Ming

Ming died today. She lay lifeless in this side of the road. I could have looked at her closely but I’m headed for work. It’s already seven-thirty in the morning and the jeepney is still a ten-minute drive to the office. I never had a close encounter with Ming but almost everybody in this side of the town knows about her. She is extremely huge and has an odd built for a female. During meal time, she asks for food from anybody in the neighborhood and often times, she was rejected. But it’s alright; the garbage can was always the second and last option for her.

I bet Manang Flor will be happy to hear the news of her death. Ming enjoys watching Manang Flor when she’s making choco balls. She keeps on asking for a piece but Manang Flor won’t give in. She sells this choco balls at a nearby school. It’s her only source of income for the day and so she guards these carefully, after seeing Ming’s hungry look. So, if Ming had the chance, with a desperate move, she quickly grabs a choco ball then run away, leaving Manang Flor screaming curses at her. Some of them might have come true, now that she’s cold dead.

Ming was an orphan. Adopted by a rich family, she once lived in a big house but she always felt that there was no room for her. Mr. and Mrs. Cruz never loved her. Even the maids in the house never liked her. It was only Manuel, the eldest son, who truly cared for her. After Sir Manuel’s work, he would spend time with her. He would talk about a lot of things to her. Although she never understood anything that he said, she just enjoyed the thought of being with someone, the feeling that she is needed and she belonged to this house. One night, Sir Manuel came home with a letter in his hand and an unexplainable expression in his face. Ming would later know that this feeling is called happiness. Sir Manuel was accepted to a multi-national company based in Hong Kong. He would then leave next month. There was not much of a goodbye when Sir Manuel left the house. She just recalled him talking to his younger brother while pointing to her direction. She never knew what he meant by that. All she knew was that the house grew darker and colder for Ming when Sir Manuel left.

One day, while she was sitting near the garden, she saw a stranger. He said he lives two blocks away from theirs. He was scruffy, the kind that didn’t bother to take a bath. His name is Bruce. He was a good talker. Ming was unaware that she is already enjoying their first meeting. Unlike Sir Manuel, Ming was able to understand everything that Bruce is saying. She realized that she can talk to Bruce about almost anything that she wanted to talk about and she felt the same for Bruce too. Every morning became an exciting part of the day for Ming. She meets Bruce on that same spot in the garden and sometimes hide near the gate so that the maids won’t see them. It was always the same for almost a month, Bruce would show up in the garden and at times he would bring food for Ming, and they would talk about anything under the sun and Ming now understood the feeling of Sir Manuel when he went home with a letter in his hand. She is happy. She is happy with Bruce around.

In one of their talks, Bruce offered her to leave the big house. He is offering her her freedom, a life away from this cold house. She answered a big yes to him and so they climbed the high walls of the house by nightfall. Ming didn’t bring anything with her. She never owned anything from that house.

In one of their talks, Bruce told her that he owned a space under a bridge. They will be protected from rain and cold there.

One stormy night, she woke up to the fight of the residents near the bridge. She realized that Bruce was no longer lying beside her. She walked in the rain and looked for him but he was nowhere to be found.

Ming didn’t bother to ask her neighbors, she just kept on looking for Bruce. It went on for days and months until Ming finally gave up. She didn’t go back to the bridge (it will only remind her of Bruce) and she had no plans of returning to the Cruzes either. She lived in the streets and died in these same streets.

I don’t know if it was a ten-wheeler truck, a van or a jeepney killed her. They say Ming has nine lives, I can’t help but think how many death experiences must she had encountered in her entire life.

Ming died today. She lay lifeless in this side of the road. Her gray fur turning to streaks of crimson.

TV Diaries

“What? You still don’t have a TV at home?” exclaimed my friend again.

It has been almost half a year now since we agreed not to have a TV in our new apartment but people continually question its non-existence. If I go to the office and one of my co-teacher would ask me like have you seen this show or news last night then before she can finish her line she would just say- Oh I forgot, you don’t have a TV. It doesn’t usually end up there because it’s always followed by never ending suggestions of buying one. Worse, if somebody overheard the conversation then it would be a lengthy comparison of TV prices from expensive flat screens to the cheap finds at a Korean surplus.

