was as a management trainee in Robinsons Galleria where her funniest memory was when people would go to her and say, “Miss, pwede mo akong samahan kasi takot ako sa ahas.”

Publishing mogul Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng is the third among the six children of one of the wealthiest patriarchs in the country. How different is it growing up in an influential family with the pressure of making a business succeed, and how do you make yourself the boss of your own life? Here are 10 things you should know about Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng:

1. She was a part of Ateneo de Manila University’s college paper Guidon for just one year because she got booted out for never passing in an article.

“My cousin was the editor in chief, Frederick Go, who is now the head of Robinsons Land. He kicked me out because I was assigned an article and never passed it in! I was so bad,” she says laughing.

“I came from an all-girls’ Catholic Chinese school, very conservative, and going to Ateneo, it was co-ed, for me was an eye opener already. Especially in Comm, because you saw a lot of deviant and creative people there,” she recalls.

On competitiveness in class: “The most diligent students were the girls. But I have to say it was the gay men who we knew would really succeed. Then we had the macho men. We had a bunch of very successful graduates in our batch. We were only 40 students, one block. We were very close,” she says of Communication Arts batch 1990. Lisa, along with award-winning editor Manet Dayrit, film and TV director Ruel Bayani, and FHM editor in chief Allan Madrilejos, all came from the same block in college at the Ateneo.

On crushes and courtship: “I remember there was always a Top Ten Cutest Guys list. I remember pa who was number 1, Martin Lichauco, because everyone had a crush on him,” she recalls. “I don’t wanna embarrass anyone but there was this one guy who sat beside me and goes, ‘You know why I like you? You’re so much more reachable than these other two girls who were like crush ng bayan.’ Is that even a compliment? How did I reject nicely? I don’t think I was nice, I didn’t na lang mind them. I definitely wasn’t the campus heartthrob! I was nerdy.”

2. Lisa’s first job was as a management trainee in Robinsons Galleria where her funniest memory was when people would go to her and say, “Miss, pwede mo akong samahan kasi takot ako sa ahas.”

“I was trained together with the first batch of salesgirls, literally we had to clean the stockrooms, then maybe after three months I became the head of the Girls’ Department. I had to be on the floor every day in a red suit and heels, and I had this little table. I really didn’t enjoy myself, I did it out of duty,” she says of her one-year retail career. Did she feel she got special treatment? “I think I had a very good boss because she was not dyahe to order me around, in fact she gave me an average performance rating! She was not afraid to tell me I could do better.

“Then I worked with the Manila Times very briefly, but I have to say it was one of the most enjoyable times of my life. I got to work with journalists like Malou Mangahas, Glenda Gloria and Chay Hofilena.” On what she learned with the closure and eventual sale of the paper: “We learned we were not the right publishers for a serious newspaper. That’s why right now I would never do a serious newspaper, we would always get caught in-between.

“Then I went to Columbia University to pursue my master’s degree in journalism. And in New York, I developed an interest in magazines kasi these were on every corner, and I subscribed to a lot. When I came back, I said, ‘You know, there is a market.’ So I started one.” That was the birth of Preview in 1995.

3. Of the Gokongwei siblings who ventured into business, Lisa’s required the least capital: P1 million.

“Yes, I believe it was about one million. But I was lucky, we survived on supplier’s credit. I think I was able to stretch the suppliers’ credit, I didn’t have to pay a long time, because of the company that backed me. My suppliers trusted that even if it took me a long time to pay, I would eventually pay.” Summit Media now has over 22 magazine titles, and they produce books, bookazines, online content, and events.

Lisa’s siblings in two adjectives:

Robina: “Funny and responsible.”

Lance: “Exceptional and... brotherly.”

Faith: “Kind and generous.”

Hope: “Independent-minded and funny.”

Marcia: “The funniest of them all. And driven.”

“Being in the middle, I am quite close to all of them,” she says.

4. On the future of glossy magazines: “I think the magazine experience is irreplaceable. But I do believe that magazines will need to change in order for them to continue to grow.”

“It is a total package you are enjoying. Having said that, for me, magazines can no longer remain as just a print product. They have to be on Zinio, Apple Newsstand, or an app to survive. And online. That’s where we are investing because that’s where it’s going.”

On if she ever had a moral dilemma when she acquired the FHM license: “You know what? No. At that time I think I was just very naive. I was looking for something that was commercially viable. It did hit my conscience around 10 years ago, when the editor at that time I felt was taking it too far, and when he put a girl that was not yet 18 years old on the cover. Even if we didn’t part ways well, I respect him because he had his own beliefs — that an artist has to push the envelope and society did not have a right to step on freedom of expression — and I totally believe that. But when we got into that I felt it was time to separate. So yes, I did feel guilty at a certain point,” she reveals. “Even with Cosmopolitan we got a lot of flak. I was getting petitions this thick (she holds her thumb and pointer finger up two inches apart) and letters to my mom telling us to close it down because we were doing the work of the devil.”

