| Born in the 25th of July, 1989 | 33 years of age, soon to be 34 | Muslim | Indonesian Citizen with an American Greencard | Looking for distant family | Incredibly Complicated Family history |Appearance:
Almost always sharply dressed. Candra likes wearing clothes that make her look very professional and perhaps a little bit distant, a necessity considering what her job entails. The woman does have more casual clothes when she prefers to let her hair down, but she doesn't like to show it when it comes to affairs of this importance.
Occupation:CEO of one of Indonesia's largest property developers. With such a position, comes the increased importance of looking, talking, and acting the part. Her being a woman also adds even more pressure on her to look and act appropriately at all times. She is currently scouting the United States as a potential market to expand her company's operations stateside, the fact that there might be missing family that she wants to reconnect with also adds to the importance of her job/ vacation into Sanctuary.
Biography:Candra's story actually begins way before she was born. The Gunawan family were some of the first people to rise up against the Dutch when the country declared independence in 1945, Their family's great-grandfather, Suryo Gunawan, was a veteran of the war of independence, a war of great suffering and atrocities, but a war the Indonesians ultimately won. Even now, in the old family house, lies some pictures of the family's great-grandfather brandishing stolen Imperial Japanese weapons the Indonesians pilfered once the Japanese pulled out of the country after their defeat. Really, in some ways, the Gunawans were patriots for the country in every sense of the word.
But then came 1965, the year when the Gunawans endured unimaginable suffering as the military dictator Soeharto rose to power in the aftermath of a Communist coup. The Gunawans were, predictably, staunch supporters of the Indonesian National Party and espoused some left-wing ideology, in some ways bordering on the ideology of the Indonesian Communist Party, and the fact that the patriarch of their family was a national hero made them pretty well known in the local community, so when the dictator Soeharto caught wind of this, the police and military swarmed the family house, and of course, the houses of anyone espousing clear left-wing ideology, their great grandfather suffered greatly under the treatment of the military, and some members of the family were taken and never seen again.
At this point, some members of the Gunawans fled, fearing continued persecution from the military government, to the United States. At that point, the Gunawans were split in two, the ones that stayed in the country, and the ones that fled to America in search of a better future.
And it was in that flashpoint that Candra was born, named Candrawati Gunawan by her mother, she grew up hearing stories about her great grandfather, and how their family was split in two, she heard stories about the great battles her father fought against, and the betrayal under the Soeharto regime her family has to endure. While the Gunawans were not particularly wealthy, the fact that their most notable family member was so clearly betrayed by the country he helped to defend left a scar that never left the Gunawans ever since, Government forces not only took their family members away, but also took a significant portion of their assets along with them, what little savings they have, their newly bought car, and other things they suspect might be as a result of 'suspicious earnings'. The family never got those seized assets back.
Her childhood therefore was particularly harsh, with her family having to make some really tough decisions in order to get her through grade, middle, and high school. Consequently, when President Soeharto announced his resignation in 1998 following mass protests over the deteriorating economic condition, the entire family cheered, Candra herself included.
Candra made a decision at that point to reconnect her American family with her Indonesian family and swore to make enough money to make that journey to the United States and track down the Gunawans who fled, if only to touch base and perhaps convince them to visit Indonesia sometime in the future. she graduated high school at the top 5 of her class, managed to land a government scholarship to fully fund her education in business at the University of Indonesia, the country's premier educational institution, and interned at a rapidly growing real estate developer in the Jakarta region during her time studying for her degree. The woman consequently got offered a good position once she graduated, and she naturally took it, climbing the ranks rapidly, and quickly becoming the CEO at the age of 26. She has maintained the position ever since.
It was during her tenure as CEO that she managed to land a green card at the lottery system she always put money on once her first paycheck came in.
With her family's financial position secure (her older brother works in finance, and her younger sister works as a frequently commissioned artist). Candra decided that the time had come to find her missing family in the United States, guising it as a 1-year work trip, she hired a P.I beforehand to track down her family's whereabouts, and that eventually led her here to Sanctuary, officially as a real estate developer having an interest in building new housing in the rapidly growing town, but her real intentions being to track down her family that was separated after a very traumatic event.
Misc:- Misses Indonesian food badly, the food in America just 'doesn't taste the same' per her words
- Knows Indonesian history in and out if you ask her, partly due to her family heritage and partly due to her studiousness
- Her company mainly builds highrises in the bustling Indonesian cities of Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya and Palembang, although their portfolio includes some single-family houses in the suburbs
- Rides a Mercedes Benz in Indonesia, specifically an
AMG-GTS. She's bought an
Alfa-Romeo Giulia as her go-to car when she's in the US.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/2270901_cainc0259_1-2000-36b6699219454ee298de1d4565f1ab7d.jpg)
