Mr. Tjhin Kin Fa and his 5 Golden Flowers: Happy International Women's Day!

My Dad, Mr. Tjhin Kin Fa 陈京华,  has 5 daughters.
No son.
“Only” 5 daughters. And I am the third of five, the notorious middle child.

There were times when some jerks back home would undermine my Dad for not being able to "continue the Tjhin's bloodline". I once threw a chair to one particular jerk because that jerk, after a petty petty quarrel, yelled at my Dad and said, "Well, at least, unlike you, I still have 'REAL' descendants !!" Ok, I might have been somewhat childish and volatile then, but I still keep the same kind of disrespect to that kind of chauvinist representation. If you haven't known already, Chinese community (Mainland or overseas) follow a  patriarch tradition, where it is the male descendant who maintains the family bloodline. In other words, if you have no son, no one will "continue your bloodline" because your daughters will be married off to other family and take their in-law's family name.

Irregardless so, Dad has always been proud of us, the 5 Golden Flowers 五朵金花 of his - Chen Fengling, Chen Xiuling, Chen Shuling, Chen Xiaoling and Chen Meiling. I might not be the brightest one, but I would've never been where I am now, had it not been for his progressive thoughts on female empowerment.

My Dad never graduated elementary school, because he was too poor to afford the tuition fee or to finish the course. He had no money and had no time, because he had to skip classes during school to earn money for his family, by becoming a minibus driver (supir angkot) for Jakarta-Cianjur route. Obviously, he flunked school due to poor attendance records.

When his daughters were born, our family economic condition gradually improved. We're obviously no conglomerates, but we managed to become a middle-class family where his daughters had access to modest but modern education. Despite his "lack of" education, my Dad and my Mom (who managed to graduate and became a junior high school teacher in a certain Chinese school prior to New Order period) have always believed that their children deserve a better live than them and require further educational experiences than what their lives had permitted them. I remember my Dad said, "Anak-anak Papa paling nggak mesti bisa S2 semuanya! (My daughters have to have at least postgraduate degree!)" Prior to his recent retirement, he had bent over backwards for all of us, working 14-18 hours a day everyday for his daughters to fulfill that dream.

Despite all odds, my Dad and Mom made sure that all their five Golden Flowers got the proper education they deem necessary to make us better women. Though we are far from perfect, but I believe that me and my sisters have become strong women with a few respectable achievements thanks to my Dad and Mom. I personally am very grateful for their ahead-of-time way of thinking that has enabled me (at least) to have the appreciation of gender empowerment.

Today is international women's day.

I look at myself and my sisters, and I look at other women in my life that have also inspired or motivated me directly or indirectly so that I can be where I am to day, and also other women that I don't know who probably have less fortunate fate than myself but still persevere despite all odds...
My Dad and Mom have implanted the yearn for female empowerment on the back of my head. But it is from numerous wonderful people that I learn what gender empowerment meant in different period and context of history - in particular the people I met in Canberra and CSIS, and others in the process up until now.

Indonesia has gone through significant transition in terms of female empowerment, and perhaps we might have smashed quite a bit of barricades in our lifetimes, and, perhaps some glass ceilings might have been cracked.... but there are, obviously,  still much much more to be done.

I have my many flaws, but I wish I could bring some tiny yet useful contributions to the movement and make my Dad (and Mom) proud.

Some chauvinist idiots would probably brushed off my Dad as someone with no son, with no "real descendants" (keturunan). But as far as I and my 4 sisters are concerned, we carry his name with utter pride and swelling honor. We will strive, as he has done, to bring the betterment of others in any way we can - however imperfect that be.

My name is Christine Susanna TJHIN, and I am a proud female TJHIN, thanks to my Dad, Mr. Tjhin Kin Fa and my Mom, Mrs. Liauw Lin Djie.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY EVERYBODY!!!