By Ben Wheeler
It’s a hot and humid Thursday afternoon as I arrive at Albert Park to discover how 17-year-old Maryanne Marguerita Bulewa balances high school with a successful modelling career and being one of Fiji’s brightest taekwondo stars.
After meeting her at Fiji Fashion Week, Bulewa has invited me to attend one of her taekwondo classes. I arrive to find her delivering a series of kicks of such power that they visibly shake the poor fella holding up a considerably cushioned pad.
Her instructor, whom she will later refer to as Master, moves in and holds his hand up above his head, seemingly indicating he would like her to deliver a head kick to an imaginary giant. She obliges. Clearly, balance is not an issue for this young lady.
When we sit down and talk, I’m impressed by her comfortable, easygoing nature and how self-assured and mature she seems. This comes from six years of modelling, she explains.
“I was really shy at first because of the amount of people, and the eyes upon you. It’s really scary, because you’re walking by yourself, and everyone is either complimenting you or judging you. But slowly, slowly, after about three years, I started getting used to it.
“From Fiji Fashion Week I’ve gained a lot of confidence and bravery to be myself!”
Again and again, she returns to the subject of her family.
“I always had my parents there to support me,” she says with a smile.
“They’re always by my side 24/7, and they’re always interested in what I do. And I know everything I’m doing now is making them proud.”
I’m intrigued to know how she went from modelling to taekwondo, but the path is not a straight line. The ‘Tall Girl from Year 12’ was also a keen basketball player after being selected by her school.
“For my height,” she says with another smile.
She didn’t even know how to play at the time, but with hard work, practice and research via YouTube videos and tutorials, she picked up the basics in a few weeks.
But it was taekwondo that really captured her heart.
Bulewa had watched the sport online and never dreamed it was happening in Fiji, she tells me. Then one day, a group of practitioners came to her school to take a self-defence class.
“I was so surprised and I was so happy because I thought the whole group would be from Korea, but half of them were from Fiji,” she says visibly excited by the memory. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, my people are taking taekwondo!’”
After qualifying for the training programme with a friend – as the only two who managed a high kick – she told her father on the phone she would be home late because she was attending taekwondo class.
He was not happy, but Bulewa stuck to her guns.
“I knew that taekwondo had something. I had to be there.
“I went home after training and ‘Yappa! Yappa! Yappa!’ – I got the yelling,” she goes on, still smiling. “My father asked if I was getting paid for this sport, and I explained, ‘No, I’m paying them for this sport.’
“Then he sent me to my room.”
The next day as Bulewa explained she was paying for the training with money earned from modelling and showed her father the taekwondo kit she had been given, his attitude began to change.
I get the sense it would be hard to argue with someone who is so driven, creating her own opportunities and funding her own training, despite any misgivings about the nature of the sport.
I also consider that, as far as teenage rebellions go… it could be worse.
When she was recently selected for a scholarship to Korea, her family was stunned at first, and then both proud and excited. She’s excited too, and can’t wait, she tells me, to learn the language and embrace the culture. I ask if she’s been back to YouTube to learn Korean.
“YouTube, and then I watch the K-dramas on Netflix,” she fires back quick as a flash. “Slowly, slowly I am getting there with my understanding. But it will take time. Things take time.”
Again, I am struck by the mature and committed approach and gentle independence Bulewa has to everything she undertakes.
She indicates many times that when she becomes frustrated with conventional teaching practices, she retreats, researches, and returns with a more thorough understanding that her teachers often attribute to their own methods.
The phrase “slowly, slowly” is used around a dozen times during our short interview. It is like a mantra that – almost counterintuitively – explains how she has been so successful at so many different things, so quickly.
She would love to travel beyond Korea, naming the UK, Singapore “for the lights!”, Thailand and Japan “for the fashion and the culture”.
“I always see these places on computers and laptops and phones… but I want to see it with my own eyes, you know? Take pictures of it all with my eyes and keep it as memories in my head.”
She loves the ocean and tells me that in her down time, she loves to be in the water, especially the lagoon near her grandmother’s house.
“I’m like an ocean life girl. I don’t get used to this,” she says gesturing at the concrete stadium we are sitting in.
“We snorkel on the edge of reefs, notice sharks and huge eels, and a lot of snakes down there. We usually do it in Sigatoka, in Natadola, it’s the best place, it’s so beautiful! The ocean is always clear and blue.
“I want to explore what the sea life is like in other countries.”
Back on land, she has more ambitions.
“My parents wanted me to be in the British Army, a flight attendant, working on a cruise boat. But I didn’t want that, I was more into animals, because I love all creatures. There are so many animals struggling in this country, and I just want to be there to help them.
“So I want to study to be a veterinarian and have my own place for animals in need. All the stray dogs I see, I could just bring them in and help them out, and people could come in and adopt them.”
Before we know it, it is pouring with rain and our chances at a photoshoot are lost, so we agree to meet again in a few weeks.
By this time, she has fought in the qualifier for the Olympics, and lost. She seems undaunted and laughs as she tells me she was so nervous that she blanked out and her opponent “used her as a punching bag!”
But taekwondo remains her top priority.
“Yes! Yes! For myself and my country, and to make my whole family proud, that’s what I want to do! I want to bring something back. I’d like to go out to other islands and teach them what I’ve experienced.”
With all she has accomplished, with the single-mindedness and clear commitment she has already displayed, I have no doubt she will achieve all these things.
Slowly, slowly.