This no-TV viewing lifestyle is not an eternal vow with my housemates. I love TV or shall I say I used to love TV. I think its my primary source of creative ideas and last jingle syndromes. But since Philippine television started reprogramming prime time, I realized that there is more to Pinoy life than being stuck in your tube until eleven in the evening. I can recall my grade school days when there were still two sitcoms right after the evening news. Then later on, telenovelas were introduced. It started with two per night, then three but I don’t know how in the world did TV networks decided to place four to five telenovelas in a night. TV people, creative as they usually are, changed the term “telenovelas” to “Fanta-serye”, “Super-serye”, and now “Sine-serye”, but they are just like a bunch of popsicles with different colors that tastes the same.

Another reason why I can live without a TV now is the accessibility of foreign TV series in DVD. I just check the net for the latest TV series that are soaring the hit charts in US and I’m off to SM- Sa Maranao. These folks continually impress me with their wide variety of TV shows. They may be annoying, insistent, and sometimes pushy but later on I realized that they may just be over accommodating- it’s a competitive business after all. They are also some who will just let you browse their stuffs but better not take it too long or they will suspect you for searching the latest sex scandal videos. There are also some who are really good in selling their DVD’s because they’re like human Amazon.com’s that can distinguish what type of TV series you like after inquiring just two to three titles. They are really good because it seems that they have a virtual database of the latest seasons and episode add-ons. Another impressive thing aside from these folks’ good marketing skills is the packaging of the DVD’s. The outward presentation is really good that you wouldn’t think it as second-rate from that of the original ones at music stores. The DVD’s at this SM’s come with flashy covers, embossed letters and high-quality images. I just love collecting them even if I know that inside it may have faulty subtitles or delayed audio timing.

My SM days are almost over now. I have this new-found love called as Torrents. I just recently discovered that you can actually download the latest TV shows over some shareware on the net. All you need to have is enough disk space and a couple of blank DVD’s to burn these babies. With torrents, I’m ready to trade those flashy covers for a better resolution and a more beautiful Dr. Cameron. So, I thought that I would now go my merry way watching these things from tinseltown.

As I was watching these TV shows, somehow the pangs of globalization cross my mind. It is already apparent to me that I would choose imported clothes, chocolates and even toothpick over our own products, but it’s only now that I realized that I’m already enslaved even in my viewing. I realized that I’m just one of those brown people laughing over Kano humor and feeling teary-eyed over Kano melodramas. Then I thought, it’s official- I miss Pinoy TV.

Filipino TV is about being matiisin inspite of all the worst problems that any TV writer could think of, its about justifying adulterous relationships by the indestructible power of first love and true love, it’s about sympathizing with the poor lead actress who has beautiful long hair and perfect set of teeth and its about rejoicing over the downfall of a kontrabida even if it would be as gruesome as being dragged by a horse to death. But Filipino TV is also about having time for a hearty laughs amidst the tough times, it’s about finding a true friend that really sticks with you until the end, it’s about forgiveness and second chances and most of all, it’s about being good guardians of our culture.

While Americans continue to celebrate over the events of the dysfunctional families in Desperate Housewives and OC, we Filipinos continue to save our ties in any way on TV. Every story somehow points to the twists and turns of our families- may it be a daughter finding her identify, a son looking for his real father, lovers who are relieved after learning that they’re not actually related by blood and the healing of broken families in the end.

I know a father who works abroad. He said that he was always excited when their ship docks because it is the time when they can buy the latest VHS tapes with recorded Filipino TV shows on it. These VHS tapes are usually expensive but he said that it’s worth it- after all, it’s their only portal to home.

I have a fear that if I continue to stick to viewing foreign TV shows for the next half of our stay in this apartment, then I may be enstranged to my own “home”. I will never know the news and current events, latest showbiz break-ups and how is life in the stone houses of Batanes.

I may start rethinking of buying a TV now. I have to schedule a visit to those TV’s at the Korean surplus.

Painters

I am scanning some of my old cassette tapes from high school days, I came across my Jewel albums. There is this one song that I really admired entitled Painters...

Painters
by Jewel Kilcher

Eighty years, an old lady now, sitting on the front porch
Watching the clouds roll by
They remind her of her lover, how he left her, and of times long ago
When she used color carelessly, painted his portrait
A thousand times--or maybe just his smile--
And she and her canvas would follow him wherever he would go
'Cause they were painters and they were painting themselves
A lovely world


Oil-streaked daisies covered the living room wall
He put water-colored roses in her hair
He said, "Love, I love you, I want to give you mountains, the sunshine
The sunset too
I want to give you everything as beautiful as you are to me."


