I'm Not Happy (not by Paulo Coelho)

I'm not happy.

I haven't been really happy since that morning when I got that phonecall. I think that switched off the I'm-in-a-foreign-country-and-am-having-loads-of-fun euphoria feeling and switched on the I-just-want-something-stable-to-hold-onto feeling in me. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to November more than I thought I would ever look forward to going home.

It's not even that I feel that I'd been treated shabbily. I harbor no grudge against anyone associated to that decision. I fully understand that it was not anyone's fault and that under the circumstances, I would still be considered lucky to have what I have. But the feeling of exhaustion stays.

And so by November I will be doing a lot of soul searching. Maybe I need only a whiff of Manila's humid and densely polluted air to make me want to come back to foreign shores. Maybe the at times unbearable noise in a house jampacked with warm bodies will do it. I still don't know. We'll have to wait and see.

All I know is that at the moment, I could be happier.

Fishies

Because I couldn't get enough of them fishies, I also took a video of them. You can hear me on the background whining about my camera running out of power.

Kunshan, 23-24 Sept 2006

We went on an overnight trip to Kunshan, a neighboring city. We visited some temples where taking pictures were not allowed, a rock exhibit and an old house. Of course I couldn't follow what the guide was saying. Sigh.

Zhejiang Day 4: QianDao

QianDao means Thousand Islands. Basically, we went island hopping.

There was an island with different kinds of locks on exhibit. Thousands and thousands of locks in different shapes and sizes. Then there was another island with thousands and thousands of fish in little ponds. Wait, no that wasn't an island. It was like a boat. Anyway, those fish were very hungry. I'll also upload a short video of them later.

Then there was an island with different kinds of birds. One of our hosts gave me a small packet of bird food. Coach WangYueFang said, "I'll take your picture while the birds feed on your hand." I said, "That would be great!" I went in, the birds flew all over me: my hair, my clothes, everywhere! I screamed and screamed and screamed. Then I threw the little packet so they'd stop coming near me. I think I discovered that day that I don't like birds when they're not in their cages. No, let me rephrse that. I don't like them when I'm also in their cage.

And then we took a cable car to another island where we can see views of the many islands nearby. Coach WangYiFu had to sign thousands and thousands of autographs and pose with thousands and thousands of strangers who wanted his picture. The price of fame...

This is the last of the Zhijiang series. There should have been a day 5 but my camera ran out of power the morning of day 4 and I was stupid enough not to bring my charger. I wasn't able to take pictures of our gondola-like mode of transportation, or the house of LuShun, a famous writer, and many other things which are all a blur now.

On Nicole

I've been following the Subic rape case since I first read about it. Almost a year has passed and the investigation is still underway. Below are two column articles by Rina Jimenez-David. The first is a recent article published today. The other was published about two months ago.


AT LARGE

Open letter to Nicole


By Rina Jimenez-David

Inquirer

Last updated 00:26am (Mla time) 09/22/2006

Published on Page A13 of the September 22, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IF
Staff Sergeant Chad Carpentier had thought that by depicting the
Filipina complainant in the Subic rape case as a “professional” rather
than an innocent victim he had succeeded in destroying her credibility,
then he has another think coming.

In the first place, it is immaterial whether Nicole is, in street
lingo, a “working girl” or just a tourist caught in a risky situation.
If she did not consent to sex, or was too inebriated to have given her
consent, then it was rape pure and simple. It matters not whether she
had previous sexual experience, or even a genital infection, as a
defense lawyer sneakily insinuated in his line of questioning.

Then, too, even if Carpentier and his buddies had “in good faith”
associated with and carted off Nicole believing that she was a
prostitute, he still has a lot of explaining to do. In the first place,
the US Defense Department has already announced a “zero tolerance”
policy on the solicitation of sexual favors by US servicemen. But the
sergeant, as the most senior of the four accused, not just tolerated
the assault, he even, by some accounts, joined in cheering on his good
buddy, Daniel Smith, while the latter was having sex with Nicole in the
back seat of a van.

It’s also telling that defense lawyers believed that by besmirching
Nicole and having her labeled as a “professional,” they were destroying
whatever support and sympathy she was getting from the public.
Apparently, too, they believed that nobody would question the motives
of the four Marines who were inside a bar, plying a woman with drinks
then carrying her off in the dead of night. I guess this is because
society still believes that men have a “natural right” to solicit and
enjoy sexual favors, that they are “natural (and inevitable)
predators.” Indeed, many people, women included, have tended to point
the finger of blame at Nicole, saying she had asked for it because she
had been careless and had let her guard down.

