sacha chua living an awesome life

The specter of brain drain has haunted me since high school. As students at Philippine Science High School—one of the best schools in the country, and publicly-funded at that—we were regularly reminded of our responsibilities as scholars of the nation. Our names were on hold lists at airports, and we needed to post bonds assuring our return before we travelled. Throughout university, too, I heard from frustrated teachers who’d seen their students settle down in far-off countries.

I decided that I could just as easily create opportunities in the Philippines as I could in North America. Although my alma mater and the competing schools I asked gently encouraged me to take my masters overseas so that I could learn, I resolved to come back and make things happen. I was really uncomfortable when some of the Filipino immigrants I met in Canada dismissed the Philippines and said it didn’t matter to them. I didn’t want to be like them.

Towards the end of my master’s degree, I fell in love with someone who could not move to the Philippines with me. So I chose love, even though it meant being away from family and old friends and becoming part of the brain drain I’d felt so strongly about. Besides, after having gone through the trouble of uprooting myself and making myself at home in an new environment, I wasn’t about to insist that someone else go through the same ordeal.

Still, there’s the occasional twinge of guilt, of uncertainty, of negotiating my identity between worlds. Not many people are caught in between like this—most people seem to have just embraced their new lives—so there aren’t that many people I can talk to. But the tension can be creative, too; it helps power my passion to make it easier for people to learn, collaborate, and lead from anywhere. That way, people don’t have to go through being between worlds like this unless they want to, and they can build roots more quickly if they do.

So it was good to read this analysis of brain drain from a magazine about foreign policy that concluded it wasn’t all that bad, and that it could even strengthen source countries.

I am not lost. I am not mis-placed. I am here, and I’m making things happen.

I joined other recent hires for an evening out that ended up at a bubble tea shop. I ordered taro bubble tea with tapioca. Someone asked me what taro was, and I paused as I tried to describe it to people who had never had taro before.

For me, taro bubble tea is wrapped up in all sorts of memories: standing in long lines to bubble tea shops as the craze swept through Manila, finding out that one of my university teachers was in a car accident because he jaywalked to buy a cup of bubble tea, going to Quickly with my sister and poking the thick straw through the taut plastic that was just added by their special cup-sealing machines, rolling my tongue around the spongy tapioca that took me back even further to innumerable glasses of sago’t gulaman quenching childhood thirsts.

I remember copying my sister after she ordered taro with large tapioca pearls. Years later, it’s still the flavour I return to.

“Taro?” I said. “They’re roots.”

Winston Damarillo is an all-around cool guy and a serial tech entrepreneur who wants to help more people start up tech companies in the Philippines. So he put together Mor.ph, and now Mor.ph is holding a bootcamp for aspiring tech entrepreneurs. It’s also a business competition, so if you win, you get funding, support, and mentoring. Good stuff. Kinda makes me wish I was based in Manila instead! ;)

Software as a service, high tech startup :: Morph Code :: Schedule of Events

Dearest Sacha,

I read your blog and I see two issues that are bothering you: homesickness
and “guilt” for being away from your country.

First, let me say that it is alright to feel homesick – in fact, we would
worry if you never felt the pain of being away. It only means that you miss
us – your family, your home, your cat, our pets, your friends, our weather,
even the places where you hang out. We feel the same sadness and longing for
you because we would prefer to see you everyday, to see you smile, to hear
the excitement in your voice when you tell stories, to be able to tell if
you are sad and to be able to hug you when you are. Which is why Skype is
my preferred way of communicating with you – because I want “to be with you”
as much as possible, even if it means listening to your voice on one
computer and looking at you (webcam) on another. Since our schedules do not
always allow “skyping,” I depend on your blog, and your occasional emails
-too few and too short =( to know what’s happening with you. It’s pain that
we must bear, because we love you and want you to grow and become fulfilled.

