Hidden Treasures
Susanti Tio shows Edith Emeralda how to balance a purposedriven life between work, family, hobby and charity work to round it all off. Visit www. Indonesiatatler. com or scan the QR code for behind- the- scenes videos.
Susanti Tio shows us how to balance life’s aspects, including some style notes from Dior
dinner parties are usually where new acquaintances are met, and, one night, Susanti Tio gained two friends related to one another; she was a small- scale trader, while they traded iron ore on a bigger scale. A week later, they introduced her to their in-laws, who also worked the ore out of Banjarmasin, the capital of the South Kalimantan province, Dato’ Gouw.
“In the beginning, I offered to work on his behalf rather than for him,” Susanti explains when we sit down to talk. “He agreed, and I began with a small load of ore to trade that proved to be successful, and thus Dato’ entrusted me with more.” From that point onwards, she made even more acquaintances as Susanti oversaw each and every step of the mining and trading while getting to know the people she worked with.
Others took notice of her hard work and began to ask her to trade on their behalf, to the point that she shipped two to three vessels in a week. However, the confidence she had grown since 2006 came to a halt when a prediction came true: that iron ore prices during the Beijing Olympics 2008 would drop by at least 50 per cent. Susanti then moved on to coal under Mitra Bumi Sejahtera, which she had set up a year ago. “I realised that the work is truly not easy,” she said. “Although first I offered to help Dato’ Gouw so he wouldn’t get cheated anymore, I wasn’t actually freed from being cheated on either,” Susanti says.
Such is the reason why she gets involved in different aspects of the operation herself, from going to the mines, to visiting the dock, and so on. Good intentions, however, will always lead to good people, Susanti adds, which is how she has been able to own two mines today. She is now teaching all this know-how and also encouraging her son to understand what’s happening on the field instead of simply leading from behind the desk.
Although she has to be on the ground at remote locations in and around the Kalimantan jungle, Susanti maintains a tidy appearance that exudes both strength and beauty. “As a woman in a field dominated by men, we need to always be mindful about how we present ourselves,” she says. “I don’t wear a lot of make-up, but when I don’t wear any outside of home when meeting others, people asked if I’m sick or not feeling well.”
Her health is mostly on the good side boosted by a healthy diet and enough exercise—two factors that play important roles in Susanti’s own life and her family’s. Besides running as a shared hobby between herself, her children, and her friends, travelling is another way they de-stress: “Now that my son helps out in the office, I can have more time to travel and, later on, focus on more charity efforts still in the planning,” Susanti tells us, adding on to her parallel effort of not only mining in the rural areas of Kalimantan, but also improving the livelihoods of those who work and live around her.