'Cause they were painters and they were painting themselves
A lovely world


So they sat down and made a drawing of their love, an art to live by
They painted every passion, every home, created every beautiful child
In the winter they were weavers of warmth
In summer they were carpenters of love
They thought blue prints were too sad so they made them yellow


'Cause they were painters and they were painting themselves
A lovely world


Until one day the rain fell as thick as black oil
And in her heart she knew something was wrong
She went running through the orchard screaming,
"No God, don't take him from me!"
But by the time she got there, she feared he already had gone


She got to where he lay, water-colored roses in his hands for her
She threw them down screaming, "Damn you man, don't leave me
With nothing left behind but these cold paintings, these cold portraits
To remind me!"


He said, "Love I leave, but only a little, try to understand
I put my soul in this life we created with these four hands
Love, I leave, but only a little, this world holds me still
My body may die now, but these paintings are real."


So many seasons came and many seasons went
And many times she saw her love's face watering the flowers,
Talking to the trees and singing to his children
And when the wind blew, she knew he was listening,
And how he seemed to laugh along, and how he seemed to hold her
When she was crying


'Cause they were painters and they were painting themselves
A lovely world


Eighty years, an old lady now, sitting on the front porch
Watching the clouds roll by, they remind her of her lover
How he left her and of times long ago, when she used to color carelessly,
Painted his portrait a thousand times, or maybe just his smile,
And she and her canvas would follow him wherever he would go
Yes, she and her canvas still follow


Because they are painters and they are painting themselves
A lovely world

My Stargirl

She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.

The new trend in the boarding house now is children's books. The "uso" did not come like a flash of lightning or like how we found out about a sugar-free buko pie somewhere in Davao. It started with the plan of the student center to acquire some books that will cater to the different age level of the kids. So, my boardmates, who worked for this NGO, rushed to the nearest bookstores and book sales in Cagayan de Oro. My boardmates went home late that night and I was already asleep. Earlier that night I was not really excited for the books because I thought that they will unpack it at the center. I was more excited for a layer of Food-for-the-lesser-gods or oatmeal cookies from Ate Zeny or simply a big bag of Holy Kettle popcorn (they're the best). When I woke up that morning, I thought that I was going to do my regular starters- little did I know that our house is filled with all the children's books my boardmates bought. They were piled separately according to age levels. There was also a cardboard with words written on it- DO NOT TOUCH. From the writing, I can tell it was Ate Chean's. I love books; it's not really that I want to read every time I see one. It's something about their color, the lay-out, the smell of the pages, the spine, letterings and the pictures. Well, for that morning, I tried to "touch" all the books that I can get my hands on. There were classics like Disney movies-turned-books, fairy tales of both Andersen and the Grimm's and some young adult books. That’s when I met Jerry Spinelli and his Stargirl. The book is primarily a typical high school life in US. I may even mistake it for a high school musical (book edition). But what makes Stargirl exceptional is the writer himself. Spinelli writes with much spontaneity and creativity. Just when I thought that I will be reading another young adult novel, he somehow got some string of surprises after every chapter that kept me glued to the very last pages. Stargirl was characterized well but what I really admired was Leo- the Mr. Stargirl in the book; he is the one that narrates about Stargirl and in many ways somehow represented the larger crowd of readers including myself.

After reading the book, I thought about the things that I learned from it or as Christianity Today coined it "redemptive value". So, I thought of writing about the two things I learned from Stargirl.

First lesson, it is really okay to have a couple of weirdness in us. Aside from it makes life more exciting, it is also worth writing and hopefully worth reading. For that, I compile my "weird list".

I collect tissue papers from restaurants. My goal was to collect it from places that I have visited. In the middle part of my strange collection, some of my friends from Manila sent me tissue papers. (even from those that I’ve never heard of and worse- I’ve never been to those restaturants).

My signature is the reverse of my family name- AZALP

I don't like to put "sagos" in halo-halo.

I think that the Bear Brand 1+ (milk for one-year old kids) goes well with my Twinings Lemon and Green Tea bags.

I don't eat the bones of sardines (My boardmates find it weird but I don't feel like eating it even if I know that they are already softened or crushed after processing).

