STILL ON EDUCATION

By: Iris P. Concepcion

One thing that I am truly impressed about Yala is its abundance of educational establishments.

My sister-in-law had invited me to the Coliseum, a lavender-themed mall, for a pizza treat which was quite a fill. People here do not eat much parmesan cheese and we smothered our slices with this favorite condiment. I finished only one slice and my soda was refilled often. I had to beg off from further servings.

We passed by a school and fetched my brother. An argument ensued between the couple.

It is not an ordinary brick-brat of senseless innuendos and lowdown discussion. They were comparing the amenities of their respective schools and were competing who shall build taller and better educational structures. I was secretly laughing on the sideline. My brother's classrooms have Bravia television sets even as I posed my dilemma about its classroom designs. I like his futuristic clock though. I had observed that the institutions here have separate departments for their English curriculum even on the elementary level. They have come prepared for the future. Their King has done enormous groundwork to arm its citizens with literacy. I applaud that kind of track.

Not to be outdone, my sister-in-law pointed at a huge structure with blue roof and voraciously (in good tone) said: "That is a school too!"

I was silently rejoicing when I saw young men and women being tutored in restaurants at the corner junctions. I have likewise seen this in Malaysia; their kids are likewise home-schooled, aside from getting formal educational training.

My sister-in-law's university is in the process of building mall-like libraries and classrooms. It has its own stadium, with spacious football fields. Everywhere you turn to here, you see schools and schools and nothing but schools. School buses have students; motorcycles are driven by the youth as a means of transportation to get their education. Seldom can you see here idle people talking about the underwear colors of their neighbors. They have bigger pursuits to follow.

I was told that even after finishing college, the Thai government still supports its graduates by finding jobs for them or should they need further training, they are sent abroad to obtain their masteral or doctorate degrees. Travelling to them is not a burden; it is always adjunct to the nobler purposes of learning.

I commented to my brother that this is quite a staid and formal environment but had expressed profusely that I am impressed by its openness to designs in its government facilities.

I felt proud that Filipinos are doing this abroad. In silent disposition, I had vowed that our own would be as open as this country is to all avenues of teaching methods. Giving our teachers their just due is a start. Exposing them to better facilities is another I would rather that people shout and yelp about educational upliftment than talk insensible things about neighbors' concerns.

You create an open-minded society by being tolerant to opposing views. Only education can equalize the highly charged tensions brought about by areas in deeply-seated, conviction conflicts.

As we rode in the motorcycle returning to the house, I was still wearing a smile on my face. A couple engaged in different schools are outdoing each other in the field of teaching.

That is the kind of competition that I yearn for.

EXPERIENCING TURKEY IN MALAYSIA AND OTHER PLACE COLLABORATIONS

By: Iris P. Concepcion

H.G. Well's Back To The Future which was turned into a film starring the very amiable and energetic Michael J. Fox is peculiar in one sense. This literary blueprint for exceptional sci-fi writing was perhaps created by an author who had stayed in trains for 100 days. The gargling snippets of creations snap back in this wonderful vehicle that may be launched as writing, thinking pads.

Everytime I step on the tracks and choose which coach to rest my butt on, I cease to be the writer that I am and become the writer squired by Guy Ritchie's cast.

My hosts (my family) provided a date for me to have my Visa extended at the Royal Thai Embassy. The nearest to their place is the Royal Thai Consulate-General located at Kota Bharu in Malaysia. Yala is situated in the southern part of Thailand and a border separates it from Malaysia.

I heeded their advice and experienced another world leafed through in rich, cascading celluloid metaphors. Once you decide to become a citizen of the world, you must think like H.G. Wells and stay aloft.

The processing was fast and the staff, veritably courteous. I had nonetheless retained the wonderful potpourri of creatures whom I had met and talked to for worthwhile remembrances.

Malaysia has business hours even on Sundays. I had learned this from an insurance guy who gave me directions on where to exchange baht to ringgit (Malaysia's currency). One ringgit is equivalent to ten baht. Ecliptically, he asked me if I came from the Philippines. I wondered superfluously how he had guessed it. He replied that he could glean it from my accent.

I did not know that my English is Filipinized and I am proud of myself for bearing this distinction. I told him, in jest, that I came from Pluto. I bid my friendly farewell and followed his instructions from the viewpoint of a traffic light.

Kota Bharu's residents can understand and speak English. I stayed in a hotel called Milton which reminded me so much of the poet John Milton. It is like an American outback saloon weaved through a Wong Kar Wai reel.

The mystic/Just a dough's throw away/From Barney/ Pacific realm/Gorgeously illuminated.

The Visa needs to be collected a day after the application, hence, the time in between, I spent on timely discoveries.

