Monday, June 02, 2008 Soft-hearted Queen By Jenara Regis Newman
THERE’S a new spa in town, and its owner is soft-hearted.
The Queen of Stone Spa, which is unlike most other spas, according to its owner, Jessielyn Abueva-Sato. It is the only one in the Philippines that uses stone, water and heat, smoothing the skin and making the body feel light after a session that makes one sweat out body toxins.
The reason for its being here is, of course, the owner, whose father is from Lutopan and whose mother is from Ormoc.
At age three, Jessielyn was brought to Cebu and was shunted from Cebu to Ormoc and back, because grandparents on both islands wanted her to be with them until she reached high school when she stayed put in Cebu. Then at age 18 she sought greener pastures and set out for Japan where, in 1994, she married businessman Hideo Sato with whom she has an 11-year-old son, Sho.
While Sato had his employment agency business, Jessielyn ventured into her own business, a Karaoke snack bar/restaurant in Iwata Ken, Oshu-Sitti, Mizusawa City, some two and a half hours from Tokyo by bullet train.
On the side, she was a freelance sales counselor for Ayala Plans and PNB. Through all these years, Jessielyn has not forgotten her roots, as well as the siblings and other relatives she left behind. Most of them, she said, she has helped all the way through college. She thinks she must have helped some 300 of them already, including non-relatives she met while island-hopping. When she meets a truly needy child in these areas, she helps that child.
Aside from the spa, she has other businesses here: the Cinderalla Tours and Travel, and the Cinderella Money Changer. The stone spa she discovered in August last year while looking for ways to keep herself young and beautiful. She met the man behind it, Kazuhiko Suzuki, who encouraged her to go into the business and so, the stone spa is now in Cebu.
According to Jessielyn, she will have another, a bigger stone spa at the Park Mall maybe in August, and perhaps still another business dealing with computer peripherals.
All this, she said, is not to enrich herself because she does not need anything much or more, but to help: to give employment, to earn money to be able to help one or more relative or child in need.
