Letters From the Outlands

Navigating in Seoul: Manila Times column for 14 Oct 2010

2010-10-15T16:20:00.002+02:00

Navigating in Seoul

LETTERS FROM THE OUTLANDS
BY LAKAMBINI A. SITOY

On a long, cramped car ride out of Seoul, I began to have a strange relationship with the GPS.

I had not been long in Korea at all, but noted that every vehicle I had ridden in had been equipped with a global positioning system. They seemed less a novelty than a necessity. And this one could talk. There were seven of us in the car—our driver, four Danes (an illustrator, a writer, a publisher and a graphic designer), myself (the eternal learner) and our guide. The eighth entity was the GPS—a cool yet urgent female voice delivering what seemed to be the same set of syllables every few seconds, as we negotiated the twists and turns from Seoul’s city center to the highway north. In a little while, this invisible woman was driving us crazy.

We were bound for Nami Island, a 4.6 square kilometer resort in a tributary of the Han River. It is hard to define Nami Island in one word: a resort with hotels and lodges, yes, but also a nature park organized around the idea of creativity. Nami recently opened a year-long children’s book festival and the Danes, all playing roles in the creation and publishing books for young readers, were among the guests.

We moved from the extremely modern, well-spaced commercial center (one of them, perhaps— Seoul is a sprawling city with some 15 million inhabitants) into districts that astonished one of the Danes by the sheer number of storefronts lining the streets. Small restaurants, grocery stores, clothing stores—the small-scale commerce that characterizes most of Asia. I myself noted the cleanliness, austerity and organization of even these smaller districts, the people in spare gray and black, and of course the shopping—a street market tucked between two city blocks, the coats and shoes set neatly out on the sidewalk.

To the GPS, this cityscape was a system of turns and advances, all of which had to be announced. The robot voice dominated the car. It was, in those first moments, all nonsense.

When you are new in a place, one of the hardest things to deal with is language. Food, music, clothing—all can be negotiated. This must be because globalization has led to a range of familiar products everywhere. As for the discomfort caused by racial or physical differences, that can be overcome—thanks to the media we have seen every type of human being there is on earth, and take our basic humanity as a given. But language! People are conditioned to pay attention to signs, to the human voice. When the signs are unreadable, the voices incomprehensible, we have to negotiate mostly through context and non-verbal cues. But few of us are so saintly. I think the human tendency is to give it all up as gibberish, dig oneself in and ponder the weirdness of the Other.

The International Phonetics Association has devised a method of transcribing the different sounds of human speech, a method that can be used consistently with every language. It had been years since I’d taken a course in phonetics but, listening to the GPS, I found myself unearthing all those transcription signs I’d memorized, then put away.

Ok, I thought. I hear the same syllable over and over, following a number of vowels that occur without pattern. In this syllable, I hear: a plosive (sounds like a p), a front vowel (like an ae) and then a nasal consonant, like an ng but so elusive I’m not sure if it’s the robotic quality of the recording that makes it so. This syllable occurs as often as “Please” would in polite English. Does it function as a polite imperative? Am I transposing my own English practices to a Korean sentence? Do I have a choice? Is Korean a tonal language? I hear tonal shifts but do they denote emotion, or word meaning?

And so on and so on, interrogating myself and the machine, until the cityscape gave way to highway and there were terraced mountains and rice fields on either side.

At some point, I discovered that our “guide,” a young man in a neat gray business suit, was in fact a US-trained lawyer and one of the sons of the owners of the Nami corporation: he ran the head office in the commercial district of Insadong. We were privileged guests, indeed. And as our conversation developed, pooled into two-person eddies, then broadened out again to include everyone in the car, the GPS was forgotten.

Later that day, telling my husband the children’s book publisher about the experience, I was ecstatic and self-congratulatory: I was taking steps toward genuine cultural understanding, I had made the first furtive efforts to crack Korean! Why didn’t people take a more scientific approach to the unknown?

As for him, the GPS had nearly driven him up the wall. To survive he had clung to his sense of humor: instead of my plosives and diphthongs, he had been listening for only one word, again and again, reminding him of his pet peeve, my favorite vice: “Ebay.”

***

http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/opinion/28764-navigating-in-seoul

Au pairs in Denmark are now mostly Filipina

2010-09-30T12:32:00.002+02:00

Published in The Manila Times, Opinion section, September 30, 2010

http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/opinion/27618-au-pairs-in-denmark-are-now-mostly-filipina-

LETTERS FROM THE OUTLANDS
BY LAKAMBINI A. SITOY

Nowadays when “Filipina” is mentioned in the Danish news, it is often in connection with “au pair.” The newspaper Politiken noted last week that 2773 persons received permission to work as au pairs in Denmark in 2009. Of this number, 78 percent came from the Philippines. You see her more and more in Copenhagen and its suburbs: the small Asian woman and her charges. With steady determination and downcast eyes, she maneuvers a huge pram down the pavement and into a bus: inside is a tow-headed child, sometimes two.

Her apparent alone-ness, the paradox of her nurturing role and yet the obvious non-blood connection between her and her charges, cannot escape notice.

For those of us who grew up in the Philippines and have grown inured to the notion that our countrymen who work abroad must do so, for the most part, in blue-collar jobs, the term “au pair” sounds ironic and an actual insult to the intelligence. For one, we don’t see any Danish girls arriving in the Philippines to live with a family and perform light housework in exchange for learning more about our culture and sharing some of hers. No bilateral au pair agreement exists between the two countries. Secondly, we have heard enough stories about what our domestic workers can expect abroad, and we know that au pair is a euphemism.

So the 2163 or so Filipinos who received permission last year to stay in Denmark in connection with an au pair status, actually traveled out “at their own risk,” on au pair visas that, according to some I talked to, require “escorts” at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to enable them to get through immigration. The services rendered by these escorts is, of course, not gratis, and a woman may stay deeply in debt for this and other expenses, well into the middle of her contract. In recompense for helping with the housework, just like a member of the family, the au pair’s living expenses are paid for and she (and sometimes he) receives “pocket money”—which in the Danish case would be at least 3,000 kroner a month, according to Politiken. This is far below the wage that a cleaner, hotel chambermaid, or housekeeper can earn.

Yet the work performed by a Philippine au pair can be as physically strenuous as that of her higher-paid counterparts. It is also psychologically taxing: the au pair’s work, like that of traditional live-in domestic servants, does not necessarily end when the hours stipulated in her contract have run out for the day. Rather, because she shares the same domestic space as her “host family,” she is, as a matter of fact, on call for small emergencies, like a young child who wants a glass of water at half past midnight. Add to that the difficulties in communication: children who speak only Danish, and the fact that English is a second language to all parties in the relationship, not to mention cultural differences in the way messages are sent and received.

There is awareness, sympathy and debate in the Danish media over whether au pairs from Third World nations (now represented by the Philippines) are being victimized.

The ambiguity of their status, and the Danish authorities’ failure to respect and uphold the Philippine ban on au pairs in Scandinavia, is one aspect. More has been, and is being said, however, about the issue of how employing a Third World woman to do a Danish woman’s housework impacts the very Scandinavian notion of equal rights. One woman’s (underpaid) labor frees another up, allowing her to pursue a career and enjoy bonding with her husband and family because she is spared the trouble of doing the dirty work.

The fact that this cheap labor is provided for the most part by a Filipino woman is also troubling for many. What does this say about Scandinavian notions of equality that it has become acceptable for a woman of a different race to clean up after oneself?

Can one separate the issue of race from the issue of economy, and say that the reason it is acceptable for a Filipina to quietly wash floors and wipe fingerprints off the glass tabletops in one’s home is because she is poor and this is the best option available for her?

Some voices in the debate contend that having a Filipino au pair is a win/win situation for both parties, in that the Danish host family gets a domestic for less, and the au pair gets to send money home to her family. In another article in Politiken last week, for instance, Karsten Lau-ritzen, integration spokesman for the ruling political coalition, referred to the au pair agreement (presumably with the au pair and her host family) as “a good form of foreign aid.”

***

It is common for Filipino households, regardless of economy, to have at least one domestic worker — or to wish they had one. I am interested in knowing what readers think about Filipino au pairs working in Danish host families. Please feel free to send in your comments on this issue.

Plurality or assimilation (2nd Manila Times column: Sept 16 2010)

2010-09-15T22:46:00.004+02:00

LETTERS FROM THE OUTLANDS
The Manila Times Opinion page column for Sept 16, 2010

Plurality or assimilation

BY LAKAMBINI A. SITOY

THERE was a lady, Rukhsana Khan, who came to speak at the world congress of the International Board of Books for Young People in Copenhagen the other year. Her family migrated from Pakistan to Canada when she was three. Now in her 40s she is a well-known author of young adult literature: writing in a relaxed, idiomatic English she writes books that have, in her words, Muslim and international themes. “When we first arrived in Canada,” Khan said, “it was 1965 and it was automatically assumed that immigrants would assimilate. There was no choice in the matter. The message was, 'Shut up and be grateful for being allowed into this western country club and the way you show that gratitude is by adopting our values . . . If you don’t like it, go back to where you came from.'”

It was a pre-US Civil Rights movement response to the question of plurality within a nation’s borders: the effort to extinguish differences between groups in favour of an amalgamated culture. This is the melting pot model of integration, and in the face of increasing immigration and globalization it seems the most obvious, most immediate line of action. It falls to the newcomers to make adjustments. They must learn to blend in.

Immigrants experience the pressures of living at the far end of a hierarchical yardstick, with the goal being to advance by becoming as much like the dominant group as possible, in terms of “values,” and mores of speech, dress and behaviour. Explicitly or tacitly is the idea, stemming from 19th century Darwinian theory, that all societies in the world are at various stages of evolution, with European society being the most advanced, and the “others” being half-formed, uncultivated, in need of improvement.

The problem is that the dominant culture imposes different standards of assimilation upon the newly arrived. Lucky the immigrant to Denmark who comes from Western Europe, North America, Britain or Australia, for he or she comes with unquestionable credentials and the presumption that any cultural differences there may be are negligible. Or at any rate charming. Ways worth imitating perhaps.

The new arrival from Asia, Latin American or Africa lacks the benefit of this respect. We are, on the whole, I think, judged not so much lacking in native intelligence as in education and exposure, in sophistication. We come to Denmark to fulfil ourselves. Denmark completes us, whether in terms of philosophies or musical tastes or learning to work the microwave oven. We come from countries, of course, that, in this era of globalization, offer Western education and churn out the world’s garments, mobile phones and microwave ovens. But so the myth goes.

There is the additional impediment of race: that difference in physical appearance that is hard to ignore. I attended Danish language classes a total of two years. At the start, every foreigner grappled with the embarrassment of new vowel sounds and missing consonants, but by the fourth level it seemed to me the students from Eastern Europe were more fluent and confident than those from China, Turkey or Peru who had spent the same amount of time in the country. Yet they did not have the benefit of having a Germanic language (like English or Dutch) as their native tongue. I conjectured at the time that people from Eastern Europe enjoy a tacit acceptance, because in the country of the blond they are non-exotic.

By contrast, I felt, a darker complexioned immigrant is never really allowed to forget her strangeness. In social situations she is called upon to relate (or embellish) what is unusual about her country. She is teased or made the butt of jokes to ease the strain of difference. Or, conversely, she is judged irrelevant and then ignored.

Race “is” a factor, not necessarily in how well one takes to a (Scandinavian) language, but because it seems the most obvious and plausible explanation for one’s difficulties. But the matter is really not that simple, and I hope to discuss it further in the future.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have some set cultural points to rally round, as has been the case with Khan, whose career direction, habits of dress (headscarf and long dresses) and the milieu in which she raised her daughters (all three eventually and independently made the decision to wear the burqa), reflect an early and long-running resistance to assimilation into the mainstream. Today she enjoys the benefits of living in a Canada that leans towards a different approach to plurality, that recognizes the individuality of groups and accords them legal rights based on their conditions.

“Following the American Civil Rights movement,” she said, “Canada would be multicultural. We would celebrate everyone’s culture. Nobody had to assimilate . . . as long as they followed the laws and paid their taxes they were free to live as they pleased.”

But in this new land I find it difficult to locate what is specifically Filipino myself, much less hook up with other people who agree on those cultural points and would be loath to abandon them. How should a Filipino dress, talk, worship? Should I, a Protestant, get in with the Catholics because they are the majority? Are we traitors because none of us wear the national costume, the long dress with butterfly sleeves so associated with Imelda Marcos? And must we gripe because our choices landed us in reticent Denmark, instead of the sprawling, freewheeling nation on the other side of the Atlantic?

I'm back as an opinion columnist for The Manila Times!

2010-09-14T22:39:00.002+02:00

LETTERS FROM THE OUTLANDS

BY LAKAMBINI A. SITOY

So, after a lapse of four years, I find myself writing a column again for The Manila Times. I’m greatly excited to be once more part of the life of this newspaper, with its long history and storied past, for which I anonymously wrote editorials for a span of time, and where my columnist colleagues and I sought to test the limits of free speech in certain ways, back in 2000 to 2001.

I am more cautious today, not just because I am older, but because greater responsibility is required in the internet age. These days, anything can be flashed around the world a second after it is completed: by the writer and, potentially, an army of supporters and detractors. (Though in reality, these would be one’s friends and un-friends with an internet connection and little to do on a weekday morning, half of whom the writer has never personally met). One does not really write commentaries nowadays. In place of “write” are a few new verbs: one links, forwards, “likes”, tweets.

In the past, we wrote to earn the kudos of our friends and relations. It was all we could hope for. Now the potential audience is limitless, a situation that demands greater precision in terms of language, and responsibility in the matter of content. An off-hand jab some columnist might have made in the 90s at some foreign nationality or socio-economic group might today be considered racist and unconscionable, cause for a host of letters demanding his/her removal.

When I started freelancing 15 years ago, I would have to make a run down to the magazine stand to buy as many copies as I could afford before they got sold out. Once an issue was sold, it was gone, just like the movies that came to town, played for three days at the local cinema, and were lost forever. Now nothing you ever write is lost. It stays in a corner of a hard drive somewhere, waiting to be dug up and released years later, for all the world to pick apart.

That is, if anyone cares enough for your humble little opinion. Because cyberspace offers everyone the opportunity of democratic expression, few people care all that much what you think, how you said it, and whether you said it first. Most everyone, it seems, are too concerned with how to present their own thoughts in as clever a way as they can. So there can be a paradoxical safety in today’s ocean of words.

Other things have changed. Due to the immediacy of today’s news, “scoops” are a thing of the past. Moreover, with columns immediately replicated on Facebook, in blogs, in other online newspapers—replicated and derived from—one has to rethink what is meant by ownership of ideas.

However, there has been an upside to this convivial intercourse of thoughts. The arrogance that marked the first voices coming out of the desktop-publishing 90s has largely vanished. As the neutral “link to” and “forward” have come to be the main methods of exposition, so have “rants” and “dissing” become pointless, obscure. Or so I hope.

So now one writes without the cozy sense of self-importance that marked many a journalist in my formative years: the notion that you could be welcomed anywhere as long as you flashed your press card, the knowledge that, in a gathering of strangers, at least one person would have seen your face in the paper and rejoice at having met such a distinguished writerly personage. Bloggers of all persuasions have shown that regular people can be as razor-sharp, witty and filled with inspiration as those who have been vetted by the editorial board of an ink-and-newsprint publication.

As one among the Times’ pool of writers I thought of myself as a faithful workhorse, endeavoring to produce an editorial in time for a deadline and, a day or so later, a column that would be printed beside the blandly smiling photograph that gave no hint of the ordeal of composing it. Thus I strove to put out uniformly high quality stuff not just for the sake of the newspaper but also for my own reputation—to build up a fanbase, so to speak. That goal is tough to reach nowadays. There is so much frenetic commentary out there, not all of it responsible—and in consequence, much of it rather exciting. How can anyone compete?

So here I find myself, essaying a task that in the span of little more than a decade has already become traditional. But I have been invited, and now feel motivated. I bring to my writing some of the insights (or baggage, if you like), acquired from living and studying in northern Europe: an awareness that I cannot really speak for all; a hesitance to judge; a desire to empathize; a habit of self-contradiction; and a dislike of rabble-rousing language. I try, self-consciously, to be broadminded, aware that in the worst case scenario, this could lead to paralysis. I’ll do my best, nonetheless.

___

Lakambini Sitoy is an award-winning Filipino author who currently lives in Denmark.

___

This column originally appeared in The Manila Times, print and internet editions, 14 September 2010.
http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/opinion/25837-beginnings

after a year, an update

2010-03-21T00:23:00.002+01:00

After nearly a year, an update, if only to say that I am working on a project involving FIlipina au pairs in Denmark with two other women students for the Cultural Encounters Kandidat 1 Modul at Roskilde University.

***

Many people have emailed me asking if I am attending our high school reunion in August, and I've had to tell them no. It was never in my plans, not from the very first morning after graduation. I have been ever so happy to move on.