I once wrote that “we are all Nicole.” This may be truer than we
think. Apparently, to deduce from Carpentier’s statement, they felt
free to take liberties with Nicole because they believed she was a
prostitute. And this simply illustrates, as an editorial in another
paper stated, that to American men, “all Filipinas are prostitutes.”

* * *

THE Women’s Crisis Center, the first local NGO (non-government
organization) established to provide shelter, counseling and training
to women and children victims of violence, has written an “open letter”
to Nicole in the wake of her tumultuous experiences, not at the hands
of her rapists, but at the hands of her public prosecutors.

This is an English translation of the original written in Filipino. The letter follows in full:

We, the women of the Women’s Crisis Center, express our strong support and unity with your cause.

The Women’s Crisis Center is a private organization that gives
comprehensive and sensitive services to women and children victims of
violence. From our 17 years of solidarity with victims of violence
against women, we understand that you are facing a difficult time. Not
many women have found the inner strength to confront the legal system.
We all know that this is complicated and fraught with difficulties
especially for the rape victims. It’s not just your case that is being
tried but also your honor and your entire person.

Our society has a long way to go before it can fully understand
victims of violence like you and render real justice and healing. We
also know that it must hurt you to see the people whom you had hoped
would defend you are now the same ones attacking you and your family.

Despite all the accusations hurled at you, we continue to believe
that you were the victim in this case. We admire you for the
steadfastness and inner strength that you have shown in the midst of
this very difficult process that you are going through.

We stand ready to offer our understanding, sympathy and support to
you in your struggle. Even if you don’t prevail in court, you will
still be vindicated in the eyes of women and before the entire Filipino
nation.

AT LARGE

We are all Nicole
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer
Last updated 01:58am (Mla time) 07/08/2006

Published on Page A13 of the July 8, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

DURING
THE RECENT OBSERVANCE OF Philippine-American Friendship Day, there was
no lack of commentators pointing out the irony that the No. 1 “example”
of Fil-Am relations today is the ongoing trial for the rape of a young
Filipina by four US Marines.

Even as the country’s high and mighty were trooping through security
check-points at the US Embassy for the Fourth of July celebration,
lawyers on both sides of the case were prepping for the testimony of
“Nicole,” the 22-year-old native of Zamboanga who has accused four US
servicemen of rape during a vacation in Subic.

What Nicole had to say corroborated much of what had already been
said by others. But since the story was coming directly from her, it
must have been so much more dramatic and poignant from a first-person
point of view. In fact, Nicole is reported to have broken down four
times in the course of her three-hour testimony.

Her story conveys a lot of the confusion she must have felt at the
club that night, especially since she admits to having had one drink
too many. She said she remembers dancing with some servicemen, some of
whom looked familiar to her while others were total strangers, and then
being dragged out of the club by a Marine she identified as Cpl. Daniel
Smith, the same man she identified as later “lying on top of me … (and)
kissing me.”

* * *

WHEN the story first broke out last November, observers raised
questions about Nicole’s “innocence,” asking what a nice girl like her
was doing inside a club, drinking heavily and dancing with American
soldiers.

During her testimony Thursday, Nicole attempted to explain the level
of comfort she felt with American servicemen and why she had let her
guard down that night. She was used to hanging around with American
soldiers, she explained, and was in fact managing the canteen her
family owned inside a military camp, which was frequented by American
soldiers taking part in military exercises. “We treated them like
family. We treat them well so that they will not feel homesick,” she
explained.

So comfortable were she and her family around American soldiers that
when she and two of her sisters were invited by a family friend, US
Navy Petty Officer Christopher Mills, to a vacation in Subic, they
agreed to go, though they insisted on paying for their plane fare.

Other Filipinas might be leery of being seen with American
servicemen, especially in Subic and Olongapo, for fear of being
mistaken for sex workers. But Nicole had no such prejudice or reason to
fear the Americans. Mingling and making friends with soldiers were
normal for her, and since no one had abused the friendship they
offered, she had no reason to keep them at arm’s length. So when a
Marine she didn’t know grabbed her arm and asked her to dance with him,
she agreed but only after Mills silently nodded—a signal that she could
trust the Marine.