I associate people with cartoon characters (but I don’t tell it to them).

I have bookmarks but I don’t use them, I use chapters as markers when reading.

I still have my stuff toy in my closet. I had it since I was five. It didn’t have a name before. It was Nameless like Jet Li in Hero but later on I called it Yellow.

I memorize more than 50 birthdates. (but I won’t sing with a ukulele for them like Stargirl)

Second lesson, it’s really good to help people you don’t know and it feels better to help them in secret.

I once brought a bag of goodies for a beggar on the street. (I don’t usually give to beggars but during that time I was just compelled to do it- though I can’t remember the reason why I did that)

I gave somebody P1000. He didn’t know it was from me. (I called it returning the favor).

In the end, I realized that there are things that are really too small to go unnoticed in this world- but they can really make the big difference. After reading the book, I thought about how Stargirl affected the entire Mica High students and how she affected my perceptions. (which includes a porcupine necktie on my December 2007 wishlist).

Flowers Falling From the Narra Tree

Flowers Falling From the Narra Tree

I watch though this rusty gate

As the wind lightly blows through my fingertips.

Flowers, yellow, beautiful, gently fall,

Trampled by passersby on these dirty streets.

Aurora’s death, May afternoon,

Season ends with promise of return.

And Dolores’ song is on my stereo,

“Summer’s over, it’s the golden rule”, she said

And strums the guitar to a lonely fade.

Narra tree stands sturdy, tall,

With dying leaves and bloody barks.

Roots that crawl through earth and time,

A silent witness to 1970’s crimes;

But flowers will always be yellow, beautiful.

Children dance, learn spring free,

To catch and hold a petal in their hands.

I, in my childish thoughts and reverie,

Forever keep petals in my heart this day.

So, be still, spirit sublime of mine.

Flip through these glossy pages, malign!

Stare not to these staring blue eyes,

For time is harsh yet fair

To these brown hands I declare!

For soon will these indio eyes see,

When clouds shall part and darkness fall.

And I, with grains of faith in me,

Shall join the wind and fly away.

And flowers will always be yellow, beautiful

Though they’re crushed, they will always fall.

lingo

I was born in Cebu but I was not raised a Cebuano. I was raised as a Kamayo, a subgroup of the Mandaya tribe. We, however, are typical lowland people who at some point have been colonized by the Spaniards in the southeastern part of Mindanao. My grandmother was a native of the town while my grandfather was an extranjero who was a product of intermarriages of Filipinos and Spaniards. The Mandaya culture in our town is slowly forgotten now. I think it has something to do with the past influences of the foreign settlers plus the inevitable effects of neo-colonialism. But there is one thing that is preserved from my tribal roots and that is the language of the town which we call as Kinamayo or simply Kamayo. It’s a language which I can speak since my toddler years.

When I turned six, I was trained to speak Cebuano. I had to learn the language because I was sent to a La Salle school in a distant town of Cebuano-speaking people. When I entered kindergarten, I had to live in a boarding house during school days together with my ten-year old brother. With this set-up, I have to speak mostly Cebuano during weekdays and Kamayo when I went home on weekends. It would had been hard for me to converse with my Visayan classmates, if not for a summer vacation that we had in Cebu before the opening of the school. My parents told me that I was able to adjust to the vernacular in just a short period of time. But Cebuano was not the only dialect that my classmates spoke, there were also influences of Ilonggo and Tagalog. It was because of a paper company which brought people from the other islands to settle in the town. Luckily, Tagalog is no longer that new to me because my father uses this dialect during those months that he would stay with us before going back to the ship. My father was an OFW. He was not a pure Tagalog though; he spoke a different dialect called Cantilanon, (which I can also speak but not that fluently). He said that Filipino becomes the language on the ship when they are overseas.

In college, I was sent to Iligan. Although Iliganons mostly speak Cebuano, my studying became an avenue to interact with the Muslim people. I have a cousin that once studied in Marawi City and when she went home on semestral breaks she would share to us some of her recently learned Maranaw phrases. As I would be listening to her talk, the foreign words would somehow bridge the gap of Muslims and Christians, and strip down all my prejudices. Growing-up, I never had close encounters with the Muslim people and I thought that if I can learn their language then I can relate more to them and to their culture. Unfortunately, I graduated from college learning only two Maranao words- mapiya(good) and oway(yes). It was because the boarding house that I stayed in college was flocked mostly with Surigaonons and so I was more influenced with these guys from Surigao City. I can also express in their language and enjoyed borrowing some of their jolly expressions.