Free Press celebrates 101st anniversary

2009-08-26T08:24:00.004+02:00

From Greg Brillantes and the editors of Free Press comes this announcement --

A Hundred and One

The FREE PRESS celebrates its 101st anniversary in this issue. We also take this occasion to pay tribute to the late President Corazon Aquino. Cory!—the private woman who was thrust out of her domesticity to the arena of politics, the prison cells of the Marcos regime, the parliament of the streets, the leadership of the Philippines and the world stage. Manuel L. Quezon III’s “Filipino of the Century” is an inspired retelling of this now-legendary story—one that resonates even amid the flamboyance and machismo prevailing in our culture, as the late FREE PRESS editor Teodoro M. Locsin pointed out in his eloquent editorial on Mrs. Aquino. The highlight of Mrs. Aquino’s international acclaim is, of course, her triumphant 1986 address to the US Congress, which we reprint here.

A tribute to Mrs. Aquino also serves as a tribute to her martyred husband, Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., whose association with the FREE PRESS is underscored by Locsin being thrown in jail together with Aquino(and nine other critics of the Marcos regime)in 1972. Teodoro L. Locsin Jr.’s interviews with Aquino are fascinating chamber pieces that hint at Marcos’s impending dictatorship. Another cellmate of Aquino and Locsin Sr. is the brilliant political analyst Napoleon G. Rama, whose article on martial law has unfortunately become more relevant in our time.

With the articles by Rama and Locsin Jr., we also reprint the classic political
cartoons of former FREE PRESS art director E. Z. Izon.

Former FREE PRESS executive editor Gregorio C. Brillantes wields his lyrical journalism as he takes a retrospective look at Rolando Galman, the much-overlooked casualty in Aquino’s assassination in 1983. We also look back to the body of work of the FREE PRESS and some of the writers who helped shape it. “The Ruling Money,” by the late associate editor Nick Joaquin (writing as Quijano de Manila), is an exhaustive business story as only he could write it—and a departure from his reporting on politics, history and pop culture. Kerima Polotan’s “The Woman of Fashion” is a quiet critique on the thriving bourgeois scene of the Sixties and its devotees at the time. Then there’s the other side of that milieu, lauded by Jose F. Lacaba’s now immortal “Notes on Bakya,” an inventive variation on Susan Sontag that counsels against elitism in art and culture. Finally, here too is Aquino’s soul-searching poetry, written during his eight years in prison. The themes are familiar to victims of political persecution like Lacaba, Locsin, Rama and this magazine, which was padlocked on the eve of martial law and revived in time for Cory’s historic presidential campaign.

Filipinos in Man Asian 2009 long list

2009-07-25T18:48:00.000+02:00

Congratulations to all who made the Man Asian Literary prize 2009 long list, which this year contains five Filipinos -- Eric Gamalinda, R . Zamora Linmark, Mario I. Miclat, Clarissa Militante and Edgar Calabia Samar!

Greg Brillantes moments

2009-06-28T03:43:00.004+02:00

In conjunction with a special award to be given to Filipino writer par excellence Gregorio Brillantes, Philippine Graphic put together an article briefly describing his contributions and career. I helped round up some input from colleagues, senior or otherwise, asking them (via Facebook): "Is there something special you remember about Greg, working with him or socializing, or just being touched by something he wrote?"
Here are the responses:

***

In my research on our short story in English - I have covered so far the period 1956 to 1989, and read (honesly) over a thousand stories - I can say without reservation that Greg dominates that period in terms of the artistic quality and depth of his work; he should long ago have been declared a National Artist.

-- Gemino H Abad, poet, critic, fiction writer and professor of literature (UP-Diliman).

*

Recently I reread The Distance to Andromeda and Millennium. I became nostalgic about the future. Then I read one by one Greg's collected essays, especially those about his travels. No one comes close when it comes to the lost art of intelligent journalism and reportage that does not read like disposable literature. Greg Brillantes is one of our diamonds buried under the dross of the sound bite, the lunch time show, and the prevailing culture of inanity on television and the vapid press.

My real Greg Brillantes moment? At one Palanca Awards night where after the ceremonies we usually sung to Greg's piano accompaniment (sometimes made virtuosic because of his vanishing hearing), I had one too many and fell asleep in one of the plush ... Read Morelounge chairs of the Peninsula lobby. I think I came to at about 3 a.m. or later, and guess whom you'd find seated beside me? Greg, of course, and I was so embarrassed but he just smiled that avuncular smile of his and said, I didn't want to leave until you woke up.

-- Marne Kilates, poet, translator and critic

*

Unlike the Tiempos (Edilberto and Edith) and Franz (Arcellana), who all mentored me in the classroom and workshops, Greg has been my unofficial, indirect mentor for the longest time. He taught me the art of fiction through his books. He showed me how to make characters jump off the page, how to make them memorable like13-year-old Ben, how to make even inanimate objects (like empty houses) stick in your mind with the precise metaphor.

And his nonfiction! I wish more of our nonfiction writers would read him and learn that nonfiction doesn't mean self-indulgence.

And as a friend? Super! He lends me his favorite books--and then forgets about them! No, he just allows me as much time to linger over his books, and I do. They are precious. And Greg Brillantes is precious. I agree with Jimmy--he should have been National Artist a long time ago

Oh, my Greg Brillantes moment? Dancing the boogie with him at one Free Press Literary Awards night!

-- Susan Lara, writer, teacher and critic

*

I remember the first time i met him, i cried. not because i was in awe or something but because he sent back proofs of his manuscript with lots of exclamation points--which to my (editorial) greenhorn mind translated to utter disappointment and anger at such amateurish book-production work. i wasn't worthy... (sniff). but ... Read Morewhen we got to talk more (even if it was kind of hard with his hearing aid), we got along quite well.

we exchange old books up to this day. he'll also drop by the office with little pasalubong from his trips. he's one of my favorite literary "lolos" :-)

-- Ani Habulan, book editor and developer, Anvil Publishing

*

i'm still astonished that greg's stories have never been picked up in the radar of the (now) numerous critics of nonwestern anglophone literature. he is doubtless a master of the short fiction form in our part of the postcolonial world, a profound and consummate artist whose command of the imperial medium (of english) is beyond reproach, and whose ... Read Moreworld view is implacably--and necessarily--rooted in a difficult and intensely argued kind of faith... interesting, but it turned out we'd already enjoyed a "nodding acquaintance" even before we were formally introduced sometime in the early 1990s: he was (is) this tall, distinguished- and pious-looking man who, like me, always stood at the back of the lourdes church in retiro, q.c., during the 10 to 11 am sunday mass.

-- J. Neil Garcia, UP – Diliman, poet, essayist, professor, critic

*

Greg is our family's book bugaw (pimp)with catholic tastes. It's such a trip to find bags with a little bit of everything from Armistead Maupin to Dr. Oliver Sacks to Edith Wharton to Jon Stewart, delivered to our doorstep throughout the year. With such great stocking stuffers, it's like having Christmas even in summer. Often the fly page will have a personalized dedication in Greg's angular penmanship. He addresses my mother as Dona Carolina, an elaborate courtesy that only he can pull off without affectation. Often aside from the literary goodies, there are worldlier treats like hazelnut pralines or a delicate fruit tea. We are truly blessed to have him for our friend.

-- Menchu Aquino Sarmiento, author

*

I want to contribute my "favorite Greg moment" anyway to this gathering of friends. I had just returned from our life overseas, and to writing fiction, which was actually tales. I sent one to Greg with much trepidation. He accepted it for publication, but asked me, "don't you want to return to ... Read Morerealist fiction"? I never did figure out whether it meant that he didn't like tales, or whether he was accepting my story even if he didn't really like it.

-- Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, author, professor, critic

*

I was stunned to get a phone call, that first time, from THE Greg Brillantes,

Who? greg brillantes?
yes, this is greg brillantes.
greg brillantes, the greg brillantes?...... Read More

what year did you graduate from the ateneo?
1982, sir. AB Psych. what about you sir, what year were you?
Oh, just a few years after Rizal.

-- Migs Villanueva, author, artist

*

Marne, I was at that Palanca Awards night you were talking about. I recall that you, Charlson and Mike Bigornia were all singing. And Greg Brilliantes was at the piano. I didn't stay around till morning like you did, though :-)

-- Ramil Digal Gulle, poet, journalist

dahlia propagation

2009-05-31T17:28:00.003+02:00

This is one of the north windows, and these are dahlia bulbs in moist growing medium. I took the sprouts and potted them up, placing a glass jar over them to prevent their drying out. Within three weeks they had rooted. I then took the rhizomes and planted them in the garden, and within another three weeks of planting they had sprouted. Now one of the sprouts from the rhizomes is three inches tall, and about four inches in diameter.

I still have to plant the dahlias in the pots -- haven't prepared the flower bed yet.

These are small, single-petal dahlias -- they'll grow up to 40 cm tall. But you can use the same technique to increase your stock of the larger hybrids.

spring gardening

2009-05-30T10:25:00.008+02:00

This blog started as a gardening diary, so now, in late spring, it returns briefly to its, uh... roots.

Things I learned as a spring gardener this year:

1. Seeds stored in October 2006 will germinate. Big time. I collected them from hybrid petunias (Petunia x hybrida), zinnias, french marigolds (Tagetes patula), china asters (Callistephus chinensis) and a lot of other stuff. Without much hope (and, foolishly, without a germination trial using a sample in damp tissue paper) I sowed THICKLY over a soil-less growing medium in an old strawberry box. The tagetes came up pretty decently. The petunias germinated scandalously, and in 10 days the makeshift seed flat looked like it was harboring CRESS.

The seeds, incidentally, were stored in an unheated garage, in an airtight can, in separate envelopes labelled with variety and date, and with two little packets of silica gel from a shoebox. I don't know where to get silica gel in Denmark, so I just use these little packets that manufacturers drop into shoe boxes (leather and synthetic) to keep moisture at bay.

Seedlings collected from white petunias with a sprawling growth habit.

2. When a packet modestly refers to 70% germination, it means, like, 200% germination under optimum conditions. At least that's what happened with my Hammenhoeg dwarf-dahlia mix. Now I Live With Dahlias, the way other people Live With ADHD.

(Note: 200% germination is not hyperbole. Most seedpacks will have 50% to 200% more the number of seeds than it says on the fine print, as most gardeners prefer to direct-sow, leading to much loss of seed to drought or birds.)

Dahlia seedlings -- more came up eventually.

3. Used disposable coffee cups make an excellent substitute for two or three inch seedlings pots. The canteen at the Danish language school where I go three times a week serves coffee in wonderfully flexible plastic cups. They contain about 350 ml and this is the perfect volume for a three-week seedling. I ask my classmates for them at the end of each coffee session. Sometimes I fish them out of the recycle bin and rinse them out in the lavatories.

4. Yes, you CAN raise snapdragons (Antirrhinum majus), petunias (Petunia x hybrida), dahlias and larkspur (Consolida sp. and Delphinium sp.) from seed.

5. It's better to buy one pot in a color you like of easily-rooting plants like verbena and impatiens. Take two inch cuttings and root them. For verbena, in sand or compost. I'm still not sure whether rooting in compost or water is better for impatiens.

6. My impatiens, by the way, have NEVER rooted from leaf nodes. The roots, whether in water or in soil, appear to come from various unpredictable points in the stem. This contrary to advice you read from more experienced gardeners, posted on the web. I wonder why. Can anyone comment on this?

7. A small packet of pallid Viola cornuta seeds I collected in November 2006 has, apparently, remained viable. After a three week wait, I see one seedling, and two more appear about to sprout.

8. Copenhagen is in Zone 7B! That is to say, we don't ski from one farmhouse to the next six months a year, and polar bears don't walk the streets. Right now, in fact, all over Denmark, the clothes are coming off piece by piece, though a friend tells me nude beaches are OUT -- holdovers from the 60s or something like that.

NOW HOW DO I TRANSLATE ALL THIS INTO DANISH?! U-ha!

Mendoza wins!

2009-05-25T21:15:00.003+02:00

Cool! Filipino Brillante Mendoza has won the Best Director prize at Cannes for his controversial film "Kinatay." Now I've really got to see it, in all its dark, distasteful, disquieting glory. I believe the movie remains banned in the Philippines, but it's sure to play in a Copenhagen theater soon -- if not on regular TV. Something to calendar.

Lars Von Trier/ AntiChrist

2009-05-23T14:02:00.001+02:00

ANTICHRIST SPOILERS!!!!

Speaking of Cannes, today's Politiken has at least three full pages devoted to the controversy surrounding Lars Von Trier's "AntiChrist". The film, apparently, has been bought for distribution in various countries -- where for the most part it is expected to play minus Willem Dafoe's full frontal nudity and a gory scene of a woman cutting off her own clitoris.

In the same issue is an article on the special effects, and an image of five prosthetic vulvas used in the scene, each with a tube for pumping the fake blood out of. Plus the note that an adult film actress stood in for Charlotte Ginsbourg during filming.

***
For the back pages features (art, film, culture) in Politiken alone, I would gladly learn more Danish! The school has promoted me to the fourth level (Modul) though the semester has six weeks more to go.

Surfing

2009-05-23T13:49:00.004+02:00

Opening Facebook, I discovered to my consternation that an old friend, lawyer, writer and writing workshop organizer Ernest Superal Yee had just died.

To find out more about the circumstances of his sudden death (heart attack) and the summer writers' workshop at Silliman University, Dumaguete City, Philippines (first fortnight of May) at which he had been a panellist, I went to the blog of Ian, a writer-teacher at Silliman University.

It had a brief entry on Kinatay (Cannes, 2008), a Filipino film that appears to have been universally panned by critics. That led me to a brilliant post on Rogert Ebert's blog detailing why he thought Kinatay was so awful.

And that same post in turn led me to the mesmerizing trailer for Lee Daniels' 2009movie "Precious" that now I am dying to see.

not again

2009-05-23T10:20:00.006+02:00

It's incredible how these sex video scandals never seem to run out of steam. Just shows you how repressed Filipinos are. Until our mindset becomes more sophisticated (is the word "decent" more precise?) the sex video will remain the most potent weapon for destroying a person's peace of mind and career.

Private, non-commercial sex videos are personal. Don't watch them. Don't speculate on them. Don't forward them. Don't advertise them, in a word.

They are none of your business.

Have sex instead.

Words of wisdom

2009-05-07T10:41:00.003+02:00

My friend Judy Jover (Danish, a first generation immigrant from the Philippines) forwarded this to me. It's typical ironic FIlipino humor, stemming from the humiliating experiences of childhoods under tough, caustic parents in a tough and caustic culture. It makes me cringe, it's so real. The language is Tagalog. The author is unknown.

It's impervious to Google Translate, unfortunately, so read it with a Filipino friend by your side, someone who knows idiomatic Tagalog or has seen a lot of Filipino movies.

If you're European with a Filipina au pair, now might be the time to learn a bit more about her culture, beyond the population, religion and vacation spots in her country.

Mga Ginintuang Butil

Hinding-hindi ko makakalimutan ang mga mumunti ngunit ginintuang butil na payo na nakuha ko sa aking mga magulang.

1. Si Inay, tinuruan niya ako HOW TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE :
“Kung kayong dalawa ay magpapatayan, doon kayo sa labas! Mga leche kayo, kalilinis ko lang ng bahay.”

2. Natuto ako ng RELIGION kay Itay:
“Kapag yang mantsa di natanggal sa carpet, magdasal ka na!”

3.Kay Inay ako natuto ng LOGIC :
“Kaya ganyan, dahil sinabi ko.”

4. At kay Inay pa rin ako natuto ng MORE LOGIC:
“Pag ikaw nalaglag diyan sa bubong, ako lang mag-isa ang manonood ng sine.”

5. Si Inay din ang nagturo sa akin kung ano ang ibig sabihin ng IRONY:
“Sige ngumalngal ka pa at bibigyan talaga kita ng iiyakan mo!”

6. Si Inay ang nagpaliwanag sa akin kung ano ang CONTORTIONISM:
“Tingnan mo nga yang dumi sa likod ng leeg mo, tingnan mo!!!”

7. Si Itay ang nagpaliwanag sa a! kin kung ano ang ibig sabihin ng STAMINA:
“Wag kang tatayo diyan hangga’t di mo nauubos lahat ng pagkain mo!”

8. At si Inay ang nagturo sa amin kung ano ang WEATHER:
“Lintek talaga kayo, ano ba itong kuwarto nyong magkapatid, parang dinaanan ng bagyo!”

9. Ganito ang paliwanag sa akin n! i Inay tungkol sa CIRCLE OF LIFE:
“Malandi kang bata ka, iniluwal kita sa mundong ito, maari rin kitang alisin sa mundong ito.”

10. Kay Itay ako natuto kung ano ang BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION:
“! Tumigil ka nga diyan! Huwag kang umarte na parang Nanay mo!”

11. Si Inay naman ang nagturo kung anong ibig sabihin ng GENETICS:
“Nagmana ka nga talaga sa ama mong walanghiya!”

12. Si Inay naman ang nagpaliwanag sa amin kung anong ibig sabihin ng ENVY :
“Maraming mga batang ulila sa magulang. Di ba kayo nagpapasalamat at mayroon kayong magulang na tulad namin?”

13. Si Itay naman ang nagturo sa akin ng ANTICIPATION :
“Sige kang bata ka, hintayin mong makarating tayo sa bahay!”

14. At si Itay pa rin ang nagturo kay Kuya kung anong ibig sabihin ng RECEIVING:
“Uupakan kita pagdating natin sa bahay!”

15. At si Itay pa rin ang nagturo kay Kuya kung anong ibig sabihin ng DETERMINATION:
“Hanapin mo yung pinahahanap ko sa ! iyo, pag di mo nahanap, makikita mo!”

