BECOMING UNSTOPPABLE MARIA & ELIZABETH RAHAJENG UnstoppableCS6.indd 5 8/10/2018 08:25:38 Becoming Unstoppable By Maria & Elizabeth Rahajeng © 2018 Published by PT Elex Media Komputindo All rights reserved First published by: PT Elex Media Komputindo Group of Gramedia-Jakarta Member of IKAPI, Jakarta Cover Details: Cover Photographer: Andra Ramadhan (@aryandrarmd) Cover Makeup Artist: Kiky Lutan (@kikylutan) Cover Hairstylist: Shaira Banu (@shaira_banu) Cover Co-Stylist: Wisnu Genu (@genunerd) Editor: Michael Freundt Design & Layout: Caroline Tranggono (@carol_tranggo) Photographers: Aryandra Ramadhan @andrarmd @aryandraphoto Cover, About Authors, p. 81 Govinda Rumi @govindarumi @terralogical p. 22, 49, 94 Indra Permana Kantawibawa @indrakantawibawa and the @iluminen team p. 35, 40, 104, 174, 190, 192, 195 718061182 ISBN: 978-602-04-7815-9 English Edition All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Printed and bounded by PT Gramedia, Jakarta The printer company is not responsible for the content of this publication. UnstoppableCS6.indd 6 8/10/2018 08:25:38 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABOUT AUTHORS ix INTRODUCTION x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 200 UnstoppableCS6.indd 8 8/10/2018 08:25:38 HUMBLE 1 - 23 01 BEGINNINGS THE 25-33 02 BIG DROP A WHOLE 03 NEW WORLD 35-59 GIRL ON 04 FIRE 61-83 FINDING OUR VOICE - 05 MAKING TOUGH DECISIONS 85-103 TAKING A LEAP OF FAITH - 06 WHY RISKS ALWAYS PAY OFF 105-127 BREAKING 07 STANDARDS 129-151 BEHIND THE SCENES: 08 IT’S NOT AS EASY AS IT LOOKS 153-171 WONDER WOMEN: 09 THE WOMEN WHO RAISED US 173-195 A LETTER TO OUR 10 YOUNGER SELVES 197-199 UnstoppableCS6.indd 9 8/10/2018 08:25:38 ABOUT AUTHORS Maria and Elizabeth Rahajeng are identical twins who work in the world of fashion and media. Together they have grown to become two of the top digital content creators in the country while also becoming the first Indonesian correspondents for E! Asia. Maria got her start when she was crowned Miss Indonesia 2014 while Elizabeth began her career in fashion retail before transitioning into broadcasting and digital media. Combining their love for fashion, travel and lifestyle, they are the founders and writers of www.mariaandelizabeth.com. They aim to inspire their readers to live passionately with purpose and grace. Maria and Elizabeth both have a bachelor’s degree in Broadcasting Journalism from Pelita Harapan University. xi UnstoppableCS6.indd 11 8/10/2018 08:25:39 01 HUMBLE BEGINNINGS / Where it All Started / UnstoppableCS6.indd 18 8/10/2018 08:25:45 The year was 1991. Our mother Maria was a 26-year-old school teacher who taught English, our father Chris, a 27-year-old lawyer. High school sweethearts, they married shortly after graduating from university, and like most Javanese newlyweds, decided to start a family - straight away. After a year of marriage, our parents became pregnant with one baby girl, or so they thought. Up until her third trimester, her doctor assured our mother that they had only heard one heartbeat and therefore she was having one girl. But by the beginning of her third trimester (and by the size of her enormous belly), she wasn’t so sure. Suspicion came to play. 11 UnstoppableCS6.indd 1 8/10/2018 08:25:46 Chapter 01 Mom was either having one hell of a heavily-built, over-sized baby, or perhaps - twins, she thought. After all, our father was an identical twin himself – the family genes were strong. So, you can imagine our parents’ shock when, at two weeks to the delivery date, they discovered they were having not one, but two baby girls. The news sent (happy) shock waves to everyone in the family. Suddenly, instead of buying one pair of everything, they now had to stock up on twos! The first three years of our lives were spent in Blora, a regency in the northeastern part of Central Java province in Indonesia. Its capital, also called Blora, is about 127 km east of Semarang and is a small, quaint town, with a population of 15,000. It’s a classic Javanese town where everybody knows everybody. Ever heard of Sate Blora or Soto Blora? Yeah, we’re famous for our delicious cuisine. Aside from food, other fun facts are that we have exceptional quality teak wood (it’s a heavily forested area) and I bet you didn’t know that one of Indonesia’s most well known and respected writers, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, was born in Blora in 1925! It was here that our sense of Javanese values was Contrary to what most engrained in us - love, harmony, serenity, strong people believe, we bonds to family - just to