Warped

The end of this hellish week is something I've looked forward to since Monday. The workload in itself was already something for the books, but I never really complain about such things. I just buckle down to work, do what I have to do, and immerse myself fully till completion and I'm satisfied that my work is more than satisfactory.

Last Tuesday, I was convinced to take part in a Filipino cultural presentation organized by a Filipina, L, here for the church she attends. It was only for an hour Thursday afternoon, and it ran smack into one of my classes. I also had a deadline that same afternoon. As I said, this was a very bad week for me. I had to say no. But you must have figured out by now that I changed my mind. Otherwise, I wouldn't be writing this.

I've never danced anything of cultural significance before. I went to a boy's school, and so there really wasn't any opportunity to do the Carinosa during our growing up years. But along with the fact that there's not too many of us Filipinos here relative to other ethnicities is the pressure, the demand, to be good Filipino boys and girls - which I don't really mind at all. I try to do my best in my studies because I want to, not so much because I'm Filipino. But if people see what I do as a corollary of my being Filipino, of my environment and the factors that shaped me, that's fine by me. Anyway, I'm still aware that it is incumbent on us to project a good image, if the opportunity presents itself.

With this nationalistic precept in mind, I finally said yes. It meant not showing up in my Thursday Management class. It meant finishing up the PDE problem set earlier than usual (or sacrificing sleeping time - a precious economic commodity nowadays) since I had to make time for the Carinosa dance practice. But hey, I thought, two dancing pairs will look better than a solitary pair. The new Pinoy guy is a freshie (duh), and I wouldn't put it on him to set aside time for this given his busy schedule while he's still adjusting to life here. The other older guys just didn't have the same motivation as I did. It then became my national duty to complete the second dancing pair.

We finally got to practice Wednesday night. We had less than 24 hours. It was my first time to do something like this. Why the organizer, L, told us about this only last Tuesday, we weren't able to ask anymore. We already said yes after all, and whether she just forgot or she decided to do all this on a whim, we had to give it our best shot.

It went okay actually. All along we thought our audience would be adults. We didn't know we would actually be presenting in front of kindergarten to 7th grade students in the school of L's church. Hey, less pressure. Some of the kids I think actually liked it. Hey, not bad for an amateur. Besides, I was finally able to wear the barong tagalog I've had with me since I came here.

BUT ALL THAT I'VE SAID SO FAR IS NOT REALLY THE POINT OF THIS WHOLE BLOG. I was just letting you into the setting :)

It was when L started her "lecture" on the Philippines. I figured it would be the usual talk on how the Philippines is on the other side of the globe, that the capital is Manila, yadda yadda yadda. Which is fine by me. The school wanted a special focus on Asian countries this school year, which is a mighty fine decision by me. It would probably help give these kids a wider perspective regarding international dynamics eventually, especially since whether misguided or not, a lot of us believe that Americans think there is no world outside their 50 states.

So L mentioned the Spanish Ferdinand Magellan as the one who "discovered" the Philippines. Only problem is, he's Portuguese. Okay, I guess that's forgivable. Then eventually he returned, except that it was really Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. Hmm. Okaaay. But then I thought that sometimes you could still transcend the details of history and still retain an appreciation of the events. Like, would the significance of Magellan's arrival be diminished if it was on March 15, 16 or 17? I don't think so. So I guess this lapse was still forgivable.

I've always had a bone to pick with the "discovery" by Magellan of the Philippines. Sorry I can't quote sources now, but some nationalists are of the point of view that the choice of the word "discovery" is unfortunate, is inappropriate, since the occupants of the "Philippines" then (quotations due to the fact that it wasn't really a country yet back then), definitely have more bragging rights to such a lofty title. So Magellan as "discoverer" is a Eurocentric notion. But hey, it's our history, and it ought to be written with our point of view. So Magellan simply "re-discovered" the Philippines, which is still no good. About this, Teodoro Agoncillo said to Ambeth Ocampo, "Gago ka rin pala eh! Do you know what you are saying? Did the Philippines disappear under the sea and come up again for Magellan to rediscover it? How can you rediscover what is not lost?"

Anyway, it could just be a matter of semantics. L was a product of the way history was taught in the day. I couldn't really blame her for that. I probably was just being picky. But hey, Teodoro Agoncillo rocks!

Back to the Philippine lecture. She then showed pictures of people getting nailed to the cross on Good Friday. The usual blood and gore. The works. Then she went on saying that people in the Philippines believe they have to do this so their sins would be forgiven. Note that the audience consists of kids as young as 5 years old.

A toddler asked if we had dogs back home in the islands. Cute question really, coming from a 5 year old. Yes, L said. However, we don't have clinics for them. Dogs are not really taken care of. Again, the audience consists of kids as young as 5 years old.

Pictures taken from some of the rice terraces in northern Philippines were shown too, and indigenous people in their native attire. L mentioned that some people have their own dresses, but people elsewhere wear normal attire.