16. Si Inay naman ang nagturo sa akin kung ano ang HUMOR:
“Kapag naputol yang mga paa mo ng pinaglalaruan mong lawnmower, wag na wag kang tatakbo sa akin at lulumpuhin kita!”

17. At ang pinakamahalaga sa lahat, natutunan ko kina Inay at Itay kung ano ang JUSTICE :
“Balang araw magkakaroon ka rin ng anak…tiyak magiging katulad mo at magiging sakit din sa ulo!”

My dad the sportscaster

2009-05-04T09:11:00.004+02:00

Letter from my father, T. Valentino Sitoy Jr., retired history professor, on the May 3 Pacquiao-Hatton fight in Las Vegas. Oh yes, the Sitoys are big Pacquiao fans too.

"... The four of us watched the fight. Earlier on Fia (7) was asleep but she woke up just in time for the second round. Bea (10) was there all along. The whole morning from 7:00 a.m., your Mama was already on the TV looking for the right channel, and was very much pissed off when she would find no coverage of the fight. It was to be on GMA, not the usual ABS-CBN. Fortunately, your Mama at 10:30 a.m. found it just as it was starting with the undercard fights. From then on, we had GMA-7 channel on till the fight..

"The undercard fights were good. But your Mama and Bea were waiting for Manny. Both got bored with the three-hour long undercard bouts. Then, there were two brown-outs. The last one came just three or four minutes before the Pacman-Hitman fight was to come on.

"This was probably Manny’s most awaited fight. There were 50 Philippine congressmen who braved the swine flu just to be there. There were Filipino screen stars too like Richard and Lucy Gomez. Among the US personalities, there was Jack Nicholson, Mariah Carey, Mark Wahlberg, and many actors and famous people. You can be sure the classmates Bill Clinton and GMA were glued to their respective TVs.

"In the Philippines , everyone was on TV. Pay per view restaurants were full everywhere, even in Dumaguete. A free entrance gym in Quezon City accommodating 500 had 1,000 people in it, with thousands more outside. The latter were finally asked to go home and watch the fight there. In Manila , there was “zero traffic” – it looked like Sunday dawn. Four-lane EDSA had three lanes completely empty; the side lane having only three or four vehicles. The army also went to rest – no fights with Abu Sayyaf, who were I presume watching TV too. The police had a holiday. Through the day yesterday, no crime was committed in all Metro Manila. I guess the pickpockets were busy using their eyes rather than their hands. The three typhoons in early May (climate change, indeed) were also on hold. There was one (Crising) in the South China Sea yesterday, and another today, while another on the Pacific coast of Luzon (Dante) is still hovering east of Bicol.

"When Martin Nievera, the first time a man sang the Philippine anthem in any of Manny’s bouts, sang Lupang Hinirang, he sang the first bar slowly … paused, and then sang the rest in brisk tempo (the regulated 60 seconds flat), until the last bar when, like U.S. singers, he held his last bar and sang it crooner style. Then a very brief announcement was flashed. Martin Nievera’s rendition of the anthem had been approved by the National Historical Institute.

"In the first round, Ricky Hatton came on strong. Very aggressive. Pushed Manny back and into the ropes, at one time. Hatton also had the habit of holding Manny with his left, and then pounding Manny’s ribs with his strong right. Very bad. In the last third of the first round, Ricky Hatton did that again, which made Manny mad. You know it, because Manny for a moment stretched out his arms, and then brought his gloves together in a loud thump. In the last 30 seconds, Manny caught Hatton with a right, and very unexpectedly Hatton dropped, who was nakaluhod on his right. Pandemonium everywhere, including the Sitoy gym, when Bea and Lola raised their arms with a shout. Fia at this time was still asleep. In replays in various TV channels showing the audience – Manila , Cebu, Davao , General Santos, everywhere – Manny’s fans went wild with dancing and shouting.

"Hatton got up immediately. Then about 20 seconds later, with about six seconds to spare, Manny again hit with another right, pushing Hatton against the ropes and then on his back. He was given a count of six. Then in the last second after the bell rang, as Manny was already beginning to turn away, Hatton swung, still part of the round, but Manny safely backed away.

"Pictures of people watching after that first round show everyone all stirred up. Then the second round (Fia now awake). It was again Manny’s round, but Hatton had this dangerous tendency of being able to come back strong. The announcer said it, but it was obvious to those watching, that Ricky Hatton did not bring in any new strategy. He still comes barreling in, as in his previous fights. They had a fierce exchange. Hatton got the worse of it, though he also could hit Manny now and then. You just hope that Manny does not get careless. In the last 10 seconds of the second round, it was Ricky who got careless. He was watching Manny’s right (the one that floored him twice before), and for a split second opened the right side of his body. That was when Manny in a flash came with a strong left hook – Manny is left-handed – and hit Hatton squarely on the right jaw. Ka-blag! The British Hitman was on his back, out cold! It took minutes to revive him.

"The Filipinos everywhere did their crazy dance. I think it is the Pacquiao knock-out dance craze... Cebu TV has a new term – si Hatton gipalukapa ni Manny. The Cebuanos are also saying, just at this very minute, that Muhammad Ali has been called the “greatest fighter ever.” Now, they are asking, is Manny now not the “greatest fighter ever” with six belts to his credit.

"Now, everywhere in Philippine TV, the mesmerizing last 10 seconds of the 2nd round, as well as the two first-round knockdowns, are played and replayed. There is some pity for the Hitman. The one people are angry with is Floyd Mayweather, Sr., Hatton’s trainer, who had been such a foul-mouth, attacking Manny, calling him a easy push-over, and calling Freddie Roach, Manny’s trainer, a cockroach – this on TV. After the fight, Mayweather was nowhere to be seen. He later said that Hatton lost because he did not follow his advice. I had wanted to see his face after the fight, because it always feels good to see boastful people eat their own words.

"Now, the new challenger is Floyd Maywearther Junior, who had retired but is now coming back into the ring.

"As to Manny, he is the Philippines ’ number one hero, the only one who could suspend war fighting and prevent crimes and traffic jams. In Sulu, for the first time, the governor set up a free TV screen, for all people to see. In the war zone, also the commanding Army colonel put up a pay-per-view TV screen for the soldiers and local people. One MNLF unit also came in, and watched the bout along with the armymen.

"As to the world, everybody knows that the top dog in boxing is Manny Pacman Pacquiao. Yes, you can wear your Manny T-shirt proudly."

Go, Manny, go!

2009-05-03T07:43:00.002+02:00

"Brilliant Pacquiao cements legacy with win
By Martin Rogers"

http://sports.yahoo.com/box/news?slug=ro-fightfirst050209&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

photo: Dala horses

2009-04-27T23:37:00.004+02:00

Dala horse workshop and boutique, town of Mora, Dalarna, Sweden, July 7, 2008.

I love these painted, folk-art horses. My husband's house has a windowsill of them, all different sizes -- I didn't realize they're considered by some to be a symbol of Sweden until years later. I just thought they were really pretty. Once, at a secondhand shop in the Philippines, I found a dala horse with the authentication sticker still on the bottom. I don't think the attendant knew what it was (we also carve and paint wooden horses in Luzon) so she let me have it for sixty pesos (a little more than a dollar). It was brand new, some American's souvenir from Sweden that he/she didn't want. My niece Sofia loved it, so much so that when she learned I would be going to Sweden, I was given the task of buying more dala horses. Gaaa. Needless to say, I have never shown her my Mora workshop pictures.

photo: in York Cathedral

2009-04-26T09:19:00.001+02:00

York Cathedral, York, England, circa April 28, 2004

photo: at Snowdonia, Wales

2009-04-25T12:39:00.003+02:00

At Snowdonia National Park in Wales, a place of imposing natural beauty (and also one of the filming locations for a James Bond film), April 26, 2004.

Happy birthday, Mom Edith

2009-04-25T12:38:00.003+02:00

National Artist for Literature Edith L. Tiempo turned 90 on April 22. Congratulations, Mom Edith. We thank you for the inspiration. May this year be a good one.

She would have been 43

2009-04-19T01:08:00.009+02:00

My sister, Leilani Sitoy Nodado: April 19, 1966 - November 18, 2007

This is the public photo still posted on her Friendster account. I keep my own Friendster account active, though I never use it, just to maintain that digital link.

1966

1968

In our rented home on the Silliman University campus
in Dumaguete City, against the infamous musical instrument
that has surfaced so much in my writing.
She was a much better pianist than me.
I still play from time to time, though. 1976.

Richmond, Virginia, March 1979

College Honors
at Silliman University (Luce Auditorium), 1984

Lani gets the Most Outstanding Student award, Silliman University, 1986

Solidbank's 30th anniversary,
Makati, Metro Manila,
July 19, 1993

Congratulations, Vagn

2009-04-17T21:49:00.008+02:00

Klods Hans-prisen 2008 til ildsjæl der brænder for de varme lande

Det bliver forlægger og bibliotekar Vagn Plenge, som 16. april modtager ”Klods Hansprisen 2008” for sit store og idealistiske arbejde med Forlaget Hjulet gennem mere end 30 år og for arbejdet som formand for styregruppen, der stod for IBBY Congress 2008 i København i september. Prisen uddeles meget passende på dronningens fødselsdag. H.M. Margrethe II var protektor for IBBY-kongressen.
”Klods Hans-prisen” har været uddelt af Selskabet for Børnelitteratur, IBBY Danmark, siden 1984.
Den består af en originalillustration af en scene fra H.C. Andersens eventyr Klods Hans - i år lavet af illustrator Antonieta Medeiros.
IBBY står for 'International Board on Books for Young People'. Vagn Plenge har været medlem af organisationens danske bestyrelse fra 1999-2005. Fra 2002-2006 var han medlem af IBBY´s Executive Committee.
Prisoverrækkelsen foregår 16. april kl. 16.00 i Rundetårn i København. Her holdes pristalen af Jan Tøth, fmd.f. Selskabet for Børnelitteratur, mens skuespiller Peter Mygind læser Klods Hans.
De varme lande Vagn Plenges interesse for 'de varme lande' startede tidligt, og efter studentereksamen sejlede han på det fjerne Østen som restaurationsdreng på et fragtskib. Da han i 1969 var færdiguddannet som bibliotekar, fik han ansættelse hos Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke, tog et par senere år bifagseksamen i Thai, og blev i 1992 cand.phil. Omdrejningspunktet for ildsjælen Vagn Plenge er Forlaget Hjulet, som
han stiftede i 1976. Forlaget har igennem tiderne udgivet o. 300 bøger og har siden 1980 haft et søsterforlag i Sverige. Forlagets fokus er selvfølgelig 'de varme lande'. Vagn Plenge har også skrevet bogen 25 års varme bøger, dedikeret hans afdøde kone Ruth Plenge. I efteråret 2008 blev han gift med forfatteren Lakambini Sitoy – kaldet Bing – fra Philippinerne.
Vagn Plenge har oversat romaner, noveller og digte fra bl.a. Sydøstasien og Afrika. Han har præsenteret forfattere og litteratur fra Sydøstasien, redigeret bibliografier og kataloger over litteratur om/fra Afrika, Asien og Latinamerika, og under navnet 'Andre Kulturers Selskab' har han stået for internationale arrangementer om børnelitteratur i den 3. verden

Den varme litteraturpris
I 1992 etablerede Vagn Plenge ALOA, der skal fremme interessen for og udgivelsen af litteratur fra de varme lande, og året efter indstiftedes ALOA-prisen – Den varme litteraturpris – som gives til forfattere fra lande i 3. verden. Selv blev Vagn Plenge i 1994 tildelt Nairobi-prisen af Nairobi-klubben (journalister med 3. verden som arbejdsfelt) og modtog i 1996 Døssing-prisen af Bibliotekarforbundet.

Yderligere info: Jan Tøth, fmd.f. Selskabet for Børnelitteratur, tlf. 3956 2214

Vagn Plenge and Jan Tøth

Vagn and artist Antonieta Medeiros

Actor Peter Mygend reads HC Andersen's fairytale Klods Hans

Hurrah for Susan Boyle

2009-04-17T16:18:00.005+02:00

Who gave me goose pimples last Tuesday, as the first clips of her performance on Britain's Got Talent 2009 were uploaded on the net. Three cheers for the lady. I hope this is the start of a rewarding career. (Now I can't quit humming stuff from Les Miserables).

My friend, Cebu-based lawyer May Saga-Aguilar, posted a note about Susan on her Facebook account. I'm uploading it with permission here --

Susan Boyle and the Cynical World

Susan Boyle is probably the most inspirational event I have come upon in recent times. It is true: it is a big "wake-up call". Very often, more often than we care to admit, we judge people by their outward appearance. I wonder how many TRUE TALENTS we have killed by our cynicism and prejudgments, how many potential successes we have nipped because we refused to give them the opportunity, all because they "did not look right".

(I am reminded of the Olympics in China. One girl sang the song, the other lip-synched it on stage. Reason: despite her wonderful voice, the unseen girl was not pretty enough to be seen.)

In her interview prior to her performance, Susan Boyle was asked by a judge: "What's the dream?". Susan replied that she was trying to be a professional singer. I could see the face of one woman in the audience register a look of contempt and ridicule.

The judge continued to ask her: "Why hasn't it worked out so far?"

She replied: "Well, I haven't been given the chance before, but here's hoping that would change."

What is ironic is that Ms. Boyle had, in fact, recorded a song "Cry Me a River" in 1999. Why has Ms. Boyle not been discovered despite this fact? Was it because when the producers saw her, they thought she was too homely and too fat to appear on TV, that her album will never sell because she did not look right?

Ms. Boyle's performance on "Britain's Got Talent" has indeed changed things. Now, she has everybody's attention, and everybody is eager to give her the chance - a chance she fought to have, and has sadly been denied, for the last 35 years since she started singing at age 12.

I wonder how many Susan Boyles we have around us, and I am not talking only of singers or performers. I am talking even of athletes and leaders and other people with talents to share. How many have been denied the opportunity because they did not look right, did not dress right, or did not sound right? Do we need a show like "Britain's Got Talent" to reveal them?

I call this my "Susan Boyle Experience". I will keep this as a reminder that this is a cynical world, and that there are people around me who are better than they look. I can help change the world by being less cynical and less judgmental of people.

Yes, this is a cynical world. But "here's hoping that will change".

Photo of Susan Boyle from the Mirror website.

congratulations

2009-04-17T07:27:00.002+02:00

Tillykke to Vagn Plenge, recipient of Klods Hans Pris 2008.

On literature and housekeeping

2009-04-13T12:47:00.002+02:00

My husband plans to invite a Booker prize short-listed author to dinner this weekend, so I took a bamboo stake and passed it over the angles between wall and ceiling all around the house, to get rid of cobwebs. I knew he wouldn't notice the good work when he came in for lunch, so I told him. In some ways there is no difference between a good housekeeper and a good editor. One never notices the ways in which they excel.

photo: gladiators at Piazza Navona

2009-04-13T10:26:00.003+02:00

The nice thing about having a high-resolution fit-in-your-palm digital camera is that you can unobtrusively participate in someone else's holiday. Here, two enterprising local boys flank a North American tourist at Piazza Navona, Rome, April 2, 2009.

photo: Italy hearts il bassotto

2009-04-11T08:05:00.006+02:00

Doggie bag in shop window of Chopin apparel-accessories boutique near the Metro Termini station, Rome, April 3, 2009.

The color is a very popular one this season - to think I just tossed out a pair of probably-fixable Spanish espadrilles from 2005, when lavender was something you wouldn't be caught dead in.

photo: sidewalk artist at Piazza Navona, Rome

2009-04-10T20:59:00.004+02:00

When I was ten, I promised myself I would do this when I grew up.

Photo taken April 3, 2009.

photo: couple at Spanish Steps, Rome

2009-04-09T10:20:00.002+02:00

Bride and groom at Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti, Rome, April 2, 2009.

In Rome

2009-04-08T21:27:00.006+02:00

About the only way I can manage to write text for this blog is to post excerpts of something being written for a different purpose, in this case a letter to friends --

"Thursday, April 2, we headed for the Vatican museum first thing. We had heard we would have to queue up to enter, and were relieved to discover this was not the case. This early in the season there were many foreign tourists, a good many of them students on school trips, and many Americans besides. So it became a game to keep ahead, or behind, these large groups of people, though sometimes it was fun to eavesdrop on a tour guide speaking English. Raphael's Stanzes and of course the Sistine Chapel were the high point of the tour and it was a fantastic experience to see these images that hitherto I had seen only in art books, most of them smoky and grimy. The frescoes, brilliantly colored after the restoration work of the last 20 years, were simply amazing. There were many other wonderful aspects of the museum, including the antiquities and the very building itself.

"We wanted to visit St. Peter's basilica, but were surprised at the length of the queue in the square outside, which was not moving. It was only the following day that we remembered that April 2 was the fifth death anniversary of John Paul II. So the people in the square must have been waiting for the end of memorial rites of some kind within the basilica. We mustered the energy to visit the Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti (the Spanish Steps) instead, where a bride and groom suddenly appeared and kissed several times as the crowd gathered at the staircase cheered. People took photos and video, and we're sure those kisses have turned up on a few travel blogs this week! Then we walked to the Trevi Fountain, which was so crowded with people we literally queued up to get a slot to have our picture taken and throw a coin with right hand, over left shoulder, to make sure we would return to Rome. Then to the Pantheon, peering into the windows of some legendary boutiques along the way. The place was crowded, too, mostly with students (American by the sound of them).