name a few. Contrary to didn’t come from a what most people believe, we didn’t come from wealthy background. a wealthy background. We were, however, raised We were, however, surrounded by a loving, tight-knit family and lived raised surrounded by a a happy, albeit, simple life. loving, tight-knit family Our mother is the quintessential Javanese woman: and lived a happy, soft-spoken, very well-mannered, smiles non- albeit, simple life. stop, would rather lose an arm than say anything 2 UnstoppableCS6.indd 2 8/10/2018 08:25:47 Humble Beginnings mean-spirited towards anyone, and has a work ethic like no other. A humble and unpretentious woman, she grew up in a family of scholars. Both her parents taught at the local high school (our grandpa, or Kakung, eventually became the school principal), and a number of her uncles and aunts also chose the teaching profession. “Growing up, I really admired how they taught with such passion. I wanted to be just like them,” she recalls. “They were teachers. They lived simple lives, but found tremendous happiness in what they did. This had a strong afect on me and ultimately is what led me to follow the same path”. And since English was her favorite subject in school as a little girl, she chose to study precisely that in university. After graduation, she secured her irst oicial teaching job as a high school English teacher back in Blora. In the arms of Eyang and Kakung at two months old. Our father, a young, ambitious individual, dreamed of a diferent life outside of Blora. To understand his mindset, you’d have to understand a little bit of his background. You see, while Mom came from a family of scholars, Dad lived on the other side of the tracks, so to speak. 3 UnstoppableCS6.indd 3 8/10/2018 08:25:47 Chapter 01 He had an extremely rough childhood and grew up most of his life in poverty. Tragedy struck when, at just eight months old, his father abandoned the family, leaving his mother to raise three sons on her own. His mother, our paternal grandmother or Nenek as we liked to call her, had an elementary school education, was almost completely illiterate, and in a blink of an eye had become the sole financial provider for her family. For an illiterate woman in rural Indonesia, the opportunities that lined up for her were very few and far between. Nenek didn’t allow her lack of education to get in the way of working hard to provide the best she could for her family. She worked tirelessly, taking on physically demanding jobs – up to two or three at a time. When she wasn’t working as a maid, she would walk door-to-door selling coal and fruit. As a single mother earning little to no income, even managing daily meals for her family became a struggle. Dad often reminisces about those days where he and his brothers would take baths in the local river (the water bill was too much to afford sometimes), and ate “whenever food was available”. As discouraging and tragic as the situation was, Nenek had an unwavering spirit. Our Dad and his brothers miraculously received a steady education as she used most of her hard-earned money toward her sons’ monthly school tuition fees. She eventually remarried when Dad was 15. Nenek might not have been able to give her sons an idealistic upbringing, but she certainly did the best she could with the circumstances at hand. She might not have been able to give her sons any materialist luxuries, but what she was able to provide was much more important. She instilled in them a love of education and was able to raise them to understand the immense importance of having one, something she never had. She was convinced that the only way her boys could escape the cruel hands of poverty was through education, and education alone. Now that’s what we call one hell of an unstoppable woman. Starting in junior high, Dad and his brothers worked part-time jobs to help support the family. After graduating high school, he found himself accepted to medical school, only to realize he couldn’t afford the expensive tuition. Instead, he opted for his second option, law school in Semarang where he received a scholarship. 4 UnstoppableCS6.indd 4 8/10/2018 08:25:47 Humble Beginnings Fast forward three years after we were born. Remember when we said he dreamed of a life outside of Indonesia? It came as a surprise, especially to our mother, when he decided, on a whim, to move the family to the U.S.A. In his perspective, America represented endless opportunities, and of course, the American dream. But more than that, it represented a different life to the one he lived. Different was good.