Show Notes:Connect with Marites online in the following places:www.maritesrealty.comInstagram: @mariteskliemHosted by: Andrew BracewellProduced and Edited by: Justin HawkesFull Transcription of this Interview:Andrew 00:01 This is the podcast that finds the most elusive people, the everyday amazing kind that you know nothing about. I’m hunting these people down and exposing their beauty to the world. I’m Andrew Bracewell and this is every day. Amazing. And so my life is linked to shell. And then real estate is kind of like the commercial thing.Andrew 00:25 Mary tests. Hello, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me today. I am very excited to be chatting with you in my living room. This is, this is quite the thing to be doing and very cozy. I got my blanket. Well, we’ll have to make sure to take pictures of you cause you do look cozy. I’m just hoping you don’t fall asleep. We’re gonna try not to. We gotta we gotta keep you gotta keep you awake while we try to dissect your brain and learn all that we can. Um, so is it, is itMarites 00:53 clean or climb? It’s cleam. I know. I have a very difficult first name and then even a harder last name. So I’ve, I was at a wedding once and I was singing, they’re like, all right, please welcome Mariah to kill them. I was like, I think that’s me. I thinkAndrew 01:11 yeah, right. Just kill them. So confession, um, I always like to start confessions. I feel like, you know, he get something off your chest. So we’ve worked together in the same company for quite a few years. I think you’ve been around for 12 years.Marites 01:24 Uh, I’ve been at Remax only F uh, maybe seven or eight, but,Andrew 01:29 Oh right, okay. Sure. License 15 but so we’ve, we’ve been in each other’s lives without actually being in each other’s lives for quite some time cause we’ve only recently started to spend some more time together. Um, but when I started to see your name, I had no idea what to say. Like I don’t, I don’t know how to pronounce that. That’s great. There’s a couple of times that I did do Hey to you, I don’t know if you remember. And so, and then there was another couple of times where like, I actually avoided interaction because of that awful embarrassing. Like, you know, you get that sometimes where it’s like, you know, either forget the person’s name or you don’t know how to say it. So I’m just going to avoid, I’m that person. I’m the avoider walking down the hallway if I don’t know where is it.Andrew 02:07 I was like, Oh, I gotta pee, I gotta go just hard left, turn into the bathroom. Uh, but at some point in time I learned it was married test, but I’ve also wondered the clean climb thing. So now we know it’s, it’s, it’s claim and claim is okay. So you’re, I mean, this is clearly your, you’ve, you’ve taken on the, the name of your husband. We’ll, you know, we’ll get to more a little bit later. Yeah. But it’s clean. Is this German or whatever background? I married a German guy. You married a German guy? Yeah, my life boy. Well you made your Filipino parents.Marites 02:37 He’s, he, you know, you think of white guys would be like taller Filipinos. Like, Oh, we’re going to get like a tall grandkids. Like, no, my husband’sAndrew 02:44 does seem as me. Yeah. Yeah. He’s not playing basketball or volleyball. Basketball. He says it’s a right vertically challenged sports. Right. That’s very true. So, uh, you know, we stumbled into family talk here, so why don’t you just I don’t know, take a few minutes. Tell us who you are, what life is and um, yeah, start there.Marites 03:05 Yeah. Okay. So I’m, I’ve been married for about eight years now to my husband Tyson and I’ve got two little boys that are two and three years old. So too little monsters. What are their, what are their names? Leo is the oldest one. He’ll be four pretty soon. And Bennett is the youngest.Andrew 03:23 And for anybody who’s ever encountered you on Instagram, they see your, you have two of the most endearing boy. They are amazing. Well, we’ll talk more about that, but my God, I’ve laughed so many times watching them. Yeah, keep going. Sorry I interrupted.Marites 03:39 Um, yeah, and so we live in the Fraser Valley and uh, I grew up in Richmond. That’s where my real estate career kind of started. And yeah, now I sell real estate here in the Valley.Andrew 03:50 So how did you end up in, like, what’s your, your, um, your family background? How did you land in Richmond? Let’s go back a little a little further.Marites 03:59 Okay. So my parents moved here from the Philippines in the 1970s and they landed in a small logging camp in the queen Charlotte islands. So my dad had these sideburns. My mom looked like she was 12 years old, but early twenties. They were newlyweds, pregnant with my oldest sister at the time.Andrew 04:22 So married in the Philippines and then yard themselves out too.Marites 04:27 The queen Charlottes. Yeah, I know. Well, I think they just knew that Canada was a good place and there was lots of opportunity for kids, um, for their kids to have better education and, and so I think that’s why they made the move.Andrew 04:41 So