"The following day, Friday, we headed to St. Peter's basilica, and this time managed to get in after just half an hour. (It's much more popular than the Vatican museum -- perhaps the 12 euro entrance fees at the latter act as a deterrent). Again, at least for me, there was that feeling of unreality, of being in someplace you had always heard about but did not expect to visit. Our visit was pleasantly lengthened by the appearance of an ambassador and his entourage on their way to visit the Pope. There was much pomp and circumstance. First the basilica marshalls held back the crowd, then came Swiss Guards, some religious persons in robes and the ambassador and his wife and three young women in black (complete with veils) who must have been daughters. The whole entourage appeared to have come from some Latin American country. They seemed incredibly wealthy and chic. They paused at the altar containing the Pieta, and then again at the altar before the great apse, where the ambassador and his wife knelt and the daughter snapped photos. The crowd snapped photos of them too -- we felt like papparazi! Totally unexpected, theatrical things seem to happen on an everyday level in Italy.

I love the juxtaposition of black veil and killer stilletos on one of the young women, standing beyond the religious personage in purple robes.

"From the basilica, we walked what seemed a great distance (given that we were on our last legs after two weeks of sightseeing) to the Forum and, beyond it, the Colosseum, passing by the infamous monument to Vittorio Emanuele. We knew we were approaching the Colosseum -- something quintessentially Roman -- because we began to see more and more people costumed as gladiators, happy to pose with tourists for some euros. The Colosseum, with its crowds, has certainly changed from the day when Henry James used it as a setting for a scandalous tryst in his novella "Daisy Miller". Then, it was silent, moonlit and mysterious, not to mention malarial. There, I found a bevy of noisy Italian high school students, among others, and witnessed a group of the faithful going through one of the stations of the cross, in preparation for Easter. Again, another reminder of the legacy of ceremony and ritual in this part of the world."

***

We are following the coverage of the earthquake in central Italy with concern and sympathy for its victims.

photo: Suchart and Sridawryang

2009-04-06T20:22:00.003+02:00

At the home of acclaimed writers Suchart Sawasdri and Sridawryang in Bangkok, September 2006. Suchart, Bing, Sridawrang, Vagn.

photo: Kawai, Hawaii, April 2007

2009-04-05T13:16:00.003+02:00

Celebrate Reading literary festival, Hawaii, April 26-28, 2007, organized by Lorna Hershinow. Participating writers following a presentation (readings and discussion) at the high school in Kauai island). Back row, from left: Celestine Vaite, Graham Salisbury,Chip Hughes, Adam __ who was the emcee; and, front row, from left, ___ Lakambini Sitoy, Lynne Cox, Cris Crutcher and Ian McMillan.

Would appreciate if readers could help me fill in those blanks.

the library as playroom

2009-04-04T10:36:00.004+02:00

Manuel L. Quezon III has written a brilliant essay on his book-filled childhood, without cynicism and full of faith:

http://archive.inquirer.net/view.php?db=0&story_id=55017

This excerpt, on the drudgery of formal education, makes me smile: "What sort of a life is this, I perpetually asked myself, that condemns us to be trained, like little dogs, to urinate ink on pieces of paper, and then to derive satisfaction from being praised for the performance?"

photo: from Il Giudizio Universale e L'Inferno

2009-04-03T06:35:00.003+02:00

Detail of an engraving based on a fresco by Buffalmaco in the Camposanto, Piazza dei Miracoli, Pisa, titled "Il Giudizio Universale e L'Inferno." A print of this engraving can be found in the Museo L'Opera at the Piazza.

What kind of man

2009-04-03T06:22:00.002+02:00

What kind of man tells his terminally-ill wife, "Ang pangit mo, ang baho mo, kaya lang ang sarap mong kantutin?" The memory of how she looked as she confessed this to us -- her attempts to understand ("it was almost midnight," "he was drunk" "I had been fixing some food and had't had time to tidy myself"), and the soft, sheepish, apologetic way in which she spoke ("this will make you angry, alright?") -- keeps me up at night.

photo: Massacre of the Innocents

2009-04-02T23:29:00.004+02:00

Detail of a tapestry depicting the Massacre of the Innocents, Vatican Museum, April 2, 2009.

photo: violas

2009-04-01T08:03:00.005+02:00

A bed of pansies (violas) at a small square near the center of Pisa, March 30, 2009. In this city they seem a favorite winter flower for public parks and such, in other parts of Italy we visited we saw them brightening up window boxes and tubs at the entrance to restaurants and shops. The style seems to be to mass them in, all colors at random, different from the usual style of equally spacing plants of the same color bloom. In the cool weather and bright sunshine they grow HUGE.

many, many years ago ...

2009-03-31T10:31:00.004+02:00

Many, many years ago ... before Facebook, blogging, email, wikipedia, youtube, before hideous mobile phone cases and silly ringtones no one ever uses, before internet telephony, before Nokia, before pagers, before the internet, before fax machines and IBM automatic typewriters, before hiphop and R and B and before disco even, before the Eraserheads and Oasis and while the Beatles were bickering but together, when Zimbabwe was South Rhodesia, before the dismantling of apartheid, when the twin towers of the World Trade Center rested on a drawing board, before Tetrapaks, before the moon landing and Apollo 13, before Skylab and Soyuz, before Ebola and AIDS, before the fall of Saigon, before Cory and Ninoy and Edsa, when Ferdinand Marcos was the youthful new hope for the future, before Martial Law ... a little star was born.

(And many years later, she recognized her guardian angel in a shop window in Bologna, off Piazza Maggiore. Woof!)

photo: leaning tower of Pisa

2009-03-30T11:28:00.003+02:00

Outside Piazza dei Miracoli, Pisa, 28 March 2009

photo of the day: Easter Candy

2009-03-29T11:40:00.003+02:00

Easter candy in a shop window on San Vitali street, Bologna, Italy, 26 March 2009.

photo of the day: Frankfurt book fair fans

2009-03-28T14:24:00.004+01:00

Two young girls obligingly posed for my camera at the Frankfurt Book Fair, October 18, 2008. One of the exhibit halls was devoted to graphic novels and pop culture, and here all manner of costumed young people met, having contacted each other by sms. Sailor Moon, Harry Potter, vampires, many others I vaguely recognized -- but of course Poison Ivy and the Riddler were unmistakeable.

photo of the day: Firenze

2009-03-28T14:12:00.004+01:00

Roberto Cavalli shop window, Florence, Italy, 27 March 2009.

photo of the day: Malaysian writers society

2009-03-26T08:58:00.003+01:00

Members of Malaysian writers society at home of noted poet Baha Zain (center image, extreme right), Kuala Lumpur suburb, December 10, 2008

photo of the day: Prambanan, Indonesia

2009-03-25T08:31:00.003+01:00

Photo of the day: Prambanan temple complex, Java, Indonesia, December 14, 2008

photo of the day: Bologna, Italy

2009-03-24T22:43:00.001+01:00

Me before the statue of Neptune, Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, Italy, March 24, 2009

Lakambini Sitoy: profile

2009-03-07T14:17:00.000+01:00

Lakambini A. Sitoy is a Filipino writer.

She is also known as Bing Sitoy.

Sitoy has published two collections of short stories in Manila. Mens Rea and Other Stories was published by Anvil in 1999 and received a Manila Critics Circle National Book Award that same year. Jungle Planet was published by the University of the Philippines Press in 2006 and was shortlisted for the MCC National Book Award for that year.

Sitoy is among 21 authors on the Man Asian Literary Prize's long list for 2008. The novel, Sweet Haven, is her first.

She received the David T.K. Wong fellowship from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom in 2003.

Her short stories have appeared in magazines such as Philippines Free Press, Philippine Graphic and Story Philippines. They have appeared in various anthologies in the Philippines, such as Likhaan Anthology of Poetry and Fiction (published by the University of the Philippines Press) and The Best Philippine Stories, a 2000 anthology published by Tahanan Books and edited by Isagani Cruz.

Other stories have appeared in Manoa, the literary journal of the University of Hawaii; Wake, an anthology of stories, essays and poems about Southeast Asia published in Britain to benefit victims of the 2004 tsunami; and Ansigter, an anthology of Southeast Asian short stories published by Forlaget Hjulet in Copenhagen in 2008.

Sitoy has received writing fellowships from the National Writers' Workshop in Dumaguete (1989) and the University of the Philippines National Writers Workshop (1990). She has also received nine prizes in the annual Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards and a Philippines Free Press Award (1994).

As a journalist, Sitoy also served as a lifestyle and cultural section editor and columnist for the Manila Times.

She was an MA guest student at Roskilde University in Denmark in 2006.

AWARDS/ RECOGNITION RECEIVED and PUBLICATIONS

1. Longlisted for Man Asian Literary Prize, 2008 for novel "Sweethaven"

2. David TK Wong Fellow for Fiction, 2003, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom

3. MCC National Book Award for Fiction, 1999 from The Manila Critics Circle for fiction collection "Mens Rea and Other Stories" published in 1998 held at The Philippine Book Fair Mandaluyong, Metro Manila September 12, 1999

4. Finalist in Fiction category, MCC National Book Awards, 2006 For fiction collection "Jungle Planet and Other Stories," published by University of the Philippines Press in 2005

5. NCCA Young Artists' Competitive Grant For Completion of 12 Short Stories with a One-Year Period Awarded by National Commission for Culture and the Arts 633 General Luna Street, Intramuros, Manila, Philippines

6. Chosen as Member, 3-person Board of Judges, Story for Children Category, Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature 2002 Carlos Palanca Foundation, CPJ Building, 105 C. Palanca Jr. St. Legaspi Village, Makati City 1229, Philippines Tel. no. 818-36-81 to 85 locals 31 and 24 Fax no. 817-40-45

7-14. Nine-Time Awardee, Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature Carlos Palanca Foundation, CPJ Building, 105 C. Palanca Jr. St. Legaspi Village, Makati City 1229, Philippines Tel. no. 818-36-81 to 85 locals 31 and 24 Fax no. 817-40-45

First Place, Story for Children Category, English Division, "The Elusive Banana Dog", 2007
First Place, Essay Category, English Division, "From the Outlands with Love," 2005
First Place, Short Story Category, English Division, for "Touch," 1998
First Place, Story for Children Category, English Division, for "Pure Magic," 1996
Second Place, Fiction Category, English Division, for "Shut up and live", 2005
Second Place, Future Fiction Category, English Division, for "Secret Notes on the Dead Star", 2000
Third Place, Short Story Category, English Division, for "Lyra," 2001
Third Place, Story for Children Category, English Division, for "The Night Monkeys," 2000
Third Place, Short Story Category, English Division, for "I See My Shadow on the Pavement", 1995
15. Second Place Winner – Philippine Graphic Literary Awards, 2005, for short story "The Sisterhood." Awarded by Philippine Graphic (Newsweekly), Dominga Building, 2113 Pasong Tamo Street cor. dela Rosa Street Makati, Metro Manila

16. Second Place Winner – Philippine Graphic Literary Awards, 2001, for short story "Jungle Planet."

17. Honorable Mention – Philippines Free Press Literary Awards, 1994 for short story "Mens Rea" Awarded by Philippines Free Press, 55 Paseo de Roxas, Urdaneta Village, Makati City 1225

II. PUBLICATIONS (as of mid-2008)

BOOKS

Jungle Planet (a collection of 17 short stories) © 2005 University of the Philippines Press Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines email: uppress@up.org

Mens Rea and other stories (a collection of nine short stories), © 1998 Anvil Publishing, Inc. 2/F Team Pacific Bldg. 13 Jose Cruz St., Barrio Ugong Pasig City, Philippines (632) 6719235 email: pubdept@anvil.com.ph

NEWSPAPER WORK

Over 200 lifestyle, feature and travel articles,reviews, newspaper columns and uncredited Opinion-page editorials, in Sitoy’s capacity as Lifestyle Editor of Manila Standard, Isyu and The Evening Paper, published over the period from May 1996 to December 1999 and Opinion page editor of The Manila Standard (1998-1999) and The Manila Times (2000-2001)

ANTHOLOGIZED STORIES AND ESSAYS, PUBLISHED BY FOREIGN AND PHILIPPINE PUBLICATIONS (partial)

A. International Publishers

“Armani” (translated) in Danish anthology of Southeast Asian short fiction, scheduled for publication by Forlaget Hjulet, Inc., Copenhagen, 2007, Denmark, Vagn Plenge, editor

“Renata” and “Jungle Planet” in Manoa (winter 2004 edition titled “Jungle Planet” after Sitoy’s story) , University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.

“Jungle Planet” and “Touch” in Wake (a collection of short stories, profit of which benefitted the victims of the 2004 tsunami. Edited by Nathan Hamilton and Zoe Green. Other authors include Arthur C. Clarke, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Rose Tremain and Patricia Duncker), Ó 2005, Egg Box Publishing, London, U.K.

“Touch” in Coming Home to a Landscape: Writings by Filipinas, edited by Marianne Villanueva. Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, Ó 2003. New York, U.S.A.

“Armani” in Tulikarpanen (“Firefly”), an anthology of Filipino women’s writings translated into Finnish , Riitta Vartti, editor and translator Kaantopiiri, Helsinki, Finland Ó 2001

“A Dream of Women” in Manoa (Century of Dreams: New Writing from America, the Pacific and Asia) University of Hawaii Press Ó 1997, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.

B. Philippine Publishers

“Sisters” in anthology project of PEN, Philippines, scheduled for release in 2007, Vicente Groyon, editor

“The Night Monkeys” in The Night Monkeys, anthology of Palanca award-winning short stories for children, published by Tahanan Books, Makati, Manila, 2008

“Zenaida Amador” in Ten Outstanding Filipino Biographies for high school readers, published by Insular Life, Inc., Makati, Manila, 2007

“Shut up and Live” in Latitude: Writing from the Philippines and Scotland, edited by Angelo Lacuesta and Toni Davidson, Anvil Publishing, Inc., Manila, 2006.

“Sr. Mary John Mananzan,” in Heroes, a coffee table book to celebrate the 25th anniversary of EDSA, published by Alay sa Bansa Community and Ninoy and Cory Aquino Center for Leadership, edited by Alfred Yuson, Manila, 2006.

“When You Wish Upon a Jollibee,” essay in A 25-Year Love Story with the Pinoy (coffee table book to celebrate Jollibee’s 25th anniversary), edited by Alfred Yuson, 2004.

“Moon Silver” in Fast Food Fiction: Short Stories to Go, Anvil Publishing, Ó 2003 edited by Noelle de Jesus

“The Vampire” in The Likhaan Book of Poetry and Fiction 2002, Carla Pacis, editor University of the Philippines Press Ó 2003

“Secret Notes on the Dead Star” in Future Shock: An anthology of young writers and new literatures, Ian Rosales Casocot, editor Silliman University, Dumaguete City Ó 2002

“Touch” in Best Philippine Short Stories of the 20th Century, Isagani Cruz, editor Tahanan Books, Makati City Metro Manila Ó 2000

“The Atheneum” in Dream Noises: A Generation Writes, Anvil Publishing, Manila Ó 1999

“Pure Magic” in The Golden Loom: Palanca Prize-winners for Children, Tahanan Books for Young Readers, Makati City, Metro Manila Ó 1997

“I See My Shadow on the Pavement” in The Likhaan Book of Poetry and Fiction 1995 University of the Philippines Press, Diliman, Quezon City Ó 1995

SHORT STORIES and ARTICLES IN LIFE-STYLE GLOSSIES

Over 25 short stories and non-fiction articles published in Philippine magazines such as Cosmopolitan-Philippines, Preview, Free Press, Graphic.

Vild med Ord in Aarhus

2009-03-07T14:15:00.003+01:00

I will be speaking at the Vild Med Ord (Wild With Words) festival in Aarhus, Sunday, March 15, 12 nn. http://www.vildmedord.dk/?page_id=772

Cities I've visited

2009-03-01T09:23:00.000+01:00

Create your own travel map or travel blog

Travel Info at TripAdvisor

darn

2009-02-19T09:40:00.000+01:00

Darn, it's been a while since I updated this thing.

In Singapore, KL

2008-12-07T15:56:00.003+01:00

I never got a chance to publish my comments and pictures on Wilhelmsfeld, Germany, and now, another "backlog". Of course no one is obliged to blog about their travels, but still ... We were in Singapore two nights. Ought to have been three, but my husband was stranded in Bangkok as a consequence of the airport being held for over a week by the "yellow shirt" protesters. Highlight of the visit was a tour, conducted by Elizabeth Lee, of a well-appointed public library located in a shopping mall on Choa Chu Kang! First library I ever saw in a shopping area was in Helsinki in 2001; I didn't realize until last Saturday that Singapore and other countries have had this feature for some time.

Visiting a foreign place, new or old, I'd prefer to stay away from the obvious tourist traps and try to see life as the locals do. Eat the same food, use the same public transpo. It's always a treat to be invited to a private home...

We stayed at one of the Hotel 81s, this on Joo Chiat Road, which I suspect is as red and as lighted a red light district as Singapore can ever have. More experienced travellers, correct me please. THe beautiful young bar girls spoke Thai and looked almost preppy...