5. She attributes her getting pregnant to “the prick of a nun.”

“I’ve been married since I was 34. I’m now 45. We were trying to get pregnant for a long time. I was miscarrying, we tried to do IVF, four times, but I didn’t get pregnant. Jo Ann Maglipon (Yes! magazine editor in chief) told me, ‘Hey, you should try acupuncture.’ At that time I was 39 years old na. I was like, acupuncture? That’s kinda quack medicine? But never mind, I was so desperate,” she laughs. “A year later, after taking herbs and doing acupuncture, I got pregnant. I was almost 40. She is Sister Regina, in Panay Ave., and now her reputation has spread. I’ve sent so many friends there and half of them have gotten pregnant.” Lisa and husband Berck Cheng have two angels, Noah and Luke.

6. Lisa and Berck got married in a small, casual garden wedding in Hawaii, by a female pastor.

“Why casual? I think we were old na, and we didn’t believe in a big wedding. It was too embarrassing! Diba? Walk the aisle at 34,” Lisa says laughing. “Honestly we really just didn’t want all that attention. It was just very intimate, very nice.”

It was Lisa’s brother Lance who found a way to introduce the couple, but it was during a blunder that they first saw each other. “He belonged to a group called Anvil and they were holding a concert to raise funds for charity. So they invited guests for a press conference with Jose Mari Chan. We were all waiting, but then he’s the one who comes out and says, ‘I’m sorry but Jose Mari Chan is not coming.’ And I said, ‘Hey! This guy is not bad looking.’”

On the relationship lesson she learned from her dad John and mom Elizabeth’s 53-year marriage: “I think they get along really well because there’s that respect for each other. My mom has always been very patient with my father, and in return my father has also been very good to my mom. It’s not perfect, they still squabble and have these arguments. I think it’s such a good marriage.”

7. Lisa Gokongwei in numbers:

500-plus: Number of employees at Summit Media.

1,000: Average number of books in her personal library. “The only physical books that I buy now are children’s books and coffee table books. Most are e-books.” She reads one book a week on average.

6.5: Average number of hours of sleep she gets daily. “I sleep at 11 p.m. and I always wake up at 2 a.m. Always. I read a bit, sleep again after an hour or two, wake up at 7 or 7:30.”

400: Grade of her glasses for both eyes.

50: Number of e-mails she receives a day.

8. She admits that if you open her closet, all you will see are white button-downs, T-shirts, and jeans.

“Unfortunately, yes,” she says of her dressed-down office attire. “You know what, I do want to dress more sophisticated; I just don’t know how!

“My family, we’re just not fashionable. You get it from your mom, right? And my mom dresses very simply. I would never say that I am simple, but I just dress simply because I don’t know how to dress in any other way. As much as I would like to dress like Pauline Juan (Preview editor in chief), I don’t have her style or her body or her taste,” she says laughing.

9. Lisa has one indulgence: “I love art and furniture.”

“I like Scandinavian-type furniture, I like Charles and Ray Eames. It’s a piece of furniture that just makes you smile,” she gushes. She does not collect works of any artist in particular but she does name Geraldine Javier, Ronald Ventura, Vermont Coronel and Elaine Navas as some of her favorites.

On what will make her choose a piece: “Sometimes I like them because they’re so pretty. Other times I like them because they are so strange. One of my favorite pieces now is a Geraldine Javier. It’s a goat’s head with crocheted antlers, and it’s very scary. My children hate it so I put it in this corner in my house. But it appeals to me because it’s so strange. She describes her home interiors as “loft meets modern meets eclectic,” and she actually does not follow feng shui. “I believe it helps you arrange space in a way that’s comfortable for you, but I’m not sure it actually brings you luck.”

10. She does fly Cebu Pacific and pays for her tickets in full, no discounts.

On what money means to her: “I think money is a way for us to be creative, it allows you to build things. Although you can build things without money, it is a means to creativity.”

On her biggest guilty pleasure: “Business class! Unfortunately I still cannot fly first class. That’s too nakaka-guilty na for me! I have to take business na now kasi I’m old na, especially if it’s a long trip. If it’s a short trip I still take Cebu Pacific.” Does she still have to pay? “Yes, of course!” No family discount as a perk? “None eh,” she says smiling.

On her favorite cheap thrill: “Spam and egg from Pancake House. Me and my son love that, we go every Saturday for that.”

On her one unfulfilled dream: “I’ve always wanted to own a bookstore. I would’ve wanted to own a very tiny bookstore, it would just be my choice of books. But I’m just too busy.”

* * *

On the topic of her kids, I asked Lisa what her biggest worry is when it comes to them growing up in this generation. “I think the greatest worry… kasi they’re comfortable. I think it’s so difficult for families who are affluent to raise kids who are not screwed up,” she says frankly. “I think that is the big balancing act. How do you not spoil them? It’s just so difficult. Kasi you see it makes them so happy. We do try to tell them, and show them, that there is another kind of world.” If you have ever met Lisa or any of her siblings, it is likely you will be disarmed by how down to earth and approachable they are, as if they were not members of one of the most powerful families in the country. And with that kind of guidance, I am quite sure Noah and Luke, despite the circumstances and eventual pressure, will grow up fine, well, and grounded with them as examples.

http://www.philstar.com/sunday-life/2013/09/01/1156041/publishing-mogul-lisa-gokongwei-chengs-dream-own-tiny-bookstore