were they given a, I dunno, I mean this is maybe a total infant question, but were they given the option of where to go or are you just told, congratulations, you’re welcome to Canada, here’s where you must,Marites 04:52 no, I think my mom’s brother had gone first and worked for this company, um, in the Charlottes. And so then he sponsored him to come. And so my dad didn’t know anything about queen Charlotte islands. Uh, like my mom thought snow grew on the ground because that’s all she’s seen. It does. Um, and so my dad was just telling me the other day how the first day he landed, they threw him in into the forest basically with a shovel and he had to dug, dig the snow outs for the loggers and that was his job. And so he had gone from like 90 degrees to like negative 10, and he said his lips just chap like instantly. And they were so badly blistered. And uh, he lasted two and a half days and they’re like, okay, you’re slowing down their production team, we gotta pull you outta here. So they threw him into the office, made him a part time a timekeeper, and then he actually continued on to do his, um, has accounting designation with them. And then like 40 plus years later, he retired with the same company.Andrew 06:03 My goodness. What a story. So lands in Canada starts with one company and finishes a, that’s amazing. Yeah.Marites 06:08 So he’s very, very loyal and, um, really hard worker. And then my mom ran the little commissary shop, the postal store, um, kinda typical Asian running the convenience store for the camp. Wow. Yeah. And so I feel, I feel very fortunate to be here in Canada. I think that my parents sacrificed a lot. He, my dad tells me the day that he remembers they left the Philippines and he was at the airport looking at my mom through the glass and there she was, his new bride, pregnant with my oldest sister. And he’s like, I’m, I’m leaving my home, I’m leaving my family. I’m leaving my country to set up for them to come and for us to have a better life together. And so I feel very, uh, grateful too to live here and to have the opportunities I have and I feel like my opportunities that I have were bought at a price by my parents. And so I don’t feel entitled to anything that I, I think a lot of my peers may be feel sorta entitled. The millennials get a bad rep for having, um, that stereotype of like, Oh, we’re owed. Yeah. Yeah. But I don’t, I don’t really struggle with that feeling. So do you,Andrew 07:25 do you feel a, um, a duty because you know, because your parents, let’s use the terminology, you know, paid for your opportunity. Do you then you carry that through life and is that, that’s part of your, like you wake up every morning, it’s like, well I don’t, I, I don’t feel good. I don’t want to do this. Shut up Mary Tesco, get your ass out of bed. Go do that. Is that, is that part of your,Marites 07:47 your your mantra? Yeah, I think, I think my parents were very heavily involved in my childhood and, and they drove us to do really well in school and any passions I had, they invested fully in. Um, when I was doing music and acting, my mom would drive me to all over the lower mainland and when the car all night long while I did my thing. And then, um, so I feel indebted to them for sure.Andrew 08:12 For those of you listening that heard Mary test say music and acting, don’t worry, we will get to that. We’re not, we’re not, we’re not passing over that. I’ll get you on that in a minute. So, um, so you are, I, I’m, I’m uh, I’m an infant in this conversation. You’re then a second generation immigrant. Is that, what, is that how you’re classified cause your parents immigrated and you were born here? I don’t, I’m not sure. I might be first, first generation Canadian. Yeah, these are, these are things we’ll have to look up and, and educate ourselves on.Marites 08:42 SoAndrew 08:43 um, you’re born then and the queen Charlottes or you’re born in Richmond?Marites 08:47 I was born in Richmond and lived in the queen Charlotte’s for the first couple of years cause we didn’t have a hospital there. There was only there, I think there’s 400, 500 people there. So, um, andAndrew 08:56 then after we live in the shots for a couple of years, my sisters grew up there, but then they had no high school system. So then we had to move. So I was raised as a city girl. Got it. City girl and you come across that way. I don’t, I don’t see you, you know, with an ax out in the Bush. That’s not,Marites 09:15 yeah, I don’t hike camp. Oh, you don’t care. We should talk about this. Okay. You know what, my parents worked too hard to get me into a country where I don’t have to poop outside. I will not camp.Andrew 09:26 See, you know, I think subconsciously my spirit knew that I loved you. Even though we haven’t talked about these things, I don’t understand it. I don’t know. Like I, and you know what, as a child I camped like I, and I really kept my dad and my parents, we went out in like shitty tents that had holes and we weren’t properly equipped and we actually cooked over the fire. And more often than not, camping, uh, was cold, wet, you know, u