Today, a five hour Aeroline bus ride to Kuala Lumpur, where the steward invited us to use the first level lounge. He was wearing blue contact lenses! Interesting. The bus stopped less than a kilometer from the Petronas Towers, and I looked up in disbelief as we drove past in the taxi. My husband promise we would go there tomorrow, but warned me that we could climb only as high as the bridge that connects them. The twin towers of the World Trade Center had looked much taller when I saw them, but then of course I had been just nine years of age at the time.

Our hotel is on Jalan Petaling, in Chinatown. The street is closed to traffic, sort of like Escolta once had been, I suppose, and part of it is roofed over and is a night market now. It is lined with stalls, all selling fake designer goods. Paradise. Not for me, but for various friends in Denmark who have asked for knockoffs of YSL and D and G. No export overruns in this section, but on our way from the bus terminal, we passed a huge establishment called The Reject Store -- "Never pay full price," or something like that. If I could only find my way back to that ...

We had dinner at a shopping mall close to Jalan Petaling that looked almost like Farmers' in Cubao. The poster boy of Europe seems to be David Beckham: he's everywhere. Tagalog seemed to be spoken in corners here and there, and there was an LBC and another Filipino establishment on the top floor. Next to our hotel is a place offering various massages and a trendy new service that I first heard of from David TK Wong fellow Mulaika Hijjas: the fish pedicure. One's feet are immersed in a tank, and then nibbled at by a certain finny species that has a predilection for dead skin cells and similar goodies.

On Tuesday, we will be hosted by the writer Baha Zain (current president of the Writers' Association of Malaysia)... looking forward to that. And in Penang, by the writer Muhammad Haji Salleh.

In Dumaguete

2008-11-28T03:49:00.002+01:00

My favorite workspace at the moment is a table in the coffee shop of a hotel just a couple of minutes walk from the Silliman high school. I can sit for hours, nursing a cup of brewed coffee, occasionally dipping into the fries that they serve with their hamburgers. The staff know me from when I used to check in here for the privacy and airconditioning, whenever I had a big project to finish. My husband and I stayed here for a couple of weeks when he came to visit my family last year.

There are paintings by local artists: intricate watercolors of marine life, and genre scenes in oil, which give the hotel an elegant touch you don’t usually find in the Philippines, where similarly-priced establishments display the sort of cheapo Manansala rip offs and diligently-photorealistic images of coconuts and santan that I equate with the Mabini area of Manila. I watch the foreigners, and try to identify the nationality of the Europeans by their speech. It seems to be favored by Europeans rather than East Asians, perhaps it is promoted more heavily in Germany and Scandinavia as the owner (or part-owner? Manager?) is said to be Swedish.

The best part is that my workspace is just a hundred meters from the house where I was born (not literally: I was born at the mission hospital, like countless other Silliman kids). But it was the house where I grew up, and the view from the hotel’s windows, of the acacia canopy and Silliman’s fading residences, is the same view I had as a little kid heading home in my red checked uniform skirt, in the footsteps of my older sister. The patch of cogon where Ace and Tisoy, the Montebon’s dog, followed each other round and round over a path their paws had trodden out – that’s been gone, ripped out, and where we had a stand of umbrella palms, there’s a bright green VW beetle. I don’t go down to the house, which looks dingy now and utterly devoid of magic. I prefer to keep my memories as they were.

I suppose this project I’ve been working on for some time, as well as the next one, have been complicated ways of dealing with my sister’s death. Of preserving her in some way, in a more dignified state, a state from decades ago when she would have been free to undo the choices that ultimately led to her destruction. I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t protect her from the harm that resided close, so close.

Words of remembrance by Lakambini A. Sitoy

2008-11-18T01:38:00.005+01:00

Spoken at the memorial service for Leilani A. Sitoy Nodado, November 29, 2007 at Silliman Church, Dumaguete City, 3 pm

April 19, 1966 - November 18, 2007
Dead at 41 of breast cancer, diagnosed in September, 2004 at Stage IIIB

I never knew life without my sister.

She was a constant presence as I discovered the world, ventured out into the garden of the small university faculty house near what is now Coco Grande Hotel where we lived, made friends with the pet cat and forayed into the homes of our neighbors. She was the initiator and mischief maker, and I was the clown.

When we were about 4 and 7 we began to make up stories, extending the worlds of our books and the few movies we then had seen, until we were the owners and creators of a complex and secret realm that we nurtured from those years until we were about 15 and 18 when her focus shifted to activities in school and with her friends.

She shaped the person who I am right now. My perceptions and expectations of life were channeled through her perceptions and expectations. We were like two trees emerging from a single substrate, molded and shaped by each other’s growth, never alike but always understanding one another.

She was the foremost influence in my life as a teen-age apprentice writer. She was influenced by ideas of feminine beauty and behavior, and lent another angle to my view of men. I was the feminine but coolly critical sister; she was the wild but hopelessly romantic one, who longed for a tough, streetwise lover The song “Old and Wise,” by the Alan Parson Project, is a song she requested, at age 17, to be played at her funeral. It is addressed, I think, to each one of us who were her friends, but also to that special someone, that soulmate that every woman, I think, longs for and which she hoped it would be her fortune to meet some day.

But from early adolescence, she only longed for a peaceful, stable, conventional and happy family life – the loving husband, the beautiful kids, the nice suburbia house, and the dog.

One of the most striking traits of my sister was her capacity to keep each component of her life – each barkada, you might say – hermetically sealed from the others, so that those who made her acquaintance knew only a component of the greater picture. I’m sure there are many of us here who are pleasantly surprised by the diversity contained within her single life. I’m glad so many of those who knew her and loved her are gathered here – each contributing to our picture of her.

One thing is consistent in that picture though – she was a selfless giver, a sharer, and a sacrificer, never seeking the limelight, who thought of the comfort and enjoyment and feelings of others before her own.

In a manner so typical of Lani’s doing things, she made provisions for her family. Her investments with AXALife and her insurance with Sun Life, and her two Metrobank Kiddie Saver accounts were for her children. For her husband, she bought a motorcycle and a car which she had registered in his name. She planned activities, outings and vacations in resorts in Laguna and Bulacan for her family. The specific question she usually asked the children after each outing or activity was: “Are you happy?” Because to her, the most important thing is to make them happy.

To make appropriate plans for her family, Lani did several specific things for them, as follows:

First, early in her service with her former place of work, the Solidbank Corporation, and this even before she had children, even before she got married, Lani took advantage of a Solidbank program to provide housing for its employees. Lani bought from the bank a house and lot at the bank’s housing project in Santa Rosa, Laguna.

Second, many years later, in fact, during this present year when it became clear that the family would not be staying in Santa Rosa, Lani decided to sell the house and lot, half of which she deposited with AXALife for a time deposit for Bea and Fia’s future schooling, the other half being spent for a car which will facilitate her going on a wheelchair first to work and then to the hospital, and for her immediate medications. Lani also started two other deposits to be “held in trust” for Bea and Fia, also for future needs. (NB: This money was subsequently claimed by her husband some weeks after the funeral.)

Third, in the last days of her illness, Lani specifically entrusted to her father and mother Bea and Fia, with a specific request that they live in the Sitoy family home in Banilad, and that they study in Dumaguete, so that they could experience the very same experiences of growing up and schooling, and acquire the same life-giving values, as she and her sister Bing had had. “Mama,” said Lani, “please take care of Bea and Fia.” Specifically, she wanted her children to study and grow up in Silliman University.

Fourth, to insure that Bea and Fia would know of this her decision, Lani asked that Bing video tape her declaration of this request, so that Bea and Fia, and all others, may be able to hear from her own lips and see her as she did it – this wish for her dearest children.

Lani has gone on, back to our Creator, but her legacy will live in our memories and in our hearts.

NB: "Old and Wise" by The Alan Parsons Project was played as per Lani's request to me way back in 198 -- "play it at my funeral." Our cousin She-She Sitoy provided vocals. Elmer Caguindangan on the Hammond organ.

Words from our father T. Valentino Sitoy Jr.'s eulogy:

Years ago, Lani had occasion to express her views of loving and caring when she said: “If you love someone honestly, truly, and sincerely, and your love is not reciprocated in return, it is not you the true lover who loses, but the one who will never know how it is to be loved honestly, truly, and sincerely by you.”

All her life, Lani loved honestly, truly and sincerely.

E-mailed Tributes to Lani 1966-2007

2008-11-18T01:33:00.001+01:00

She is a very sweet lady. Always smiling. I asked her why she didn’t attend (our thanksgiving party for Pink Kitchen). She told me she was in a wheelchair and didn’t want to bother anyone. She told me she was always reading our e-mail exchanges but has not been updating us on the e-group coz she does not want to depress all of us with her condition. We will all miss her. - Leilani Eusebio (ICanServe), Nov. 18

We lost a breast sister (kasuso) yesterday. Lani was courage personified. I honor her memory, which continues to nurture me and sustain me in this struggle of hope against despair. God Bless her. - Carla Sison (ICanServe), Nov. 19

This is a sad day for me, for all of us…but then, I know now her pains are gone, no more tears, and she’s happily reunited with our Creator. - Jean in Saudi Arabia (ICanServe), Nov. 18

To us her sisters in ICanServe, she will always have a place in our hearts and will always be remembered. Lani is a tough lady and surely, her kids too will grow up to be like her and with her love in their hearts. - Mariefe Pojas (ICanServe), Nov. 19

When I joined ICanServe…Lani was one of the first sisters I felt very comfortable with. She was so pleasant always. I saw her at Pink Kitchen in a wheelchair. I was seated beside Bangge in our soda booth and jointly our hearts sank at seeing her as such…yet she waved cheerfully at me while she was also trying to help the other sisters in the ICanServe booth. Like all of you, I will mss Lani. - Pamsy Tioseco (ICanServe), Nov. 19

(Sharing Lani’s picture) is a great way to remember her vibrant life. - Ruella Esmele (classmate), Nov. 21

Lani is indeed a great loss, yet her demonstration of strength, her cheerful outlook, her “coolness”, will always be remembered. - Lincoln Tagle (Classmate), Nov. 18

Lani was indeed a very strong person…She had so much to live for as she fought the Big C. tooth and nail…Her husband, her daughters, her parents, her sister Bing were the reasons she had the will to live, which added years to her life. - Emy Miraflor (Classmate), Nov. 19

I remember Lani as a very consistent scholar, topping our academic requirements without sacrificing her social life. She was always sent to co-curricular and extra curricular competitions, bringing home pride and honor to our school. She was a prolific writer too…She was also an officer of our CAT unit (Company Commander, Bravo Company). She was firm but very fair in dealing with us. She was very fun to be with…One always gets surprised to hear Leilani talk the talk and walk the walk with our street-smart batch mates. - Leilani Abejuela Sitoy-Nodado was a symbol of human courage – an outstanding person who passed away when only too young.. who had been a testimony of a life that was truly inspiring – with her painstaking efforts as a mother who was a good provider, while silently touching friends with her loyalty and varied potentials that always worked toward definite success, yet still maintaining a deep sense of humility.
Sidney Lee (Classmate), Nov. 21

(In conversation with Lani’s parents). Lani is the only lady in a wheelchair I know who comes into the hall smiling and waving to us, and shaming us for the self-pity which we sometimes feel for ourselves. - Bibeth Orteyza (ICanServe), Nov. 20

Lani was very articulate, efficient and thorough. Her analysis and reports at the HR made our legal work easy for us. –Legal Officer (PSBank), November 21

Leilani A. Sitoy Nodado, in memoriam

2008-11-18T01:30:00.001+01:00

April 19, 1966 – November 18, 2007

Leilani, whose specially chosen name means ”heavenly garland” in Polynesian, was born in Dumaguete City on April 19, 1966. As a toddler, she was called Len-len, while the name she chose for herself was Lani. Later she was affectionately known to her friends by other names, but her father and mother have a special name only for her, which is “Langgà,” from “Palanggà” (or “dearly loved one”).

A child with a happy and sunny disposition, the house constantly rang with her pattering feet and laughter. Her first intelligible utterance, at eleven months, was not one word but a complete sentence: “Ants in the ‘mok’ (milk) bottle.” Curious by nature and constantly seeking to know, she marveled at the natural things around her and asked such intriguing questions as, “Why was I born? Where did I live before?” When her younger sister Bing came, three-year-old Lani’s spontaneous response was to be most protective, most caring, and most loving. The ideas and principles that shaped her life were those that she learned from her father and mother, from the family’s purposefully simple Christian lifestyle, and from family conversations especially during meal time, in reaction to affairs of daily life -- regarding what is loving and caring, what is right and what is wrong, what is duty and responsibility, what is freedom and tolerance, or what matters most in this world. Given freedom to grow, Lani early ventured into all sorts of activities to develop her talents – story-writing, singing, swimming, dancing, drawing, painting, piano- and organ- playing, dramatics and play production, creative handiwork, etc., which would serve her well in school and in her professional career. By the time she was in high school, Lani had become an accomplished pianist, her favorite pieces being Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune and Christian Sinding’s Rustles of Spring.

Lani, with younger sister Bing constantly tagging along, was a typical Silliman “campus kid”. She studied at the SU Church Nursery School, the SU Kindergarten, the SU Elementary School, the SU High School, the SU College of Arts and Sciences, and the SU Graduate School. In 1978-79 when her family was in the U.S.A. in connection with her father’s sabbatical leave, Lani studied at the Ventnor Middle School in Ventnor, New Jersey. In 1986-92, Lani studied for an M.A. in Psychology at the Ateneo de Manila University, interspersing this with graduate studies in clinical psychology at the College of William and Mary, the “school of early U.S. Presidents,” in Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S.A. in 1987.

Lani was a consistent honor scholar from elementary school to college, receiving Class Honors in 1983, College Honors in 1984 and 1985, and finally University Honors (with scholarship key!) in 1986. A born leader and enabler, she happily entered into a myriad of co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, receiving the Sophomore Student of the Year Award in 1984, the Talent Award in 1985, and finally the Most Outstand-ing Silliman Student of the Year Award in 1986. But the thing she loved to do most, whether in high school, college, or professional life, was being the brains, the planner, the organizer, and the director of events and activities, while quietly staying in the background and letting others take center stage.

Lani was also a happy, friendly, and gregarious coed who, as one friend aptly put it, could “also walk the walk and talk the talk.” During her junior and senior years in college, she was Governor of the College of Arts and Sciences and producer and director of the 1985 Miss Silliman Pageant. Along with her University Honors and Most Outstanding Student of the Year awards, she graduated in March 1986 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology degree, magna cum laude.

In November 1986 she left for Manila to study for an M.A. in Psychology at the Ateneo de Manila University, and worked as a psychometrician at the Central Guidance Bureau at the same university. In 1993 she transferred to Solidbank Corporation, particularly at their Human Resources Development division at their head offices in Makati City. After Solidbank was bought by Metrobank, Inc., Lani was employed in the corresponding division in the Makati head office of Philippine Savings (PS) Bank, subsidiary of Metrobank, Inc. The last rank in PS Bank she held was Senior Assistant Manager, her position being Department Head, Career Management Department, Human Resources Group.

Heidelberg and Frankfurt

2008-10-13T21:12:00.003+02:00

Flying to Frankfurt/Main tomorrow, ostensibly for the book fair, though I probably will get a chance to visit it only on Saturday. The book fair, I'm told, will be immense, an impressive gathering of publishers, agents and writers from all over Europe. Besides the fair, I'm excited to be seeing more of Frankfurt/Main beyond the airport -- the point of entry when one flies to Europe via Lufthansa.

Another anticipated journey -- the one-hour train ride to Heidelberg, which Vagn's colleague Arthur Krasinilkoff describes as a very beautiful place, with a world famous medical college, now home to a research center for tropical diseases. It's the place where Jose Rizal, Philippine national hero, received further training as an eye surgeon. Sixteen kilometers north, through what seems to be a forest and nature park, is the town of Wilhelmfeld, where Rizal lived for a few months in the winter of 1886: it has a statue of him, in a park that bears his name. Seeing these places will be a dream come true.

Hi, I'm Filter Skate

2008-10-08T21:12:00.006+02:00

Hi, I'm Filter Skate Palin, and this is my hubby Geese Whalebone.

Poli Tsk tsk tsk features the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator, created by David Harrington: "What your name would be if Sarah Palin was your mother," at http://politsk.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah_13.html

My personal favorite is Blaster Commando Palin, aka Bubbo, the Sitoy family weiner dog.

married

2008-10-04T10:05:00.002+02:00

Vagn and I married on September 13.

Vagn Plenge, of Copenhagen, Denmark, is the proprietor of Forlaget Hjulet, a small publishing house with a specialization in the literature from Asia, Africa and Latin America.

We met in September 2003, when, on the recommendation of his friend National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose, he invited me to speak at the Images of Asia festival held in various cities throughout Denmark.

great photo

2008-09-22T14:14:00.002+02:00

You won't find many photos of me on the internet, but here's one, with NY-based indie film maker Mike Sandoval, taken by Carlo Gabuco in Zambales, early 2007. Carlo uploaded it on Flickr some time ago, I suppose. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/bingsitoy/

Great b & w image. Check out more of Carlo's photography and paintings on the same site.

currently reading...