People in the Philippines are poor. A lot don't eat three times a day. Some people live in houses where there are no toilets. Short of saying we are a nation of mendicants.

And I'm also just tired of this notion that the Philippines is the 3rd largest English speaking nation in the world, after the US and UK. Unless somebody shows me hard proof, I'm going to continue treating this as a national myth. Where do Australia and Canada come in?

The assertion that we're the only Christian nation in Asia used to be true for a long time, until Timor Leste came of age. But for the love of God, our being the only (or one of two) Christian nation doesn't mean we're the only ones who believe in God.

And there were others. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseaum. I was stressed enough with schoolwork. I decided the stress I was getting from listening to this lecture was something I didn't deserve, so I discreetly went out of the room. Muttering inside. Once in a while I'd go back in, but I'd find myself sighing heavily with frustration and making my way out the back door again. Muttering again.

I've never heard this much political incorrectness, historical inaccuracy, national insecurity and colonial subservience squeezed in 30 minutes, peddled as truth in front of impressionable kids.

One of the other Filipinos there, A, was in the back. I had to let it out, so I told her. It was a relief to know that she was also thinking of the same things as I was. It explained the sour look on her face. It didn't help that the "lecture" was peppered with a lot of "information" that, let's face it, is just not relevant to a 6-year old kid. You can't overwhelm them with facts. It will just be lost on them. What's worse it that these kids, we felt, would leave the lecture with nothing else but the notion that the Philippines is this very backward country, where people do all these strange things, that there's nothing beyond the squalor, the poverty, the despair that envelops an overwhelming lot. That America is the land of the free, the great, the best. That everywhere else, people and their norms are inferior to the American way.

I've been reflecting on why this happened. I'm sure L loved the Philippines. That's why I and my other Filipino friends agreed to help because we believed in her goal of letting others know more about her country of birth. That's why I decided to make this sacrifice of helping out. It hurt that at the end of it all, I couldn't shrug off the feeling that it might have been better if the presentations that day didn't push through at all. Better that they didn't know about the Philippines at all. Scary thought. Or at least, NOT THIS WAY. This was one big slap on the face.

Two years ago, the 6-year old daughter of a friend asked me a strange question. Now, this daughter was born here in the US. She asked me if I slept in a soft bed instead of a wooden bed. I said yes. She replied, I must have been very rich. What made her say that, I asked. It's because her dad (my friend) told her that he used to sleep on a bed made of rattan and bamboo. After some prodding, I realized that her dad's stories were told in the context of making her appreciate the luxuries and blessings she was getting (probably when she wouldn't eat her veggies). You could probably imagine her dad telling her that when he was young, he went to school in sandals (gasp, not shoes) and slept in beds made of wood (gasp, without a mattress). Unfortunately, she ended up getting this impression that there is nothing beyond the poverty we have in the Philippines. Yeah, the Philippines is poor. I'm not disputing that. But you have to be careful with impressionable kids, who can't help but see things in black and white.

I'm no absolute romantic in the sense that, hey, I do know where we are in the economic pecking order of the world. I do know that it's senseless to just gloss over our national shortcomings, since ignoring them won't solve them. In short, we all have to admit and acknowledge where we have room for improvement (should be spacious conference halls - yeah, that big, hahaha), where other countries dominate us. But not to the point that we let these limitations define us.

Is this a product of our colonial insecurity? A consequence of our history of subservience to other nations? Perhaps. It's probably also why we always have this need to prove ourselves. Remember the lunar rover and the fluorescent lamp? Now, I don't intend to demean the outstanding things some of our compatriots have done in international competitions, but without giving specifics, I feel like the manner in which we as a nation derive pride from these is akin to bragging about the time we got a perfect score in our spelling quiz in fourth grade during a job interview. C'mon! Can't we hold ourselves up to higher standards? Why do we as a nation have to strive to be "pang-world class" for its own sake when we can just do our darndest best for the sake of improving ourselves (and consequentially, be truly world-class)? Why do we have to feel this need to be able to stand beside others? Is it because the only way we can look at them is by looking up?

This reminds me of the IMSCF Syndrome. When some Filipinos here are asked what they are, the response always has to be "I'm Spanish, Chinese, Filipino." Punyeta! Why can't you just say you're Filipino? Don't get me wrong. If you really ARE of Spanish and Chinese lineage, then this syndrome doesn't apply to you. The bone I have to pick with this syndrome is, if you don't have such lineage, why do you need to make a false claim on your ancestry, as if your being Filipino can't stand on its own - that you have to seemingly justify your self worth by laying claim to such ethnic forgery by reason of historical association?

I had to get this out of my system. I acknowledge that L's heart was in the right place, that people see things very differently sometime. Last Thursday was a good example of this. Although, yeah, I know, it's easier to criticize than to actually do something. I admit that if she asked me to do the lecture myself, I really would have said no. She probably didn't want to burden us anymore with preparing a presentation, given that she only informed us last Tuesday evening and the dance was Thursday after lunch. But still, if she decided she was going to do it, she had a responsibility to do it well.