from Beijing to Shanghai

The trip from Beijing to Shanghai was not exactly what I would call pleasurable. First, it started at the break of dawn. My brain was still half-asleep while we hurried to the buses that would take us down to the airport. Then, halfway through the one or so hour trip to the airport, my bladder decided that it had to go. And it had to go so badly I was almost in tears. And so I concentrated on holding it back until I couldn't smile, talk or even look at anyone.

After relieving myself, I realized that for the first time since I took the plane from Manila and arrived in China, I was once again in an airport. It must be noted that I like airports. Airports, for me, can only mean two things: the beginning of a new adventure or going back home, both good things. That day, while listening to a recently downloaded song as it sang "sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came..." I suddenly felt so sad that I almost bought a ticket home.

We boarded the plane and waited. And waited. And waited. I'm not sure how long our flight was delayed but it seemed like a really long time. Fortunately, there were newspapers in English to keep me occupied. And the mp3 player, of course.

When we finally got to Shanghai, there was more waiting as the athletes' baggage took more than an hour to arrive. It turned out that their guns were on another aircraft, not the one we took. So there I was with at most four hours of sleep the night before and thinking of the irony in the song: there was only one person in Shanghai who knows my name and I hadn't seen her for 13 years. An athlete asked if there was anything wrong when she saw me red-eyed, trying to hold back tears of homesickness. I said my eyes were itchy and I made scratching gestures to my eyes.

The assistant team manager decided that I could just wait in the bus since I didn't have any checked in baggage. We went out of the airconditioned airport and the heat slapped me so hard I could have sworn that it was the peak of summer in Manila. Then I continued singing, "Be glad there's one place in the world where everybody knows your name..." And I guess that would be it for now, I'd be glad with the knowledge that there IS a home that I can always go back to anytime and that they'd always be glad I came.

(Click on the individual pictures for more kwentos.)

Drunken Night

I was so wasted a few nights before we left Beijing. We had a dinner party thrown for us by the Beijing team because we were about to leave. I didn't know there was going to be one until I was herded into the big dining room. All the while I was thinking, somebody should have told me so I could have dressed nicely. Sigh.

Row, row, row your boat...

You have to tilt your head to the left just so... then squint a little. Might help.

Boating with the Girls

This is how I spent my last night in Beijing. I will be posting the video version of this soon.

Shanghai

I took these out of boredom. The first part was when I was waiting for the rest of the team to get all their luggage from the airport. Let me tell you that it's not easy travelling on air with a group of people carrying guns in this age when terrorism is a houseword.

And then I felt the need for an internet patch as I suffered from withdrawal symptoms. Imagine an internet addict not having an internet connection for three whole days. Thus the bathroom video.

So yes, I'm in Shanghai. Still alive. It's funny how my existence is now gauged on how often I update my site. So this is just something for you to chew on while I catch up with the rest of your cyberlives. More updates soon.

With the Team

The Forbidden City. Again.

This is my second visit to the Forbidden City, also known as The Summer Palace, also known as The Palace Museum. I went with ChenYing, SunRongLi and XiaoDing. As I had already taken a lot of pictures the first time, the goal now is to be IN the pictures.

Rage Against the Dying of the Light by Patricia Evangelista

It is times like this when I feel so helpless that I just weep.


REBEL WITHOUT A CLUE

Rage against the dying of the light


By Patricia Evangelista

Inquirer

Last updated 08:47am (Mla time) 08/20/2006

Published on page A11 of the August 20, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THIS
IS A STORY ABOUT TRUTH, AND JUSTICE, AND THE people who get caught in
between. About a half-an-hour ride from Quezon City, soot-stained
factories and car washes make way for glassy fields drowned in brown
water and a roadside billboard that says “Sta. Rita, 1 Km.” Beyond the
blue and white tollgate, a sign welcomes visitors to Barangay Plaridel,
Bulacan, the place where videoke machines are rented out, roasted goat
is for sale by the kilo and tricycles have matching umbrellas attached
to their motors. At the first side street, past unpainted concrete
houses, past scratched-off campaign posters, past a man in red shorts
carrying a plastic bag with a 2-liter bottle of Coke, is the Church of
St. James.

I walk into the church and find a young girl in a school uniform
sitting at a pew. I ask her where the refugee center is. She pulls open
a wooden door, and I follow her into an unlit passage, through another
wooden door, across a cobbled path by a green, green garden and out
into a sprawling concrete courtyard.