2008-09-22T14:13:00.001+02:00

Currently reading The Book of Other People, edited by Zadie Smith. Wow, hanep.

my brush with royalty

2008-09-07T12:56:00.005+02:00

The International Board of Books on Young People opens its 2008 Congress in a program at Glassalen, Tivoli, Copenhagen, at 7 pm this evening. Winners of the Hans Christian Andersen award will be announced. Guest of honor will be the Queen of Denmark herself, Margrethe II.

This morning Vagn, who is proprietor of the publishing house Forlaget Hjulet and chief organizer of the conference, gave me a task: to wrap up a present for the Queen. I went into a tizzy, then in the next moment calmed down. Me ... favorite aunt who has earned a reputation in our family for The Best Presented Christmas Gifts, floored by such an honor? No way!

I went directly to our gift wrapper hamper (yes, we keep one) and found an unopened role of white wrapping paper decorated with lovely silver, gold and pastel star shapes, from Netto by the way, that I had been saving, for some unknown occasion, since 2006. It stood elegantly among the loose roles of Santa Claus and Happy Birthday wrappings. There was a sad roll of thin red plastic ribbon, the kind that the Danes like to curl up into corkscrews with the edge of a scissor-blade. No way. That wouldn't do.

But in my room was a beautiful roll of sinamay, fuchsia with gold lights, that I had bought in Dumaguete and brought all the way here for some un-dreamed of special occasion. Oh, it looked wonderful binding the gift and gathered in a huge knot. It was a present for the girl in every woman. The Queen must have a playful streak in her because she designs lovely stage sets and ballet costumes. Would she notice? Would she remark on the sinamay ribbon? Has she even entered a Netto?

So there was my brush with royalty -- these hands put together this little confection for Dronning Margrethe II: Some pretty holiday paper and a lovely length of sinamay, carried all the way from Handumanan shop in Dumaguete City, Philippines, to Tivoli, Copenhagen, Denmark. And the gift itself? I won't spoil the secret, in case her very pleasant lady in waiting, who telephoned the house this morning, if not the Queen herself, happens to surf into this little blog. ;-)

rowan berries

2008-09-04T14:49:00.004+02:00

Ole came with his power saw and lopped off the tops and sides of the hedges, creating the smooth walls of green so beloved in Danish suburbs. He chopped off the ends of some rowan branches too, so when I got home last week I had quite a few to choose from lying in the mud, though I had to fight my way to the center of the hedge (thorn scratches and a face to face encounter with a four-foot high nettle) to find the best. They're drying berry side down ind skøret. Dean and Nikki can have some, for Rowan, if I find a way to dry them successfully and retain their color. I fear molds. It's cold and damp here. My gardening, and hence the main reason for reviving this blog, is over.

correction!

2008-09-04T14:26:00.005+02:00

Contrary to what's been claimed in one blog, I am not "based" in Copenhagen. I studied at Roskilde University for one academic year (2006) and have visited Denmark often, having made several solid friendships and work-related contacts beginning September 2003. "Based" implies a fairly long residency, permanent in many cases, and/or a long-term job contract, neither of which apply in my case. Just ask the Danish immigration! I am currently visiting Copenhagen for several months.

nasturtiums

2008-09-04T14:12:00.004+02:00

I do think nasturtiums taste quite nasty, but I've found a way to make some use of them. (They self-seed in this garden every year, especially with the warm winters of late.)

I take the leaves, remove stems, chop them up and mix them with some chopped chives (needless to say, from the garden). I sprinkle on some salt, lime-flavored pepper flakes and add a dollop of creme freche. It's a combination of my own invention; I'm always finding some way to make up new stuff.

The taste of the leaves reminds me of the taste of unripe papayas. There's also a kind of slimy undertaste, which the combination of extra flavors and the creme freche serve to mask.

I've eaten ground elder, (svalderkaal) too. I gathered the small, new, yellow-green leaves. It would be best, I think, to remove all trace of stem. At first I simply steamed them for two minutes inside the rice cooker (above the freshly cooked rice, which stained the surface green), but since they remained quite stringy and tough (despite their tender appearance), I lighted on the barbaric act of putting them in the microwave for a few seconds, along with the butter-impostor I had tossed them with. They were easier to chew. I recommend boiling them for a short while, though.

What do they taste like? I've read numerous inquiries of this nature on the web. Lots of people recommend ways to cook this invasive weed, but nobody can describe the flavor. Well, it tastes ... good. Its merit, I think, is in the chewy texture, as most vegetables tend to be mushy even when steamed. If you grew up in Southeast Asia, you would understand this comparison: it feels and tastes like steamed camote tops. It has a flavor that is a stronger version than the scent of it as you pull it with your hands.

I can't keep digging up the ground elder; I have too much work, especially now that my stay in Denmark's coming to an end, so I just look out for new growth and eat it as it emerges.

latest news

2008-09-04T14:08:00.001+02:00

A story of mine, ‘The Remedy,’ will appear in Cupido’s September-October 2008 issue, in Danish and Norwegian translation, under the pen name Aresgada. I have previously published two other stories for this publication, ‘Winter’ (2007) and ‘Always Connected’ (2006) under the same pen name. ‘The Remedy’ won first place in the magazine’s annual story competition, editor Terje Gammelsrud said in an email.

Free press awards

2008-09-01T10:28:00.006+02:00

I learned last Friday that I had placed third in the essay category in the annual Philippines Free Press Literary Awards. A thousand thanks to the magazine, which has been ever-supportive Filipino writers, young and in mid-career. And special thanks to its ace literary editor Angelo "Sarge" Lacuesta, a very fine writer himself, for believing in my work.

The judges in the essay and short fiction categories were Katrina Tuvera, Vince Groyon and Dean Alfar. Here is the citation for my essay, which was penned by Alfar:

"Observations on the human condition are par for course for the best written essays, but the third prize winner for this year goes beyond banal statements of truth. Instead, we are taken on a road trip across Europe, from Denmark to Spain, where the crosses that commemorate road fatalities resonate with what makes us Filipino, and where the heart's internal geography is not a matter of location. At the end of the narrative, in a reversal of epiphany, the author shares something she already knew, even before the journey began - and that observation, that terrible truth, slowly and painfully revealed, strikes deep and hard.

The winner of the 3rd Prize for Essay is "The Absence of Sound Is Not A
Vacuum" by Lakambini Sitoy."

The ceremony was held during the celebration of the 100th Year Anniversary of the magazine, on August 27 at the Captain's Bar, Mandarin Hotel Manila.

First place winner in the essay category was Wilfredo Pascual, and in second place was Larry Ypil.

dandelions

2008-08-18T20:27:00.002+02:00

I've been digging out dandelions for two days. Backbreaking. I use a huge fork and a little hand spear with a two-pronged end. I throw the tines into the turf, force them down with one foot then lift. A little hillock gets produced. Something, inevitably, snaps. I pull the dandelion out by its foliage. If I'm lucky the entire thing comes out, all the way down to the pointy end of the root, leaking milk from all the disturbed root hairs. Most of the time, however, that snap means the damned taproot broke, leaving a length in the ground that will regenerate next spring. That's when I start poking around with the hand spear, usually without effect. Sometimes I get lucky and pull up a plant that started from seed this spring, meaning it's got lots of strong leaves and a small white root that comes out without issue.

The lawn is bald in spots from my efforts. I aim to uproot 100 dandelions a day but have quit around the 40 or 45 mark. It's like spending a couple of hours on strength training, and since I'm so bloody short I expend so much more energy on each freaking plant than the smiling effortless Danes.

baby petunias and the ivy invasion

2008-08-15T16:37:00.004+02:00

I plucked out three perfectly healthy petunia seedlings the other week because I didn't know what they were! I'd never grown petunias from scratch and they seemed to bear no resemblance to the varieties I had bought two years ago from Netto. Those were surfinias for the most part. These had fuzzy leaves and had a sort of cactusy look.

There are other seedlings in different locations around the garden, growing in pots that I knew I sprinkled with the very fine seed some six weeks ago. I gave them a chance, just in case, and didn't weed (well, I was too busy to weed anyway) and now they have sprouted buds and branched out in that characteristic petunia manner. So now I know I got lucky. Still, what amazes me about these plants is that seedlings growing under different light conditions and in different degrees of wetness actually look like they came from different species.

Maybe they do come from different varieties, at least. The pack, which I bought in Nijosa (guess where that is, hehe) early this year, contains a mixture of different color flowers. I wonder if the diversity is restricted to that.

I found a blog post from a woman in Michigan who brought her petunias in for the winter and kept them on a window sill. I don't think my puny little seedlings will grow big enough to make a worthwhile show this summer, and I'm debating whether to bring them in or let them die with the first frost.

At least I now know what the seedlings look like.

In between revising and editing, I cleaned out ivy that had overtaken one wall. Incredible how vigorously they can grow. They make terrific ground cover, too: I'm still digging out some stems that broke off and refuse to come out of the ground. I wonder how well they might compete with skvalderkål. Something tells me I do NOT want ivy between the stones of my raised garden terraces.

I dag

2008-08-14T00:37:00.000+02:00

I dag læste jeg i Kongens Frille af Philippa Gregory, på engelsk selvfølgelig.

accidental angler

2008-08-13T18:25:00.002+02:00

Finished The Accidental Angler by Charles Rangeley-Wilson. Great fun. Wish I could write with such nonchalance.

names

2008-08-12T09:49:00.002+02:00

The tree growing on the corner of the property, with pinnate leaves and clusters of red berries in early fall, turns out to be a rowan. The bushes in the hedge that give me hell with the shears are young hawthorns. I have nettles and burdocks galore, which I dig out with various forks and spears.

My present reality is someone else's spec fic.

gladioli

2008-08-09T20:11:00.002+02:00

I was mad about gladioli for a couple of months in 2006 and couldn't wait for the spikes to bloom. I did get gorgeous flowers off one variety that was pictured a deep red on the pack, only their colors seemed faded when the blooms finally came, sort of melon red. Overall they proved to be a disappointment: high winds broke the foliage and the flower heads, unstaked (we were in South Africa then) tended to break and rot in the wet earth.

Still, we gather the corms at first frost and plant them back out in spring. This year I was surprised to find little gladioli shooting out of the earth where a lone corm had been planted the other spring. It was the cormels, forgotten in the ground. They had survived the winter, a testament to warming temperatures in this part of the world. Weeding, I put them back. What a waste otherwise.

red

2008-08-09T19:58:00.003+02:00

Shortly after I set the overwintered pelargoniums into the ground late in June, I trimmed them. I took a two-year old equal-parts mix of sphagnum (here they call it spagnum and pronounce the g as a w) and sand, and filled an old strawberry punnet with it. Then I stuck the cuttings in. They were about four inches long and had all but the top leaves removed. I was trying to do everything by the book, that is, as per instructions I had found on various university horticulture websites.

In about a couple of weeks I checked them. Roots had formed on two, which I potted up in a couple of plastic buckets I had drilled drainholes in myself. I placed them where they'd get lots of morning sun.

I checked the transplanted cuttings every day, which is apparently why I couldn't perceive much progress. (I was also revising a manuscript so I suppose the inspection had been fond but cursory). Then, after a week of rain, I looked and noted that the leaves and branchlets had considerably increased on one. As for the other, the flower buds I had noticed earlier had turned a definite shade of red.
It looks like I managed to propagate yet another a sister to my favorite red geranium (pelargonium) plants.

new potatoes

2008-08-08T21:29:00.003+02:00

Was weeding out the nettles and burdock from the potato patch this evening when my fork turned up, you guessed it, a brand new potato,large enough to fit in my palm (quite a bit of heft) and a bit misshapen from all the bits of gravel in the earth. About that patch - I planted the first potatoes in June 2006, and they gave a good yield later that summer, and the following year. Apparently a few tiny tubers always remain, overlooked, in the soil, because some new growth asserted itself last year. And this year as well. When I arrived in June, the little sprouts were only a couple of inches tall. Now, six weeks later, the first tuber.

too late in the year

2008-08-08T12:54:00.004+02:00

I have some dianthus (nelliker?) germinating in pots. They'll bloom next year, assorted colors. It's too late in the year to see the results of the petunias I seeded late in June; I'm surprised they're growing so slowly. It certainly was worth the bother -- I wanted to see if the seeds in the pack from Nijosa (all text was in French) would germinate, or if it had been one of those condemned or dumped products that marvelously make their way to my birth country. Well, something came up, but I don't know what species they are. If I'd only arrived earlier this year, the garden would have been showing great results.

Various websites tell me I should be taking cuttings from the pelargoniums now or next month, but what new growth there is seems so insubstantial. Plenty of flowers, though. Of a color that seemed the trend in 2006, a kind of tropical coral pink. The rage this year seems to be the pallid pink of a variety called Dronning Ingrid. I bought several from Metro, though the same sort was being sold at a gift boutique in Goteborg, a couple of doors down from Ulla's apartment.

lupines

2008-08-07T21:21:00.002+02:00

Cleaned out a meter-square area using the gardening fork. Put in some lupine seedlings that had been stunted in their styrofoam container. There's a weed that drives me insane. It's got heart-shaped leaves and a root system that's always disproportionately large compared to the rest of the plant. Like pulling up ginseng. It's not skvalderkål, either. Fortunately in this sandy-loam soil it's not hard to remove. Wonder what the local name is.

back after two years

2008-08-07T17:45:00.003+02:00

The skvalderkål have taken over, despite all best efforts. First sunny day in a week. Took up spade and prised out a mass from behind the flagpole, that could've been some wild aster-like plant. The stuff in my wheelbarrow looks like something Philip Treacy might design. Windfalls from both trees everywhere, rotting in the turf.

Too early to prune the pelargoniums and root cuttings.

Journey into the interior

2006-07-23T19:12:00.000+02:00

Manila Times column
July 9

We had chosen to stay the night at a 19th century farmhouse situated on a slope outside of Oudtshoorn, close to the Swartberg mountain range. An old animal trap decorated the top of our door and the toilet flushed only after we had given the iron chain a good many sharp tugs. The property nearby was a farm where ostriches were bred for meat and feathers. The Cango caves were a ten minute drive away. Helpful signs pointed the way: the caves are a part of South Africa’s patrimony, and the government has made every effort to make them visitor-friendly.

We bought tickets at the entrance lobby, which contained tourist shops, an exhibit of early photos of the caves, a small theater. In the parking lot, a tour bus idled; as we entered the vestibule of the cave, we came upon the passengers, a flock of German tourists. A tableau representing a Khoi-san family had been set up in a niche – these brown-skinned people, distinct in feature and culture from the black Africans, had inhabited the mouth of the cave several hundred years ago. Flashbulbs popped. Pretty soon, two young black women joined us. The one who spoke German shepherded the tourists away, leaving five or six for the English-speaking guide.

She led us down a flight of stairs into a cavern lit just enough for us to see the structures that water seeping through rock had created over thousands of years. She told us how the first European to set foot in this cave had come through that very entrance, equipped only with a kerosene lamp. He had estimated the cave to be a mile high and five miles deep. The guide turned the cave lights off and in total darkness we contemplated a single red pinprick high up on the wall – the wattage of that very lamp. Then the lights went on, gloriously illuminating the steles and waterfalls of rock, while we took pictures to our heart’s content.

The tour went on, through several more chambers, each strategically lit, sometimes with colored lights, each with its own story, each formation with a unique (albeit cheesy) nickname – the bridal bed, for instance, with seven bedposts; the angel; the devil; the African drum. We noted where souvenir seekers had destroyed the niche once-called Fairyland by breaking off every last stalactite and stalagmite. Once concerts had been held in the large chamber closest to the entrance but this had been stopped in the 60s for the damage it did to the interior. Green matter that snaked down one moist formation was moss caused by an excess of carbon dioxide the visitors had tracked in, as well as the lights: it was an ecological problem the cave’s preservers were battling.

All this we learned from the guide, who spoke in an engaging but extremely slow manner, as one might explain things to those for whom English is a third language, as I supposed many of the tourists would be. I was impressed that there would be a guide to speak German, but given the quality of the infrastructure surrounding this natural wonder, it seemed likely that, given the proper notice, the Cango Caves authorities would have been happy to field Japanese-, Spanish- or French-speaking guides as well. Her carefully paced and rehearsed commentary also served a more practical purpose – it protracted the tour of what was essentially a kilometer worth of oversized limestone carrots, playing to the imaginative child in all of us, and ensuring we knew enough to properly label our pictures when we got home. At the gift shop, we picked up ostrich feather fans and an African music CD.

I was struck by the contrast between the highly-developed Cango Caves and the Palawan underground cavern, which I visited, in 2002, in a banca equipped with a simple yellow floodlight. The boatman served as guide as well. His ability to steer us through the submerged rocks partway into the cave and back again was more crucial to the experience than his communication skills, and in consequence his cheesy commentary hindered, rather than enhanced, our enjoyment of the underground scenery. This scenery, with its swollen, organically shaped structures and intriguing textures, was, to my mind ten times more beautiful than what we had seen in the Cango chambers, had it been lit and presented in a similar way. And Palawan simply has more of it. But I suppose an underground river brings with it a number of engineering challenges, none of which might be funded at the rate of P100 per head, as we were charged. That journey, beneath the limestone crust of Palawan, was infused with a romantic jungle roughness – we were entering an enclave that even the locals were in awe of. Perhaps that is how the Philippine tourism department wishes to keep it.