* * *

IN A REPORT in this paper, Dr. June Pagaduan-Lopez, who provides
counseling support for Nicole and her family, surmised that Nicole may
have found the testimony “painful” not only because it forced her to
re-live the events of that night but also because “she felt betrayed.”

Was Nicole in fact naïve in the extreme in traveling to Subic at the
invitation of a serviceman friend? Was she reckless in downing drink
after drink offered by Mills to her and her sister while they were out
having a good time? And could her possibly inebriated state have led
the accused Marines to believe she was willing to have sex with one—or
all—of them?

As far as I know, naiveté is not a crime, nor is recklessness. And
if every young woman who gets soused and wasted in the course of a good
time deserves to be raped, then we would rack up rape statistics far
worse than South Africa’s.

Doesn’t Nicole’s story just make you want to tear up? In many ways,
we are all like Nicole in our relations with Americans: naïve, trusting
in their innate goodness, blind to their human frailties—or
geo-political pragmatism, but, unlike Nicole, intimidated into silence
and passivity.

True, our relations with the United States have undergone a major
revamp through the decades, especially after the termination of the
bases agreement. But even today, in crafting our foreign policies and
in interpreting the Visiting Forces Agreement, we tend to bend over
backwards to accommodate the Americans, and rush to satisfy their
demands and interests.

* * *

THANKS to the policy of benevolent assimilation, Filipinos of this
and previous generations have always related to Americans and the
American government in much the same way that Nicole and her family
dealt with the American servicemen frequenting their canteen.

We assumed they could be trusted. We believed that they had our
interests in mind when they asked us to be their allies. And even when
we were led into dangerous ventures—such as sending troops to Korea,
Vietnam and Iraq—we justified the risk by saying we would at least be
amply compensated by our wealthier friends.

And when they abused our hospitality—by locking Filipinos out of our
own territory, as they did with the bases they maintained; and aiding,
abetting and even financing the growth of sex industry centers
clustered around the bases—we still looked the other way and said that
in the long term, we benefited economically from the bases.

We did have our “Nicole-moment.” That day when the Philippine Senate
voted to reject the RP-US bases agreement. But even that resounding
victory for the nationalist cause would ultimately be eroded by the VFA
and the continuing presence of the American military on our soil. Which
just goes to show that when Americans want to f—k with you, they’ll f—k
you any which way.

Zhejiang Day 3: Xihu, Hangzhou

On our third day, we went to a pagoda that's said to have a white snake trapped under it.

Tsinoy.com

http://tsinoy.com/
Tsinoy, the suggested politically correct term to refer to Filipinos of Chinese descent, comes from the words Tsino and Pinoy. As the URL suggests, this site contains all things Tsinoy, and then some.

On a slightly related note, my googling has extended to baiduing. Baidu.com is the preferred search engine by most of my Chinese friends. Once, Xiao Ding was trying to find my website by searching it through Baidu. He didn't find it. The search result had something very interesting though. Interesting to me at least. I found this: http://bbs1.beiwaionline.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=next_topic;f=3;t=000870;go=older

I wrote "The Language of My Dreams" when I was 21 and it was published in Tulay, a magazine funded by Kaisa Foundation with Chinese Filipinos as its target readers. It was also translated into Chinese (traditional Chinese as that is what's more common in the Philippines) and published in the Chinese newspaper World News (which my mom reads, by the way). It's nice to find it again after all these years.

The Tide

We went to this place to watch the tide. They can actually predict what time the tide will come, and it comes twice a day. This particular tide is called one-line tide, or something like that. I was disappointed to see that it was not really in a straight line. I can no longer remember where exactly this is.

Zhejiang Day 2: Haining City

On the second day, we went to the neighboring city, Haining and visited one of the tourist places there: the house of Xu Zhi Mo, a famous poet. It reminded me of ancestral houses in southern Philippines.

After that, we went somewhere (it's all becoming a blur now) to watch the tide. You may also watch a video of that tide in my video section.

Zhejiang Day 1: New Century Hotel, Hangzhou

We were out of town from September 12 to 16. We stayed in a hotel in HangZhou, about two hours away from Shanghai by car. We were in the hotel the whole day for the first day. We were given 200RMB worth of stubs each to spend on whatever services the hotel offered. I spent my 100RMB on a whole body massage during the day.

At night, we had dinner with the mayor, then went to a KTV wherein I sang a song with him (see Nuna, our mayor is not the only one who parties), and danced with so many people (kinda like ballroom dancing so I just allowed myself to get dragged) that I don't know how many feet I stepped on nor how many times my feet were stepped on.