The refugees stay in what was once used as a convent, now called
Domus Dei, the House of God. The torn wallpaper in the women’s bedroom
is taped down at the seams, while lengths of wire strung across the
room serve as makeshift closets. Funding comes from local mayors, the
church and private individuals. I am told the refugees have enough to
survive one more week.

In the darkened kitchen, a teenage boy sits at a table and eats a
scanty meal off a plastic plate. He looks up and smiles. “Kain po.”

In a perfect world, where laws are followed and soldiers exist to
protect the people, an order of battle (OB) is an organizational tool
used by military intelligence to list and detail enemy military units
during war. In Philippines 2006, an order of battle is an excuse to
play God in the witch-hunt to crush the evils of communism. Those on
the lists are as good as dead. To be in an OB list does not always mean
you are an armed rebel, it may mean you’re a suspected sympathizer, a
neighbor, a cousin, a drunk on the way home or one of the dozens of
human rights documenters who get caught in the crossfire.

Beside me, on one of Domus Dei’s rattan armchairs, Celestina Nantes,
called Tina, tells me her story. She is a slight woman in her late 40s,
her lower teeth protruding to form a V. Her brother Danilo is San Jose
del Monte’s barangay captain. An armed man went to his office recently,
introduced himself as one of Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan’s men and asked
for help in locating the people in his OB list. Tina, a human rights
advocate, was at the top of the list.

Her brother warned her in time, but not without cost. Danilo is now
in hiding, with armed men hounding him at both home and office. Tina is
worried, and not just for him—in her group of advocates, there was one
left behind, the one Tina calls Nanay Mercy: all of 72 years old, and
also in the order of battle.

I had been sitting in Domus Dei no more than an hour, but my
notebook is filled with their stories. There is JR, who looks like a
college freshman, all gelled hair, glasses and sneakers. His family was
burned out of their home because his two siblings are suspected of
being NPA members. There’s the story of Mayor Edgardo Galvez of San
Ildefonso, Bulacan, who heard that OB lists were going around and that
uniformed men, wearing hoods, had begun slaughtering his people. He
called the commanding officer to his office demanding an explanation,
and was told it was an exercise in peace and order to warn all
sympathizers. When the mayor asked what they intended to do to those
who did not give in, the officer answered, “Kill them.” Then he
casually informed Mayor Galvez that he was next on the list.

Patricio Manahan is the most recent arrival. He is not on the order
of battle, it is his brother Arsenio who is a member of a Malolos
fishermen’s organization. Arsenio was not home on Aug. 8, 2006, so the
armed men shot Patricio thrice inside his own home, five days after his
wife gave birth to their second child. The Malolos PNP, under orders of
Mayor Domingo, escorted the family to Domus Dei, and Patricio to a
hospital.

I step into the tiny room assigned to the Manahan family in Domus
Dei. It is a small, shadowy room with a wooden bed and an uncovered
mattress on the concrete floor, home to four women—two sister-in-laws,
Patricio’s wife Irene and his mother—along with five children and a
2-week-old baby. I stop to ask questions, but nobody listens, because
eager voices announce glad tidings: Patricio is home from the hospital.

The sunlight shoots off the tin roofs, and people gather in the
courtyard. All is quiet, even the children have stopped their playing.
A tall man trudges toward us, his right arm slung in an old green
bandanna, the left clinging to his wife’s shoulder. He looks straight
ahead, saying nothing even when his mother started touching him, her
palm on his chest, then the tips of her fingers sliding from rough
cheek to thin shoulder.

They sit him at the edge of the wooden bed. On the floor, his
2-year-old daughter sits staring at him. He reaches for her, but one
arm cannot seem to function, so the baby is put on his knee, and he
clutches at her, and the sobs that are ripped from his throat are raw,
his mumblings nearly incoherent, “Akala ko di ko na ’to makikita, Diyos
ko.” He holds on until they take the baby away so he can lie down, his
old mother lifting her grown son’s legs up on the bed.

Patricio’s wife Irene is across the room, mixing milk for the baby.
She is calm, but I see her stop and grip the edges of the kitchen sink.
I leave because it feels too private—and somewhere between Tina’s story
and this tiny bedroom, I stopped trying to be a reporter and watched a
desperate father cling to his wide-eyed daughter. I think of my father,
and feel guilty because I’m glad this man, this wounded man isn’t him,
glad that my father is safe to answer his crossword puzzles and dance
with his year-old granddaughter.

