The magnificent view of Kota Kinabalu
Text and photos by Prime Sarmiento
After going through some paper work over my work visa, I finally managed to get out of the newsroom in Brunei to spend a few days in Kota Kinabalu. This is my first time not only in KK but in Sabah.
I initially had no interest in going here – in Sabah or anywhere else in Borneo – as I was soo not into mountain climbing or getting-to-know-the-orangutans. But fate brought me to a tiny kingdom in Borneo, and with that came the decision to know more about this island which is oh-so-near-yet-so-far from the country of my birth.
My KK trip, however, is more of a working vacation. Or more of a traveling with a cause thing. I’ll be one of the speakers for the Asian Women Empowerment Conference (AWE) organized by the lovely and very popular travel writer and photographer Juno.
I always wanted to go to AWE and Juno in fact reached out to me last year inviting me to join the conference. I was supposed to go the first AWE in KL last year, but shit happened and had to forego that plan. This year, however, as I recovered from my biggest failure in 2013 and is now receiving so many blessings, I decided to share such abundance by attending this year’s AWE.
Apart from contributing a tiny amount to the organizer, I also signed up as one of the speakers. I’ll be discussing the nuts-and-bolts of freelancing as a journalist. While I’m no longer a freelancer, I still want to share my experiences in the hopes that this will inspire and inform Asian women who seriously want to earn money while traveling. Afrer all, what better way to live independently but to travel alone as a woman?
About 80 participants are expected to attend this year’s AWE conference. Most of them, I’m happy to note, are Asians. Not that I’m promoting Asian exclusivity here, but it’s more because I think it’s about time that we address the elephant in the room: that despite the fact that more and more women in Asia are educated and ambitious, culture and tradition are hindering a lot of us from living the life that we want and deserve.
In its website, the Asian Women’s Empowerment (AWE) defines itself as an organization dedicated to raise awareness and promote empowerment of women in Asian communities, and to encourage Asian women to follow their dreams and thrive with an independent lifestyle. The AWE ‘14 will feature an inspiring program and workshops designed to promote empowerment and independence of women, to encourage and enable Asian women to break social molds and restrictions to follow their dreams and achieve their ambitions in a male dominated society. While the “male-dominated society” may apply in other Asian countries, such concept may not apply in the Philippines as my country has always been considered an outlier in Asia, scoring high in terms of gender parity and women empowerment. I also grew up in a family full of strong women (my mother, a home-based entrepreneur, has very unflattering comments against wives who don’t help their husbands) and has always been encouraged and praised for my achievements.
Having said that, I, like most Asian women, was prevented to live my own life owing to prevailing cultural norms. I can’t live way from home, for instance, because I’m still single. I have to go to church, even if I don’t believe in a lot of things that the Catholic priests are saying, because my parents drag me (more like guilt trip me into going) to Sunday mass. Some of my former schoolmates also said I’m suplada and mayabang because I refused to attend reunions (What for? I don’t like them to begin with). I ended up traveling alone (and getting jobs abroad – Singapore, Vietnam and now Brunei) to escape such culture.
Sure, I remained in Asia, but the fact that I’m a foreigner and not a resident of this particular Asian country means I’m free to do whatever I please without having to think about what my family/friends have to say. Without having to go through a lot of guilt tripping.
I know that I’m not the only one who has that kind of dilemma. This is the reality for most women in Asia. And I’m glad that Juno organized AWE if only to give most women in this side of the world a fighting chance to live a life that we all want. A life that we all deserve It may be too late for you now to attend AWE ‘14. But this is a yearly event and if you want to help the cause, please consider joining next year’s event or donating some money to keep AWE going.
All of us have a stake in here and only by helping ourselves can we break from the ties that hinder us from achieving what we want in life.