After the KTV, Anthony, XiaoDing and I had a foot massage then a whole body massage (again, for me). It turned out that Anthony had more than 600RMB worth of them stubs because a coach gave him his share, or something like that. We went to bed at around 3am. Two body massages and one foot massage in a day. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that would happen.

Welcome Me Home!

I have decided to go home. For now.

I figured it must be time. For after all, isn't home where one goes to when one is exhausted by the day's events? When one needs to hear the familiar voices of family and friends? When one longs for the sweet embrace of small limbs impatiently awaiting one's return?

I have considerably calmed down after the initial shock of losing my job. I suppose this would be the best time to go home. I'll be avoiding winter, for one. Plus my thesis deadline is fast approaching. I am still deadset on finishing it on time.

As soon as I've made the decision, I cannot help but daydream about being met at the airport, having Jolly spaghetti, fishballs, manggang hilaw with bagoong, tinola, etc., trips to the beach, watching plays, shopping at SM Valenzuela which was not yet open when I left, hanging out in coffeeshops with friends, oh the list goes on and on...

But then there'd be the heat again. And the traffic. And the noise. Oh well. Home is home. And what's so great about it is that it's always there whenever you need it. And right now I think I need it.

Start planning my surprise welcome party (ies?), people! I promise to act surprised. :D

Meeting Evonne after 13 years

We arrived in Shanghai on a Saturday. The next day, I met up with Evonne and her boyfriend Fred for dinner. XiaoDing came with me so I wouldn't get lost. Shanghai is huge.

XiaoDing and I left the training camp early so we'd have time to look around before the scheduled meeting time. We were wandering aimlessly in the malls until I suggested that we should just find a bookstore. He said he was just thinking that. So off we went to the bookstore which sadly did not have a wide selection of English books. I bought a History of Philosophy book, he bought a collection of Japanese short stories (which I told him he would enjoy but I wasn't really sure) and something else I don't remember.

I warned Xiao Ding that we'd probably be talking in Filipino most of the time. He protested with a "Why?" "So you wouldn't understand," I teased him. "You're so bad. Your friend can speak Chinese," having earlier told him that Evonne's Chinese is sooooo good. I said, "Yes but MY Chinese isn't that good." "But it's ok. It's already ok." "Let's see."

Upon meeting Evonne and Fred, Xiao Ding had to ask Fred if he was Chinese. Fred told him to guess and Xiao Ding said he really couldn't tell. So finally Fred told him he was born and raised in the Philippines. "That's why I was wondering why you could speak Filipino so well." We had to laugh at that.

"Kawil" at the Bookfair

"Kawil" seems to have a life of its own. Pia, a good friend from college, saw a write up for it here (right sidebar): http://www.panitikan.com.ph/ so I immediately investigated. I thought it was about the DLSU staging but was pleasantly surprised that it's actually a different event.

For the lazy:

DLSU PISTANG PANITIK EVENTS



The Bienvenido N. Santos Creative
Writing Center

De La Salle University-Manila



presents



From Page to Stage



featuring



HARLEQUIN THEATER GUILD



&



MALATE LITERARY FOLIO



in



KAWIL



by Joni Cham



Director: Alison Segarra



&



KUWENTONG BUTSERO



by Johannes Chua



Director: Joshua Lloyd So



Writers Guild and Literature Circle
will also perform some poetry readings



Sunday, 03 September 2006, 2:30 –
4:00 p.m.



The 27th Manila International Book
Fair



World Trade Center Manila, Pasay City


While I am truly grateful to the people at Harlequin for resurrecting my short story from the pages of Malate where I'm sure it was buried, forgotten and well, almost dying, I would have loved to hear from them about things like these, instead of finding out from secondary sources. Well, first I'm happy for myself as you all know how this feeds my narcissistic tendencies. But I'm happy for them too and I thought hey, we could be happy together! Why why why am I once again not informed about this?

Anyway, if you're not too busy on Sunday, you might want to pass by the bookfair and watch. Okay, I'm almost down on my knees here. Go watch! Please? I would really, really appreciate it if you do. And I'd appreciate it even more if you write a review.

For pictures and discussions on its DLSU staging, click here: http://thejonastory.multiply.com/photos/album/21

You may also read a little about it here: http://sanapakaininmoko.multiply.com/journal/item/83

and here: http://sanapakaininmoko.multiply.com/journal/item/96