In Manila, Major General Palparan claims he is in the hospital
because of a fever, and cannot possibly go to court. In Bulacan, a
tired man lies on a wooden bed, his useless arm hanging by his side
because he cannot afford treatment in a Manila hospital.

This is the story of the 2-year-old baby who will not understand why
she cannot swing on her father’s arm. It is not a new story, but it is
one that is rarely told, and much rarely heard.

* * *

For questions on supporting Domus Dei, or comments on this article, send to pat.evangelista@gmail.com

Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the Edge of the World

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Biographies & Memoirs
Author:	Yang Erche Namu and Christine Matthieu

I was in Beijing for about a week when I finally stepped in a bookstore that sells English books. Imagine me salivating as I faced rows upon rows of books that I can finally consume. I didn't know where to start satisfying my thirst for the written word that was unquenched for a year except for the books that I brought from Manila and some mostly unentertaining magazines lying around the house, probably left behind by former foreign teachers.

One of the books that caught my attention is Leaving Mother Lake, because of the mother-daughter theme that it promises in its blurb. This might give me some inspiration for my own novel, I thought. It also tells of a matriarchal society where, among other things, property is passed on from mother to daughter and marriage is considered a foreign custom. Interesting, I said to myself. And because there were other books to keep me occupied, it sat on the floor or any other of my makeshift bookshelves for about a month.

One night though, as I was eating and drinking with some of the athletes in one of their rooms, someone mentioned a place in China where a woman can have many lovers and where the identity of her children's father is none of anyone's business but hers alone. One of the female athletes was quick to make me understand that this is only in a small village in Yunnan and not the usual practice in China.

It was after a few more nights when I remembered to look more carefully at the book's introduction, and then started reading the book itself to see if it was the same group of people that they mentioned. Sure enough, the Moso group can be found in Yunnan and yes, theirs is a completely different world that would probably most resemble utopia. Except this one is real, however misunderstood and misrepresented.

In Moso country, everything is shared. Even lovers. Their word for father is very rarely used as children call their mother's lover "uncle" even if he is their father. Sometimes children never know who their fathers are. It is perfectly normal to exchange children among sisters and neighbors. One is expected to live in her mother's house and raise her own children and aspire to be a Daba, the head of the household.

Despite all the differences, ultimately the book is about a daughter who time and again has disappointed her mother and her people by desiring something almost unimaginable, that of a life outside their small village. It is about pride for one's people and culture even as the government has on several occasions forced them to a life totally alien to them. It is about alienation in both a world where one was born in and a world one has adopted.

And it is good. It is really good. Enough to make me want to write this entry when I could have just slept or moved on to the next book. This of course does not do justice to what the book is. You have to read it. So go.

"One World One Dream" :p

Let me introduce to you not one... not two... but five mascots for the Beijing Olympics 2008!

Meanwhile, Gatorade has replaced water in my diet and I'm starting to get so sick of this yoghurt that I shove down my throat everyday just because it's free. Yup, they're official sponsors.

Dashmedia Network - Simply the coolest content online.

http://dash-media.com
Because I'm a blog-whore, I recently submitted my blog to Dashmedia Network. Dashmedia Network is co-founded by Mikey Villar (of the Atrocities of Friendster and The Man Blog fame). This is what it says about itself:

Greetings,
Thank you for your interest in the Dash Media Project. First, I want to give you an idea of what we envision Dash Media to become: You may or may not agree that, much like high school, the blogosphere is dominated by the "popular" mainstream blogs. We've realized that with the recent proliferation of blogs, it's becoming harder and harder to find decent content. We also realized that "popular" doesn't necessarily mean "interesting".

In the Philippines alone, we believe that there's a multitude of underappreciated, well-written blogs just waiting to be discovered. I, along with the other co-founders of Dash Media aim to provide such blogs with a channel that would give them the exposure they deserve. We also envision a tightly-knit community that would present itself as the best the Philippine blogosphere can offer.

What are we looking for?
Decent content. We really don't care about your site's traffic or influence. Of course, you have to realize that content goes hand in hand with decent site design in the sense that your content needs to be presented in a way which can easily be read.

Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation

I stole this from this site. It reminds me of Grace Monte de Ramos' Brave Woman.


Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation

Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) was a poet who co-published the anti-slavery newspaper "The Commonwealth" with her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe. In 1861 she wrote the words to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," which became the recognized theme song of the Union during the Civil War. After the war Howe continued writing, became active in the woman's suffrage movement and advocated world peace. In 1908 she became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Here is the original, pre-Hallmark, Mother's Day Proclamation, penned in Boston by Julia Ward Howe in 1870:

Arise then ... women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!"
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Almost Pinoy

It says "FeiLuBin xiao tian bao" which roughly means "Philippine small sweet bread." They may look like pandesal but they don't taste like pandesal. Don't be fooled.

These are some of the things that reminded me of home. The pictures of the DVDs were taken in my suking pirated DVD shop back in TieLing. The pandesal was part of breakfast with Troy during my 2-week stay with him in Beijing.

Rica Peralejo, is that you?

Tonight while working on my thesis, I decided to turn on the TV to subconsciously soak in some Chinese. I haven't been studying since the HSK and I thought that I should find ways to improve my Chinese while being busy with the novel. I feel that I simply do not have enough time for everything so I need to multi-task a bit (albeit sometimes subconsciously).

After channel-surfing for a while, I found a Chinese Rica Peralejo. Note that the set is also straight from Eat Bulaga. Chinese primetime TV isn't that different from Pinoy primetime after all. I'll definitely keep you posted if I see a Chinese Mulawin.

*I'm posting this for the third time and it better works now or I'm cursing all the Rica-look-alikes in the world.

On 'Kawil' and Why I Shouldn't be Called a Malate Writer

Everyone knows how thrilled I am to have my short story "Kawil" turned into a play and staged in DLSU. You may click this for pictures and other mindless discussions on it. I'm hoping for reviews though. Basically because I like reading about anything that has myself in it. Yes, I'm vain that way. I'm sure you've already figured that out.

Many people thought that because I'm a writer and I'm from La Salle, I must have been a part of Malate at some point in my college life at least. Let me now try to give you a brief history of my college writing life and how nothing can be farther from the truth.

I wrote "Kawil" in 1998. I was 18, a college freshman. It remains to be my only short story in Filipino. In fact, I would not have written it if not for a midterm requirement for FILITWO (Filipino 2) in which I got a 4.0, thank you very much. I later on submitted it to the 14th DLSU Literary Awards and it would tie for second place with Johannes Chua's short story. There was no first place winner. I was by then a sophomore.

That was how it made it to the Malate Literary Folio. Because of the Litawards, I mean. I was never a writer for Malate. I tried out for the magazine in my freshman year but did not make the cut. I was depressed for a few weeks then joined the Writers Guild. Perhaps the Malate rejection played a significant part in my young writer's life because this was the time when I threw myself full force on anything that would improve my writing. The same year as the Malate rejection, both my essays won in the annual litawards, first place and honorable mention.

If I have to mention names, I should mention Rommel Fuentebella, WG's president when I was a freshman. It might have been because he was friends with Nuna or it might have been because he saw the raw potential in me, but it was him who took me under his wing and painstakingly read and critiqued my works when I didn't even think my works were worth anyone's time to read. In my junior year, I would be WG's president and hopefully had helped other young writers find their way somehow.

Thus, the only articles I had that were published in Malate were in the Litawards issues. This actually proved fatal during my junior year when I was nominated in the Student Awards as The Best Creative Writer. One of the judges pointed out that I had too few publications in Malate, it being the university's official literary magazine and all. This was already after the awards night so I wasn't able to defend myself anymore. Nobody won, by the way. I then wondered briefly if they even noticed that I had national publications. Those, apparently, were not enough. I had to have published more in Malate.

So there. Please don't say that I was a writer of Malate because I never was. It might have caused me certain things (awards, for instance, and I looooove awards. I'm needy that way.) but if there's any organization that should take credit or criticism for the writer that I've become, it's the Writers Guild and not Malate.

This might seem like a bitter entry to some but let me assure you that it's not. I just thought I would finally clear things up to everyone who has assumed and/or wondered about me and Malate.

I Am Not Happy by Paulo Coelho

 I was chatting with Evonne yesterday after about 14 years (more than half of our lives!) of not seeing nor hearing from each other. We were classmates in grades 5 and 6 and since I was a school-hopper, we never really got the chance to catch up on each other after grade school graduation except for maybe a couple of letters during the first few years. She's now based in Shanghai and we planned to meet up once I get my ass down there. Anyway, I got this article from her blog. Although Paulo Coelho is not exactly one of my favorite novelists, I found the article quite interesting, thus the repost. You may read her blog (which in my opinion is also very well-written) by clicking this.