But the “guilt” that you feel for being away from your country is
unnecessary grief. As long as you carry your love for your country in your
heart, then there is nothing to grieve for being somewhere else. Think of
the Filipinos who have brought pride to their countrymen – they’re not
necessarily here. Patricia Evangelista won the speaking competition in
London. Lea Salonga made her name in London, New York and Hollywood. Leo
Oracion, Erwin Emata and Ching’s friend, Romy Garduce could not have
conquered Mt. Everest by staying here. In the same manner, Einstein was born
in Germany but his genius flourished in the U.S. The Kennedys were
originally Irish. Your papa’s parents were from China. Pre-historic
Filipinos were migrants from Malay Peninsula and Indonesia. You know what I
am trying to say but you need to say this to yourself every now and then,
especially when some people, or you yourself, make you feel guilty about
being away from your country. Nobody should be limited by the physical
boundaries of one’s country – you need to climb your highest mountains, no
matter where they are. And when you are on top, you plant the Philippine
flag and proclaim to the world that you are a Filipina.

We love you and we are proud of you, and if the pain of loneliness is the
price we have to pay so you can be the best that you can be, then so be it.

Love always,

Mom

On Technorati: homesick, philippines, :)

E-Mail from Mama

Joel Spolsky writes about finding great developers. Internships are a terrific way to scope out a candidate and also get them passionate about your company. Previous blog post about career aside, I do really like IBM and I *am* really curious to see how far we can take social software – and one of the reasons why I’m crazy about that company and all the cool people in it is because I’ve seen it from the inside, thanks to the IBM Toronto Centre for Advanced Studies.

Check out the essay.

More thoughts: One of the things that frustrates me about the
Philippines is that we’ve got this entire chicken-and-egg problem in
the schools. Few companies do on-campus recruitment for challenging
internships, so students don’t get motivation or experience – which is
why few companies bother to do on-campus recruitment or R&D.
Programming competitions help, I guess, and we do still manage to find
a couple of geeks who learn about open source and end up teaching
themselves. Still…

On Technorati: development, management, hiring, hr, philippines

The song “Bayan Ko” never fails to move me, and it is to this song and
other traditional songs that I turn to whenever I feel homesick. I
wish I knew the first stanza better, and I wish I could sing well
enough to help even my non-Tagalog-speaking friends appreciate the
beauty of the song.

Lyrics by Jose Corazon de Jesus, melody by Constancio de Guzman

Ang bayan kong Pilipinas
Lupain ng ginto’t bulaklak
Pag-ibig ang sa kanyang palad
Nag-alay ng ganda’t dilag.
At sa kanyang yumi at ganda
Dayuhan ay nahalina
Bayan ko, binihag ka
Nasadlak sa dusa.

>

Ibon mang may layang lumipad
Kulungin mo at umiiyak
Bayan pa kayang sakdal dilag
Ang di magnasang makaalpas!
Pilipinas kong minumutya
Pugad ng luha ko’t dalita
Aking adhika,
Makita kang sakdal laya!

On Technorati: lyrics, philippines, culture, filipino, tagalog

A chance encounter with Daniel Chmielewski at BarCampEarthToronto led to a conversation about the Philippines and an introduction to Kevin Beckford, one of Dan’s friends who is in the Philippines right now. I asked him how he ended up in Cebu, and he said:

I came here from Hong Kong, I was doing a contract there. While there, I
could not help but notice the filipinas in causeway bay. Upon talking to
them, I noticed that they all seemed to really love the philippines. I said:
“What the hell am I doing in Hong Kong, which I am not fond of, when
everyone I meet from this country loves it?” So i came here to cebu and just
lived here… did some offshore contracts for cash and now i’m (weeps)
getting ready to leave. I do work with php/perl/java/groovy ( php as little
as possible ) and some admin things. I am currently hacking drupal code
right now YES NOW because I’m trying to get something working according to
my desire.

…

I’ll really miss this place though. If I had known it was this good, i
would have targeted here instead of just dropping in for the year. Ah well.
Who knows what the future holds ?

These are stories that need to be told.

E-Mail from Kevin

On Technorati: philippines