Kate Dychangco on seduction and skydiving

Everybody dies. How to celebrate one’s death and console those left behind is the work of funeral and mortuary professionals like Kate Dychangco. With a bachelor’s degree in hotel and restaurant management from Le Cordon Bleu in Australia, Kate learned the art of blending the glamour and elegance of plush hotels with the compassion required for the bereaved.

With 16 funeral homes in Cebu, Visayas and Mindanao, 24-year-old Kate belongs to the third generation of Dychangcos who have mastered the skill of honoring life by burying the dead in style. Cosmopolitan Funeral Home offers guests the option to make use of a business center. Some chapels even have their own bedrooms to enable relatives to sleep over if they desire. If you have a friend who is a comedian, Kate says, you can personalize his death by even having clowns at his service or recounting jokes that he used to tell.

These days, the challenge for our 5’4" bachelorette is going into franchising. As this Cebuana prepares to launch her franchise, she reflects on her skydiving, the art of seduction and a man’s decisiveness.

What is the first thing you look for when you meet a woman?

For a female employee, I look to see if she has balls.

What is the first thing you look for when you meet a man?

Balance between his masculine and feminine sides. Ultimately, I look straight at his hands. Hands tell a lot about a person. Once he holds my hand, it gives me a sense of security.

Which living person do you admire most?

A conglomeration of a lot of people – some famous and others not, but mostly people who have stayed afloat and conquered their internal demons.

How do you resolve your conflicts?

I am silent and not very active initially, but when people cross the line, they feel it.

What sports/hobbies do you like most?

I used to play for the Cebu tennis team. My present sport is badminton and I play from 7 to 10 p.m. at Metro Sports in Cebu. Hitting that ball is my ultimate punching bag.

What film influenced your life?

I was really touched by Amelie, a French film. The heroine got so caught up in her daily routine that she forgot to smell the flowers. Simplicity is the highest form of complexity. It is so hard to be stripped away and just be you. I also like Under the Tuscan Sun with Diane Lane.

What book influenced your life?

Bitch in the House, which is about a woman who dreams of marrying a prince then wakes up with a frog beside her. It makes me wake up to reality. Marriage used to be the ultimate goal of women.

What is your greatest fear?

It used to be heights but I have conquered that by skydiving from 12,000 feet. I don’t like being frightened.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

How indecisive I am about things when in fact I know in my head that I already made a decision. I hate it when I get stuck especially when I orchestrated my being stuck.

How do you start your day?

I wake up to the smell of scents that remind me of places that I have been to like in Australia where I found myself.

What do you most value in your friends?

They are my third eye. They give me the advice that I do not give myself because I am very subjective.

If you had the chance to change something in your life, what would that be?

I see myself as a person who has gone through harsh dark sides and with enough strength and will power to get over to the other side.

What is your greatest extravagance?

I love dressing up and feeling like a woman. I love being pampered in a spa.

Which historical character would you like to have been?

Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Juggling multiple careers and still adding on to that list.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Balance between the yin and the yang. You can’t be too good; you can’t be too bad. Balance gives the ultimate equation to happiness.

Which famous quotation would you have wanted to be the author of?

"Dance as though no one is watching you, sing as though no one can hear you, love as though you’ve never been hurt."

What does your dad often say to you?

There are times when I lose my self-motivation and my dad who is a man of few words says these powerful words, "Kate, you can do it."

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Decisiveness – that even other men acknowledge him to be a decision-maker.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Her sexuality.

Which talent would you most like to have?

The art of seduction…

What is your greatest regret?

When I allow myself to get bogged down instead of moving on. That frustrates me and I tell myself, "Kate, you have to work on this."

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E-mail babycamp2@yahoo.co.uk.