meet San Shine

This is my family photo in Saudi Arabia. I am sitting second right, in between my father and my youngest brother. This is a photoshoot at a studio. My brothers don't usually dress like that in Saudi but my mother and I - we were veiled in public, always. 

My father migrated to Saudi Arabia in the 70s to build infrastructure in the desert. My mother and I followed him in the 80s, and my brothers were born in Riyadh. I grew up in the conditioning of women's body and voice censored and silenced. 

I cannot stand surface level conversations. I cannot be polite and pretend to belong in spaces where the culture is rooted in patriarchy. To me, patriarchy isn't about gender. It's about energetic dominace and imbalance. 

While growing up in Saudi Arabia, I was enrolled in a Korean school, learning the Korean language and its culture. I was taught how to engage with doctors, policeman, grandparents - while living in a country where such relationships did not exist. We had house visiting "healers", we had religious police monitoring us, and my grandparents were in a far away land. 

From there starting from middle school, we all had no choice but to enroll in a western school - primarily American international school. The entrance was determined by a comprehensive exam in English (plus the tuition was very expensive). But I failed the exam 5 times. I received extremely harsh shaming as a result -- all this to fit me into the global narrative of white supremacy and "success" 

I refuse to be a part of institutions and industries that still serve the dominance of white & western systems even though they offer the lip service of diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

I've always been a little different. I carry a burning fire for freedom. I feel deeply. I'm sensitive to the spiritual world. I am highly intuitive. I prefer to play the piano by ear rather than follow someone's written notes. I never follow cooking recipes because I believe our bodies guide us to cook and eat most healthily for the unique self. As a child, my fun play was healing my brothers through storytelling and imagination. 

I only discovered recently, in my conscious return to motherland, that my grandfather was the lead ceremonialist for the entire village's funerals. My grandmother's father, Kim Myung Sik, was a freedom-fighting scholar and a medicine man who fought the good fight by the side of the incredible Kim Ku as his roommate. He did not receive the government's medal of honor for his work because such a recognition passes down only through the sons and he had one son who passed away prior to the opportunity of recognition. 

During San's digital nomading years, on her search for home, community, and belonging, she thrived in her career combining her experience in banking, aid work, and multicultural adaptability to become a top consultant in microfinance risk management systems. 

However, there came a point where her body simply refused to continue to play the role fitting into the masculine dominant world of banking, teaching white-perspective systems in lands and cultures that already have all they need to thrive. 

As aid workers, who promise inclusion and empowerment, it is our responsibility to help others remember who they are, reconnect with their wisdom and inner knowing, not changing them and teaching western-systems that has been dominating and over-taking for centuries. 

San founded Octopus and Stitch Consulting and Diaspora Remembering to offer consulting services to help individuals step into their power and to together we rewrite our systems by rerooting from lower frequencies of fear and control to love and harmony.