- 30 -

Old school and "Other-ness"

2006-07-23T19:08:00.000+02:00

Manila Times column
July 2, 2006

It wasn’t until the spring term that I got around to reading Alexander McCall Smith. Two of his books – The Number One Ladies Detective Agency and one of its sequels, Morality for Beautiful Girls – were required at one course at Roskilde Universitetcentret. Filipinos will not be all that familiar with McCall Smith – his books tend to be expensive, and moreover, he often writes about Botswana, a setting that many of my countrymen would consider too remote and unglamorous to immerse themselves in.

At the Cape Town book fair, someone asked him how he got around to creating characters so radically different from himself. McCall Smith is a jocular, tweedy Scotsman in his 60s, a former law lecturer, but his most famous creation is Mma Ramotswe, owner of the said ladies’ detective agency, a “traditionally-built” black woman tooling around the countryside in her little white van. As I remember, he didn’t answer the question directly, but went into a vague speech about using one’s imagination and powers of observation and empathy.

I read the first book at the start of the term, and enjoyed it – it was extremely light reading, and it was pleasant to clip through the unfamiliar names and tales of witchcraft and snakes in car radiators. The books, as my teacher, Kirsten Holst Petersen, pointed out, are a send-up of the classic, scientific detective story – Mma Ramotswe’s methods are intuitive and what she resolves are, for the most part, family misunderstandings and moral conundrums rather than statute-book crimes. But by the end of the term, we had pored over several novels that explored the complexity, bitterness and frequent violence of race relations in southern Africa and the Caribbean, and I found the second book, Morality for Beautiful Girls almost impossible to digest.

Finish it I did, in time for the class session, the scene of a vigorous debate on whether the McCall Smith books presented stereotypes of black people, i.e. whether he was guilty of what Eduard Said called Orientalism, the tendency of “Westerners” (Europeans and, now, Americans) to construct an image of those different from themselves (the Other) that simply reinforces Western prejudices. There were those who thought McCall Smith had arrogated unto himself the voice of someone so different – we were reading his books against Unity Dow’s Juggling Truths (also set in Botswana) and were inclined to believe Smith’s women characters were inauthentic. As for me, I was unhappy with a certain patronizing tone throughout the novels – the author’s tendency, for example, to refer to certain prosperous characters by their full names and titles at every mention, as one might address royalty – or speak of the neighborhood chieftain whom one might snicker about over tea.

The McCall Smith lecture I attended was packed, and there were a few squabbles over seats. He told anecdote after anecdote about his experiences as an author, the strange things his fans had told him (one California woman purchased a white van and drove around the state pretending to be Mma Ramotswe) and throughout he was as charming as the English-language press had reported that morning. The queue at the Penguin stand, where I waited to have my books signed, were equally long, for McCall Smith had a tendency to chat with his admirers, shaking their hands and inquiring as to whom the book was to be dedicated to. Significantly, there wasn’t a black face among his fans. Not a one. With the exception of two or three “coloreds” or Indians, they were all English-speaking white South Africans. It would be interesting to know what the blacks think of his work.

It occurred to me that McCall Smith, with his avuncular, old-school charm, must have filled a deep need among these 40- and 50-somethings. He may have represented an England they had yearned for but never really experienced. Strange that in South Africa, the British have, to this day, maintained their Britishness – in Norwich, where I lived for a while, the inhabitants might say “Hi” in greeting and “Cheers” in farewell, but in Cape Town -- oh boy! -- it was “How do you do?” and “Thank you”-“It’s a pleasure” all the way.

McCall Smith was oddly cool when my turn in the queue came, but I suppose any author would be mortified to hear the words, so enthusiastically uttered – “I’m so glad to meet you! We debated your books in our Post-Colonial Lit class!” Despite writing about southern Africa, he wasn’t at all serious. Maybe his Botswana days had been fun.

***
Congratulations to Fil V. Elefante for winning second place in the Ongpin awards for Journalism for his special report on wire-tapping, published while he was an editor at the Manila Times. Keep up the good work, Fil!

- 30 -

Snapshot in black and white

2006-07-23T19:07:00.000+02:00

Manila Times column
June 25, 2006

Twelve days, I figured, would be enough to draw up a picture of South Africa, 12 years after the end of apartheid, four centuries after Europeans descended upon the southern tip of the continent and began the vicious, genocidal process of colonization. We spent a couple of days in Johannesberg, then flew south over brown and barren-seeming land to the city of George, and from there rented a car and spent a few days driving around the area of the Cape, culminating in four days in Cape Town for the international book fair.

It was a patchwork quilt of a trip. History was at the forefront of my agenda. By this I mean both natural history (the Big Five, and the numerous floral species indigenous to South Africa, including gladioli and freesias), and more recent narratives of conquest, admixing and resistance. Throughout I intended to keep a scholarly perspective. This was the first time in my life I had ever studied for an exam by going on vacation – for just 12 hours after our arrival in Denmark I was scheduled to take an oral exam at Roskilde University. Fortunately, it was for a paper in our Post-Apartheid literature class. Our teacher, Kirsten Holst Petersen, had primed us with four important novels and a compendium of articles describing the conditions under apartheid, the legislation upon which that unconscionable system had rested, and the attempts, after 1994, to right its wrongs.

So I had my eyes and ears tuned to any mention of the Griqua people, subject of my paper, but was also out hunting South African novellists. Thank goodness my friend Vagn knew a good many of them, and children’s book illustrators besides, and he was happy to introduce me around. Nevertheless, there were moments when I was happy to part company with my intellectual side, such as the morning, on a farm outside Oudtshoorn in the Little Karoo, that I mounted the warm ridged back of an ostrich and hung on shrieking as the bird made a wild dash around the corral. Despite the seriousness with which my friend and I were taking South Africa, we managed to do the usual stupid tourist things.

Is it a stupid tourist thing to keep track of the differences between black people and white? The ladies at the immigration counter at Johannesberg airport were black. Twelve years ago this would have been impossible. The polite men in shabby overcoats in the square before Joburg’s Africa Museum were black. In the span of ten minutes, two of them had greeted us nicely and explained that they were very hungry and would we care to help them out? ‘How do you find South Africa?’ the younger of them said. ‘Beautiful,’ I said, lapsing into the standard reply, the reply one gives to one’s charming host across a well-appointed dinner table.

What else could I say? I’m sure we both sensed the irony. Twelve years ago the beggars would have been black, too, but perhaps the pass laws would have barred them from that particular section of Johannesburg. The Africa Museum had an exhibit on the townships – slums – where blacks were forced to live, an exhibit that moved me to tears. Under apartheid, had there been an Africa Museum, and if so, what would it have displayed?

Any stupid tourist, I figure, would have to note the economic differences between races that exist to this very day. Joburg resembles an American city in its vastness and degree of development (or at least the areas in Joburg that we happened to visit). Cape Town even more so. Throughout this right-hand drive, American/European-seeming, nicely paved and skyscrapered system, black figures shuffle. On the shoulder of highways, thumb held out in the classic hitch-hiker pose, lounging on park benches, glimpsed through a doorway at a bed-and-breakfast. Perpetually in the margins.

But this is a negative image I am painting; moreover, it is only one facet of the picture: it is impossible to capture the country in a snapshot or 600 words.

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Growing, growing gone

2006-07-23T19:04:00.000+02:00

Manila Times column
June 3, 2006

The grocery stores are selling plants – begonias, kalanchoe, fuchsias, ivy, six- and ten-cell packs of little pansies and petunias. In the early spring they were snapped up within minutes of opening, but after six weeks the initial mania has died down. Produced indiscriminately and en masse, the more common flowering plants are dying in their trays, while the larger, higher-end groceries in heated malls have put out more exotic specimens that will never thrive in Denmark’s cool summers – they are destined for greenhouses and glass-walled porches.

Gardening has become an addiction. Initially, I ventured out into the neglected lawn as a respite from my heavy academic reading list, but as April segued into May, the sunny weather had a profound effect on my system – it seduced me away from my studies. Like an errant schoolboy I was soon gazing out the window at the intense spring light and the profusion of buds on the tree branches. Soon the reading list had given way to a gardening list, filled with scientific names and brand names of commercial soil mixes, and I was squatting in the dirt, digging, grunting, shivering in the wind (for in this climate, working the ground is a sweatless endeavor). None of this I did with any shame, though it is far more typical for a middle-class Philippine gardening girl to stand in one corner, pointing this way and that, singing out instructions to the squad of young men hired for the day to do the dirty work.

Gardening is very much a part of the culture in this world of brief summers and an almost-sterile affluence. The neighborhood in this suburb of Copenhagen is filled with low brick houses, all of which seem obliged to put out geraniums in the window and white painted lawn furniture, complete with parasols, after the last frost. Even the most unromantic corporate type caves in to the pressure, zips down to the local ISO, and purchases a trimmed and blooming tree. There is a certain uniformity to this beauty, for the population is served by five or six major grocery franchises, all selling the same goods, with a branch or two (about the size of a Jollibee restaurant) in each district or town. Driving out into the country one sees the stupendous greenhouses that crank out the spring plantings – acres, it seems, of white-roofed, translucent-sided buildings, set against woods or in the middle of fields.

For Mother’s Day (a commercial occasion here, as well) the shops put out orchids – phalaenopsis in pretty pink-lavender hues. Phalaenopsis are the butterfly orchids Filipinos know so well – bound into quarter shells of coconut husk and lashed to the trunks of palm trees. The flowers are large and, commonly white; they glow in the brief tropical dusk; one hopes for their emergence, with the certainty at the back of the mind that they will arrive, some day. In Denmark the phalaenopsis are regimented -- two pairs of leaves to the pot, sprouting a clutch of perfect blooms that seem to take an entire month to wilt. Greenhouse grown, of course, the flowers “forced” by a mixture of chemicals, precision temperature and scheduled watering. That takes all the fun out of growing them. After the flowers die, I suppose, the befuddled owners of these orchids keep up the routine for a few weeks, before tossing them, shrivelled or water-logged, into the Green Refuse bin.

As for me, I work in the rain, under layers of fleece, for the novelty of having temperate zone plants – previously seen only in reference books – bloom under my ministrations. I leave the task of growing tropical flowers only to the natives, who have their own ideas of care and agendas of self-validation. Yesterday, I saw a row of bougainvillas outside an ISO grocery store. They were sprouting neatly from six-inch pots, little lollipop trees covered in papery hot pink blossoms – the kind you find, neglected, lining the walkways of public elementary schools from Aparri to Jolo. They cost 100 kroner apiece -- nine hundred pesos, for the promise of a hot and wholly imagined paradise.

- 30 -

Griqua encounter

2006-07-23T19:03:00.000+02:00

Manila Times column
May 28, 2006

Three histories and a novel lie open in front of me, all having to do with the Griqua people of South Africa. I had never heard of them prior to taking the course titled Post-Apartheid Writing in the English program at Roskilde University, but now am doing a short paper on them, for which I will be given an oral examination in June.

They are a people of mixed ancestry, descended from intermarriages between Khoe and Dutch colonizers (who gave the Khoe people the derogatory name Hottentot, which has stuck to this day). In the mix, as well, are Black African, e.g., Zulu or Xhosa, Indian, even Malay, the descendants of slaves that the Dutch brought in.

The Khoe, incidentally, have quite different physical characteristics from Black Africans of, for example, Zulu or Khosa origins – they tend to be brown-skinned, with slanted eyes and an Asian look. They are often lumped in with the San people (derogatorily termed Bushmen, a name which has likewise stuck) when speaking of the aboriginal inhabitants of Southern Africa, for they were there before the Blacks migrated from the Northern and Western parts of the continent.

During the 20th century, the tendency was for the Griqua to incorporate themselves into the Colored population of the Cape, such that it has long been debated whether they deserve separate-nation status. (Under apartheid, South Africa was legally divided into Black, comprising several nations; White; and whatever was in between, i.e. for which Colored was the convenient term.)

I was drawn to the Griqua, when so many of my Danish classmates were writing their short papers on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the abuses under apartheid, for two reasons. First, a long-term interest in the story of Saartjie Bartmaan, a Khoe woman who in the early 19th century was exhibited naked in a cage in Paris as a specimen of what the smug Europeans considered an inferior species. When she died, prematurely from tuberculosis, wax casts were made of her body, and she was dissected, her sexual organs displayed in a jar at the Museum of Man until the 1950s. She was by no means the only person to be so violated, other Khoe were as well; and so were many other individuals from outside Europe, and indeed her experience recalls that of the families of Igorots (an indigenous Philippine group) who were put on display at the Chicago World’s Fair. When several of them died, their bones were laid to rest in the stockrooms of a number of anthropology museums, neatly labeled in the interest of cataloguing humanity from so-called apex to nadir.

Of a more personal resonance, perhaps, is the traditional religiosity of the Griqua; their choice of Afrikaans as a language, their embrace of Christian values and European clothing, their use of Dutch names. Despite the racist disgust with which early missionaries treated them (on my desk are the revolting diaries of one Rev. T.L. Hodgson, circa 1821) they were eager to accept the white man’s religion, which intertwined with, and eventually eclipsed, their own. Why did this happen? I come from Silliman University, founded 1901, the bastion of Protestantism in the Philippines; and throughout my childhood I was hard-put to define myself as Filipino – all of us, it seemed, had our souls trained to the United States. “You’re a living example of what we’ve been reading about!” a classmate in the Post-Colonial course enthused.

I look forward to a June visit to Cape Town for its book fair – fitting culmination to an entire term reading Rian Malan, Zakes Mda, Phaswane Mpe, Bessie Head, Nadine Gordimer, Zoe Wicomb, Antjie Krog, Alexander McCall Smith. Mda, Smith and Krog will be signing books. So my visa application is pending at the South African embassy in Hellerup north of Copenhagen, and processing should take no longer than a week. That’s the difference between having a temporary residence permit in Denmark and applying for a visa in the Philippines. Fact of life.

Denmark and the slave trade

2006-07-23T18:55:00.000+02:00

Manila Times column
May 7, 2006

The role Denmark played in the trans-Atlantic slave trade is an almost-forgotten aspect of its history. It has been virtually written out of the books – in the 80s, for example, one could open a gymnasium (high school) text and discover exactly one and a half lines about it: namely, that in 1917, Denmark had sold the Danish West Indies to the United States, whereupon they became the US Virgin Islands.

In fact, Danish presence in the islands dated back to 1672. In 1754, the islands became royal Danish colonies, their plantation economy flourishing on African slave labor.

A forum I attended last week, at the Politiken newspaper building in Copenhagen, was open to members of the media and endeavored to raise public awareness of this buried aspect of Danish history. The forum, incidentally, was tied in with a three day conference at Copenhagen University on the Danish presence in the Atlantic slave trade, and the speakers in the panel as well as many members of the audience, were participants in that conference.

Peter Tygesen, a journalist in the panel of speakers, noted that the strong Danish presence in what was then the Belgian Congo in the latter half of the 19th century. The area had been declared the personal property of King Leopold of Belgium, and the bulk of the king’s army was recruited from Scandinavia, according to Tygeson. An estimated one-third of the white officers in that army were from Scandinavia, and of these many were Danish, enforcing the king’s policy of forcing every single Congolese person to work for one month a year, without pay.

These officers often found themselves administering vast tracts of land, a single white man sometimes in charge of an area larger than that of Denmark itself. This was at a time when the mother country was extremely poor, and a stay in Africa was certain to beget a large fortune. The officers ran veritable kingdoms, and they (and their wives) wrote home about frightening encounters with nature and “savages.” It was a time in history when newspapers were widespread and cheap, and these letters home were printed each week in every small town newspaper throughout Denmark, to the delight and astonishment of readers, who were thus entertained by tales of servants who were “brutal, cheeky, deceitful, thieving and stupid” and “cannibals with filed teeth” (though the practice of cannibalism was never substantiated, according to Tygesen). These private adventure accounts, written in the mode of Henry Morton Stanley, reinforced negative notions of what was foreign and “Other,” and reassured sedentary, provincial Danes in the “Center” of their “civilized” and racial superiority.

These were concepts that circulated in Danish society for generations, and, according to Tygesen, their legacy is the notion of the Dane as hero – the emancipator, the civilizer, almost genetically-inlaid, that Danes do good in the world and can do only good.

One of the questions that had been asked at the beginning of that forum was why Denmark had allowed itself to ignore and forget its colonial past, and to build up an image of a small, inconsequential country in world affairs – to style itself, nowadays, “as victim, not executioner”? Always, in back of the discussion, surfacing from time to time in the inputs from panel speakers and audience, was the uncomfortable reality of xenophobia and contempt/mistrust for immigrants and foreigners within Danish society.

- 30 -

Balancing the slight books

2006-04-16T04:00:00.000+02:00

When two or more Filipinos meet abroad, it is only a matter of time before they begin reciting from their personal catalogues of racist experiences. Each Filipino keeps such a catalogue and what has been inscribed there can never be erased completely. Modified, perhaps, through time and growing understanding and confidence in oneself and a gradual finding of one’s place in the new country. But never erased.

Moreover, the negative experiences in that figurative scorebook are all cumulative, that is, they build upon each other to produce a discouraging picture, over all, of the new country. I think the probability of finding a job here that, even if blue-collar, pays twice as much as a middle-management job at, say, a Makati bank, does brighten that picture a bit.