I am not happy
by Paulo Coelho

A comment that is very often heard in interviews is: “ ... and now that you
are a happy person ...”, which provokes the immediate reaction: “Did I say I was
happy?”

I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal
objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have
done what I felt like doing. That is why I was admitted three times to a
psychiatric clinic, spent a few terrifying days in the dungeons of Brazil’s
military dictatorship, and just as quickly lost and won friends and girlfriends.
I walked down paths that, if I could turn back, I might avoid today, yet
something always pushed me forward, and it certainly was not the quest for
happiness. What interests me in life is curiosity, challenges, the good fight
with its victories and defeats. I bear many a scar, but I also carry with me
moments that never would have happened if I had not dared beyond my limits. I
confront my fears and moments of loneliness, and I think that a happy person
never goes through this.

But that is of the least importance: I am
content. And contentedness is not exactly a synonym of happiness, which to me
seems like a dull Sunday afternoon without any challenges, just rest that in a
couple of hours grows into tedium, the same evening television programs, the
prospect of Monday waiting with its routine.

I mention all this because
I was surprised by the long leading article in one of the most prestigious
magazines in the United States that is normally dedicated to political matters.
The theme was: “The science of happiness: is it in our genetic system?” Aside
from the usual things (tables of happier or less happy countries, sociological
studies on man’s search for a meaning to life, eight steps to finding harmony),
the article includes some interesting observations that for the very first time
made me see that I am not alone in my ideas:

A] - countries where
income is under US$ 10,000 a year are countries where the majority of the
population is unhappy. However, it was discovered that from that figure upwards,
monetary difference is not all that important. A scientific study conducted on
the 400 richest persons in the United States shows that they are only slightly
happier than those who earn US$ 20,000. The logical consequence: of course,
poverty is something unacceptable, but the old saying that “money does not bring
happiness” is being proved in laboratories.

B] – happiness is just
another of the tricks that our genetic system plays on us to carry out its only
role, which is the survival of the species. So, to force us to eat or make love,
it is necessary to add an element called “pleasure”.

C] - however happy
people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the
prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.
This is also a subtle manifestation of the instinct of survival: at the moment
when everyone feels completely happy, no-one will dare to do anything different
and the world will stop evolving.

D] therefore, both on the physical
plane (eating, making love) and on the emotional plane (always wanting something
we do not have), the evolution of humanity has dictated one important and
fundamental rule: happiness cannot last. It will always be made of moments, so
we can never get comfortable in an armchair and just contemplate the
world.

Conclusion: better forget this idea of seeking happiness at any
cost and look for more interesting things like unknown seas, strangers,
provocative thoughts, risky experiences. Only in this way will we live our human
condition to the full and contribute to a more harmonious civilization at peace
with other cultures. Of course, everything has a price, but it is worth paying.

Life with Athletes

Being around athletes 24/7 made me notice that athletes have a certain walk. Male athletes, at least. It's like their arms are too long, or their shoulders too wide so their arms fall in a unique way. I'd always found something weird with the way athletes swing their arms while walking even before I came here but I thought this was just particular to basketball/volleyball players. Now I've made the conclusion that there is, what I would now term as, an athlete's walk.

Everyday at 4 in the afternoon, the players work out at the gym inside the compound. I've been meaning to go with them. I've even worked out a schedule in my mind. But as usual, the bed seems much more inviting than the treadmill.

Everyone always comments on how little I eat. Come on, I sit in front of the computer and laze in bed the whole day reading or sleeping. How can I even compare to them athletes? For the record, I think I have a big appetite which is somewhat hindered by the use of chopsticks. I always forget to bring my spoon and fork to the cafeteria. I'll bring them tonight and eat a lot. Hmp.

Another thing that being in close proximity with the team members entails is getting to know behind-the-scene controversies within the team. I'm now privy to a love triangle currently going on under my nose and I'm only too happy to observe the soap operatic plot. No I won't be writing about it. At least not until I have more details. :p

I've started working on my thesis again. This is good news. Somehow, the knowledge of the deadline looming over me is enough to scare me into writing. As much as I miss school, I do not want to take refresher courses which is what I'll have to do if I miss my deadline.

And now off to bed for my afternoon nap...

This is Home for Now

I'll be staying with the team in this semi-hotel for a little less than a month more. I love the fact that my room gets cleaned every single day without me having to lift a finger, that I turn the aircon on and off and not worry about electric bills and that if there's anything wrong I can just open my door and yell, "fuwuyuan" and somebody would come running to see what I want. I'm spoiled rotten....