Filipina passionate for singing lands dream job

A Filipina with a life-long passion for singing has finally found an outlet for her talent. In an interview with the Apple Daily, Joan Odita, who has lived in Hong Kong since she was young and speaks fluent Cantonese, said she wanted to follow in her parents’ musical footsteps.

Joan’s father was a guitar player and her mother a singer and the couple performed with Filipino bands in various high-end restaurants since the ’90s.

However, her father did not want her to work as a singer and wanted her to look for a more stable job. She said she understood the limitations of working as a musician in Hong Kong, but that did not stop her looking to sing at every opportunity.

However, when she tried to further her career as a singer, producers asked her to lose weight. She was disappointed, but believed her voice was more important that her figure.

Undaunted, Joan spent some time in Thailand where she found many Filipino bands and often joined them on stage and sang.

After moving back to Hong Kong and finding work in customer service and administration during the day, she spent some nights singing in a pub with a band called H20.

That led to an offer to join an English musical comedy called PROJECT AFTER6: Cube Culture, where she has to sing and act.

Joan said she enjoys being an amateur singer without worrying about doing it for a living and enjoys the happiness music brings her.