What else helps to mitigate those niggling feelings of frustration, fear and anger in an affluent mostly-white society depends on the Filipino individual.

When I told my teacher, Michael, I didn't think Denmark was any more xenophobic than other countries, I wasn't speaking from a thorough knowledge of this land, or, for that matter, because I agree with the interesting opinions of the populist Dansk Folkeparti.

For after all, the private scorebook of racial slights I keep has entries dating back to 1979 in America, a few small notes scribbled in Britain, and a good deal of stuff written in my very own homeland.

I could have told him, for example, about being a nine-year-old in Ventnor, New Jersey, pursued day after day by the same trio of boys, all chanting, "Chinese, Chinese." They kept it up on the playground, at the bus stop and in the bus itself, riding to and from school. It did not occur to them that I may have been something else besides Chinese, nor to be merciful or gallant on account of my being a girl. One day, one of them -- I can still recall his name and every detail about his appearance -- came loping up to me as I stood in line at the bus stop and gave me a running kick, as though I were a soccer ball. The resulting bruise high up on my thigh took weeks to dissipate.

I could not bring myself to write about that experience until 2003, at the University of East Anglia in Britain. My family knew about it but never discussed it, and I never broached the topic with them; instead, in a strange way, I referred deprecatingly to the redheaded one, in private discussions with my older sister, as Billy Chinese. Certainly I needed to separate myself from that identity and project it as far from myself as possible -- preferably onto the attacker himself. I am sure it was because I was ashamed of myself. Why did I feel such self-disgust? Why did these eight-year-old three boys have the power to make me feel so worthless? They were children, certainly, but who had taught them that it was all right to harass "Chinese" and subject them to violence?

My friend Filo will understand this experience. She, too, was a victim of violence, but in Denmark -- off the Parliament building in Copenhagen no less. "Victim of violence" sounds too prissy. A Danish man beat her up. Over a minor traffic accident. On the pavement, in full public view. Nobody helped her. I think much of the diffused anger she feels toward this country stems from that incident.

Compared to an actual experience of violence, lesser instances of racism—parlor racism, if you like -- seem trivial: annoying, but not debilitating. Yet they, too, add up to create a climate of insecurity, such that in the aisles of Superbest or Magasin du Nord, one steps aside instinctively for white Danes, teenagers or pensioners alike, averting a collision, trying not to be a nuisance of oneself. One steels oneself before stepping up to a librarian or a ticket seller at the train station. And so on --

Of strangers and strangenes

2006-04-09T15:28:00.000+02:00

One Thursday I had lunch with my American Studies teacher and a classmate from the same course. Apparently in Denmark it's quite normal to join one's teacher at one end of the long table amid the clatter of the canteen: in some other parts of the world it might be called sucking up. "Things are more informal here," Michael says, in the same wry unhurried manner he uses in the classroom. We call all our teachers by their first names.

I'm finding my place in the class, amid these tall, grave people -- most of them in their 20s and some shade or other of blond. I'm not the only foreigner -- there are a German and a Turkish exchange student, both girls, and a woman of about my age from Morocco, married to a Dane.

In the beginning they all seemed to be undifferentiated pink-cheeked Caucasians, but now I see how others are undergoing adjustment problems of their own, whether it's a matter of country or school or subject or language.

Michael asks me where I am from. I feel comfortable enough telling him I am a writer in my own country and have published two books, and a bit more about my personal circumstances, including why I am studying English in Denmark, and not Britain or the States. "What do you think of the xenophobia in Denmark?" he asks.

I've been dreaming about answering such a question for months. Usually Europeans will skirt the matter of my Asian-ness: crack lame jokes, fall into an uncomfortable silence, speak too loudly or too slowly, or -- and this is most typical -- assume the manner of the confident, worldly lecturer handing out pointers to an obedient child. It could have happened that way at RUC, but I took matters into my own hands. A classroom setting is, by its very nature, a smart and democratic setting, where opinions are solicited and respected. I have control over how others perceived me, and so, to abort the image of the desperate sexualized Oriental drudge, I speak out avidly in class, especially American Studies class, where according to the RUC philosophy we form into small discussion groups in the course of the morning and regroup in a plenary session afterward.

Now, asked that question, and on the level playing field of academe, no less, I hedge.

I suppose I might tell my teacher about the Christmas Eve party one year to which I had been expressly barred. I was living in the house of a Danish friend, and the party was at his son's. Someone, the son, or the son's wife perhaps, decided I was not a member of the family and did not belong at their table.

Or I suppose I might tell him about the children's birthday party to which I was invited, during which no one but the host husband spoke to me. We were all there around the dining table, surrounded by festive little Danish flags and pork cutlets, and then strawberry layer cake and popcorn and beer. Five couples and the children, close enough to make eye contact if we wanted to, and nothing but Danish spoken, no openings given, and apparently no notion throughout the company that this could have been in any way different.

But are these examples of xenophobia? At any rate, they are but two slight incidents out of the barrel of doubts and triumphs that constitute my experience of Denmark so far. I hem and haw, as other memories flit through my brain, a year in Britain, a year in the States, my own life in the Philippines, and at last come up with a lukewarm answer: "Well, I don't think Denmark is any worse than any other country."

I can see Michael had been expecting at least a measure of outrage. Why couldn't I muster it? What is xenophobia, anyway...?

How should a Filipino speak?

2006-04-03T04:03:00.000+02:00

The Danes always need a little help in placing me within their social framework. They want to know what I am, and why I am like this. They ask me, "Where are you from?" and I tell them the truth, “The Philippines.” The question that inevitably follows is, “You speak with an American accent; have you lived in the States?” A few people actually assumed I was from the States.

So the strapping young people at Roskilde University (RUC) inquire, as do the body-builder behind the counter at the gym, and librarians and other professionals meeting me for the first time, and even one of my teachers, whom I happily managed to have lunch with at the university canteen after class.

I could shrug and say, “This is a Filipino accent. All my friends in Manila speak like this,” and leave them to wonder.

But I don’t—not anymore—because the truth is, I have lived in the States, as a child; and I do speak more fluently and with a slightly more American inflection than most Filipinos, and after years and years of worrying about it, I no longer feel I have to apologize for this fluency, or be magnanimous about its obvious advantages, or be embarrassed because I don’t sound like a “true” Filipino, whatever that is.

So I tell them the facts—the year in New Jersey when I was nine, and the Americanized subculture of Silliman University in Dumaguete, where I grew up. The school was founded in 1901 by missionaries; within its boundaries American culture has always been something to aspire for and acquire, even during the nationalist seventies and eighties.

The MA students at the RUC are taking a course in postcolonial literature—a required course, not an elective—so they can immediately contextualize American missionary education and understand its impact on the Third World.

At first I found having to explain myself all the time quite unpleasant feelings no doubt shared by many university-educated Filipinos who have lived or traveled abroad. I have a choice, I suppose: I could say—“I am from Måløv town, in København county,” where I live at present. But my politics doesn’t run in that direction—wherever country I choose to settle and, however long I stay, I will always define myself as “from the Philippines,” originally and at the present time.

Furthermore, I have come to the conclusion that their curiosity has little to do with the novelty of a brown-skinned woman equipped with good language skills, than with the global phenomenon of Americanization and the ascendancy of English as a world language. Danes are often remarked to be extremely proficient in English next to other Europeans. They learn it in school at age 9 or thereabouts; my classmates (most of whom are in their 20s) would probably have received instruction in the language a bit later, at age 11 or 12.

For English, in Denmark, is both a second language to the populace and a foreign language in schools—and as such, it is taught with the strictest adherence to pronunciation and grammar. Only two kinds of English pronunciation are accepted in schools—“British” and “American.” What constitutes proper British or American pronunciation is material for an entirely separate discussion, but it has slowly dawned on me that when youngish Danes compliment a foreigner for her articulacy, they are doing so in the context of a strict school-based system that grades their oral proficiency on a standard scale of 1 to 13, a framework in which they, too, are foreigners.

Cheapskates and ‘bookalikes’

2006-03-27T05:05:00.000+02:00

When I came to Roskilde University, I had only a vague idea of how to procure the titles on the lengthy reading list. There were at least 20 novels and textbooks to be discussed over the term, and a supplemental list of twice that number.

The photocopy machine is a fixture at every Philippine university. Each building is accessorized by a couple of these animals at every floor and wing, cranking out stinking facsimiles that manage to survive long enough to one’s final exams before degenerating to a pale gray pulp. Entire businesses are built around the copy machines, and at UP-Diliman a row of shops proudly advertise high-quality, back-to-back copies of expensive titles, carefully bound, the titles stamped in gold leaf. Some enterprising fellow has dubbed them “bookalikes.”

But Denmark is dead serious about international copyright law. Like other affluent countries its universities don’t ban photocopying per se, but discourage the practice by making the cost prohibitive and the quality shoddy. The only sure way to read everything on your list—especially if you’re a quiet foreigner who finds it tough to make friends—is to buy everything on your list.

To find the price of an English title, brand new, covert the cover price to Danish crowns and then add 25 percent VAT. Even my Danish classmates complain—and their tuition is free, with a student’s allowance to boot. At the RUC bookshop, I came upon a young woman in my British Studies class grimly considering the Norton Anthology of English Literature, volume 2. This is a tome so massive that, even in paperback, a well-aimed copy could kill a cat. Volume 2 cost 500 Danish crowns (a little over P4,000). “It’s just money to be burned,” she sighed. The other books on our list, not to mention the compendia for each subject, cost between a 150 and 300 crowns.

I suppose most people in Northern Europe are leery about investing in a brand-new book because much of the time they don’t have to. Each municipality in Denmark must have at least one library, and these are beautiful affairs, with reading rooms, online search systems, music and video collections, and free membership. Additionally, each library is linked to a central database and one can order a book from any part of the country and have it delivered by post, free of charge. Oh yes, majority of these wonderfully accessible titles are in Danish, and I doubted very much if a search would yield any of the small-print-run Caribbean and African authors on my list. There’s a charity shop in many a neighborhood, and no shortage of books there, either, but again only a handful of those are in English, and tend toward bodice-rippers and such.

I obtained as many titles as possible in Manila and carried them all on the plane. It was worth it. Filipinos like to complain about the high cost of books, as an excuse to avoid reading. We don’t realize we’re getting them at a discount already. At National Bookstore there is perennially a disparity between the cover price and the tag price, the latter being lower. Since these titles arrive in Manila many months after their first appearance abroad, local stores must be operating on some sort of deal whereby they sell old books at a discount to a less-affluent market. Like apparel, books have to be gotten rid of eventually, else the costs of storage would soon outstrip their value. Fortunately the majority never go out of style.

Most of the others I bought online, from Amazon.com, a harrowing experience for this first-time Internet user with a well-founded distrust of the postal system. I didn’t purchase a single bookalike this term. I hear some people have discovered the digital-age counterpart, though, photographing 400-page volumes from cover to cover and consigning whole libraries to their hard drives. Some folks are just anal.

Pulling the blinds on awareness work

2006-03-20T04:06:00.000+01:00

In Copenhagen recently, the Danish Association for International Cooperation held a farewell party. The nongovernmental organization, known by its Danish-language acronym MS, had been forced, by a budget cut, to fire 30 staff members. Song sheets were distributed, someone having cleverly replaced the lyrics of well-known numbers, as is the practice at birthdays and anniversaries here; and accompanied by a piano, the guests, most of whom had worked together for decades, sang nostalgically and triumphantly of the projects they had accomplished together. Speeches were made, and one of these ended in a rather bitter challenge to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister.

MS was founded in 1944 by individuals and organizations that had anticipated both the close of World War II and the amount of reconstruction that was to follow. Accordingly it sent out young people on a volunteer basis to work camps around Europe, which also provided an opportunity for these youths to travel and socialize. Its efforts were initially concentrated in Europe, but as the 1950s drew to a close and many former colonies around the world began to declare their independence, the NGO decided to participate in development work in these places. Eventually it began to send out volunteers, which sounds a lot like the American Peace Corps, but in the Danes’ case they have finished an education and have at least a couple of years experience in their field of expertise. Also they did not initiate projects of their own but sent out people to augment the staff of already existing projects in the countries being aided. Through the decades, MS was funded by private contributions and by an outlay from the Danish foreign ministry.

The NGO came to have four distinct departments. One for the volunteers, one for youth work camps, a third concerned with immigration and refugee issues. A fourth department was devoted to information—because of the nature of its functions, MS had become the most important supplier in Denmark of information regarding the developing countries. In practice, 1 percent of the budget for development aid was allocated for this kind of awareness work and available for any interested entity.

In August last year, following general reductions in the budget for NGOs working in developing countries, the Danish foreign ministry decided to cut that one percent substantially. MS was the immediate victim of this action: it was obvious that its library would have to close, as would its publishing arm, and staff would have to be laid off. This put an end to an important means by which Danish citizens could gain familiarity with living conditions in developing countries. MS, on its website, made an editorial comment to the effect that this would make Danes “more ignorant.”

“The government talks a lot about globalization and the challenges Denmark is facing—challenges that require insight and engagement in complex international questions. But now the same politicians intend to take away Danish citizens means of understanding the living conditions in poor countries,” the MS secretary-general said in an interview last year.

Interestingly, this country guarantees the freedom to form associations without the encumbrance of registering with some government authority. Thus the proliferation of groups founded on ethnic identity, such as Babaylan, composed of Filipino women. But this freedom was curtailed to some extent recently—a news item on the radio informed us that the government had just been cosignatory of an international agreement requiring the registration of organizations in future, the stated purpose being the prevention of terrorist activities, regardless of ideology. This move is the latest in a series of actions since 9-11 that threaten individual freedoms.

Dane-in-the-street view of cartoon issue

2006-02-27T04:07:00.000+01:00

Here in Denmark the Muhammad cartoon issue continues to dominate the headlines. Politiken, the paper we get at home, has been running a special report on Egypt’s role in communicating the matter to other Islamic countries and international Islamic organizations, as well as warning the Danish government. Thus the paper has helped throw new light on the development of the affair, including to which extent the Danish government may be held accountable in any sense for the furor.

Since I don’t speak Danish it is hard to come up with a man-in-the-street perspective on the issue. Certainly it has been mentioned in passing by teachers in several of the classes I am taking at Roskilde University. The children’s book on the life of Muhammad that started the whole controversy is available at the RUC library. The book was written for Danish children of all faiths and presents the prophet’s life according to the earliest Arabic sources, including the miracles attributed to him without disclaimers—unusual in this land where schools are prohibited from endorsing any religion, and where one will not find a single textbook presenting a Jesus miracle as fact.

Many people in and out of Denmark are unaware of the dilemma faced by the publisher of this Muhammad biography in 2005—should the book contain illustrations of the prophet, which would make it more engaging to its young audience, or should it respect the Islamic injunction against images of the founder of this important religion? The book’s author defends his choice to put the pictures in, by referring to images of Muhammad found in old books in Persia, as well as on many posters and postcards available in Iran today.

When at last an illustrator was found, he (a non-Muslim by the way) agreed to make the images only if his identity were concealed. It was on hearing of the picture book’s issues that the Jyllands-Posten made its infamous challenge to what it called self-censorship.

Over the past weeks there have been demonstrations in Copenhagen and the cities of Aarhus, Aalborg, Randers and some towns. But they have been adamantly nonreligious in nature, and most have called for “dialogue and mutual respect,” as one slogan expressed it. None have been violent.

In Aarhus, three demonstrations were held almost simultaneously. In one, a small group of Right-wing youths demanded apologies from the Muslim community, claiming its members were responsible for numerous crimes; in another part of the square, an equally small group of Left-wing youths attempted to shout them down. The third demonstration was participated in by Danes and ethnic Muslims, who together called for dialogue. Priests from different religions—Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Tibetan—spoke their views.

In Copenhagen, a demonstration organized by Muslim university students was disrupted by participants shouting Islamic slogans. The latter were nearly thrown out by the organizers.

Opinions seem to be divided on whether the cartoons were protected speech or ethnic slurs, even within the members of one family. Many white Danes believe the cartoons were unnecessary or in poor taste. But the issue has shifted, from the merits of the cartoons to whether the Danish government, represented by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, could have in any way averted the bloodshed and self-fuelling hatred of Denmark in many Muslim countries.

In September of last year the prime minister turned down a request by ambassadors from Muslim countries to meet and discuss certain cases of anti-Muslim manifestations, the cartoons included, on the ground that no legal action could be taken against the newspaper. Rasmussen understood this—legal action—to be the ambassadors’ demand.

Following Rasmussen’s alleged snub, the Egyptian ministry of foreign affairs began an information campaign on the cartoons throughout the Muslim world, according to the Politiken report. Critics, including several Danish retired ambassadors, have all along claimed that Rasmussen’s act was rash and undiplomatic, and some form of reconciliation would likely have been possible had he agreed to that meeting.

One of the most intriguing effects has been the polarization that has registered in recent opinion surveys. The extremely Right-wing Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti), known for rabidly anti-immigration, anti-Muslim public statements, has increased its support dramatically, whereas both the Social Democratic Party and the right-of-center liberal party Venstre, the prime minister’s party, have lost support. However, the leftist Socialist People’s Party and the Radical Venstre have both gained support.

With Denmark under international scrutiny, and the subject of uncontrolled hate speech, its people are taking clearer personal standpoints, based on gut response, upbringing and environment, and private fears.