In my work now, I am only required to speak two languages- Java and C. Although programming languages are not meant to be spoken, in my profession I have to verbalize their syntax and semantics. Our common conversations in the class would go like-“I’ve placed an empty System.out.println already in the loop” or “Maybe you have to check if you placed an ampersand on your scanf again” or “Are you sure your class instantiation is right because your constructor and method invocations won’t work?”. I remember when I had my first lessons in programming and my professor would talk about this computer terms, then I thought to myself- he is speaking French again. Now that I’m teaching these concepts to my students, they would sometimes cast a blank look at me, as if their heads have big question marks over them and cloud callouts that write- he’s speaking gibberish again.

I can recall one of my discussions on language. With ideas from Morris Mano, I explained to my class that words are just juxtaposition of discrete elements of information that represents a quantity of information. For example, discrete elements such as letters r, e and d form the word red. Thus, a sequence of discrete elements forms a language, that is, a discipline that conveys information. That is how I defined language before and now as I look back at some parts of my life I realized that language has created a different meaning to me. It has greatly affected my decisions and lifestyle. In many times, language became either a barrier or a bridge in wherever the wind brought me.

This morning, I passed by that poster found along the corridors of the school again. It was a scholarship grant offered in Japan. I talked to my mom about it and her only advice was that I should go for it while I’m still young. It is not really on my priority list right now but I must say that I’m considering it. And so I stopped to read the poster again. The requirement section states that aside from my credentials, I have to learn Japanese.

TTL

T T L

time to leave
the Freon dripping frozen,
while remembering smooth dark blue covers
on milky-colored monitors.
hear again that familiar squeak
of doors sliding, banging!
and feel hairs on your fingers rise
close to yellow brown plastic chairs.

it's static they say,
but college life
doesn't go that way

true to life
that i can befriend mr. filch
amongst other tiger-eyeds
and tell him of topologies,
configuration and gulaman prices.
yes, i lived in this place
where waterfalls are equated to servers
and numbers are but destinations
separated by dots and all the in-betweens

i knew of recursion and iteration
but no, not now, no more
life has to move on

time to live
a life not of cheap talks
over green and red sagos
time to leave
the Shire
inspite of bleak days ahead,
Leave
to live a dream,
that belonged
to bedtime story days.

The Farthest Shore

There are a lot of things colliding in my brain today… I want to resume blogging and this time it would be with this site. I want to write about a lot of things but I can’t focus on a single topic right now. I remember how it feels like to be Alex (played by Owen Wilson in the movie Alex and Emma). Lately, I had been reading short stories by Jaime An Lim, Lakambini Sitoy and Jessica Zafra. It was a compilation of as the title on the cover says- The Greatest Philippine Short Stories of the 20th Century. It was a good read but I hope other Minadanaon authors could have made it to the list like Anthony Tan and the Enriquez brothers.

Although my work doesn’t entail a lot of pressures, I realized that I have almost completely forgotten how it was to write and do my usual scribbles. I am reading The Farthest Shore these days and it’s a fantasy novel about how a part of their magical archipelago lost their magic- it seems that the wizards lost their spells and forgot about their powers… Ged, an old wizard, together with Arren, a kid of kingly lineage, search the isles for the answers to this thing…

Try to choose carefully when the greatest choices must be made. When I was young, I had to choose between a life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt to the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.

(Ged, excerpts from The Farthest Shore)

For once, and I hope not every week, it’s just good to think about what you really want to have and what you want to do with your life… For now, I want to write.

The Next Eighteen Kilometers

the next eighteen kilometers

motion.
moving through the greens
and the browns
like a diluted mixture
of water colors
faster
thriving through
the grays bottom below
(with stones flying
hitting the leaf spring)

humid.
remembering tatooine
my shirt soaking
like a notebook
clinging to its wet plastic cellophane
dreaming
trying to take me
through the highs and lows
sleeping and rocking
sleeping and rocking

fear.
like the chassis exploding
breaking into a multitude
of parts
disturbing
my ribs are giving in
my heart is bursting
bursting.

home.
finally home
(for whatever it means)
i thought of it through
the next eighteen kilometers