Kota Bharu's main market is a mixture of Mediterranean allure and the bouyancy of America's mall craze. Parkson, a superlative-magnet mall as seen from the outside, provides a seamless and mind-retaining design on top. Shaped like an egg (colored in green stripes), it faces a Muslim-inspired building where various fruits are sold. Its mangoes are like the size of a bartender's arms. Enormous.

This place is a culturally wonderful mix of engineering ideas. These are well-built and one can certainly recall the various James Bond movie scenes, shrank in one corner. Gladiators might have fought inside the coliseums in their friendly trade battles to compete for the purses of the consumers. That is the theme of their markets.

This is the magic carpet, playfully arranged through my retinas, capturing the various food choices. If this is a market, I wonder how creatively engaging their public parks can get.

I immediately felt pangs of poignancy for Quiapo; its dark corners and underground trades. It can be improved with this line of urban planning. Instead of toppling down old, historical buildings, Kota Bharu's urban designers incorporate reverse modernity by restoring the old, architectural make on top of their buildings and designing the ground area with H.G. Wells in mind.

McDonald's here is, thankfully, corporate relevant. Its various flyers are even politically sensitive, dispensing leaflets on how to cure people with harelip problems. Their advertisements are suffused with world concerns. I embrace consumerism this way. I totally agree with the dynamics of businesses. Giving back to society is a must component though, for me to be able to wax poetry about it. I had met here a guy with his backpack and strolling bag looking for Wisma Hotel, after the dawnbreak. He reminds me of the guy who had walked along Ateneo de Manila belt with his space age backpack.

This city teaches, in a way, how to develop without spitting on the sanctity of History.

If one could not espouse minimalism, then, use the sprawling spaces with tact and respect for our ancestral lineages. I am happy to note that while vast outside, Parkson instills the minimalist concept inside. One quaint sight: when tired of walking, one can pay 1 to 3 ringgit for a chance to be Bill Gates with its array of lounge-like CEO chairs. A Sit For A Fee. I saw two guys reading newspapers in this area.

The fruit area is built like a coliseum. Spacious and airy, it emits a Turkey vibe. This could be a place where Jesus can enter dramatically, advising merchants on the biblical tenets of trade. First commandment: Thou shall not shortchange thy customers.

With enough astuteness of mind, one can even become a member of monarchy here. Its gold is wild. Combing the Turkey-Minnesota collaboration of city development, it offers something new to the purchasing capacity of people.

The hotel owner, a well-read Chinese-Malaysian who had provided me the structure of Malaysian government/monarchy, had told me that it only takes eight hours to reach the city of Kuala Lumpur by car and "or about 6 hours, depending on how fast a driver you are." He asked me about Noynoy Aquino. He knows Cory Aquino and referred to my President as "the son."

In this wide mix of encounters, one needs to buy things too. I was given a budget of 1,300 baht(P1,300.00) including fare and accommodation but had so far, used it in a wiser manner, with deeper psyche repercussions in discovering places and people. Curiously, it likewise gives me newer perspectives about the Philippines. I look at posts, water tanks, cables and how they build them here.

Now, for the loot.

My purchases: Two deodorants for male and female smelling like heaven at 14 ringgit. Cadburry's huge size of chocolates at 8 ringgit. Shakes and donuts do not go beyond 4 ringgit as you eat them inside an Istanbul-like locale. I had KFC chicken for lunch that are apportioned like sumo thighs. I had extra to bring back to Yala. Platter costs 8 ringgit, with mashed potato. Thai food is similar to Malaysian food and Yala offers that kind of exciting variety. I saved my adventurous palate in favor of the American comfort food this time.

I finally got my extended Visa and the amiable staff remained respectful. I was seated beside a silent white guy waiting for his turn and where an inch of comedy was had between two, nodding admirers of well-crafted sentences. He said, "where else can you go if you only had one week to discover Thailand." I am paraphrasing but if he is the reincarnate of Alex Garland, I would not be lost. A group of men likewise dropped by, looking through glass doors, rolling some eyes in Keithian (not Keatsian) manner.

On my way back, I befriended a chubby fellow who told me he is from Singapore. He was carrying a strolling bag. I had a nicer coach this time that you pay for 81 baht. It has airplane-like seats. I was chatting joyfully with him as he spills off to me his route like an adventure. He said he also likes travelling in speedy trains. A very happy fellow who took pictures of train stops. I told him why he hopped into the rail. He said it is faster. We exchanged notes on prices. He told me where to get the even cheaper way to get to Malaysia after crossing the border. A happy man with a happy disposition. He is heading for Haad Yai merely for the experience of riding its speed train, going to Bangkok.

I felt like I am the character Saul of Road Trip being made a repository of all these creative munchies.

He told me that he hasn't been to Song Koluk (train stop over) in 40 years. Imagine the untold pages of stories in his own journeys. He said he went around the mountains and just hopped into the train. I laughed with him.

During my clearance at Thai immigration at the border, a bossanova click happened. The baby whom I had described as ridiculously gorgeous (like a doll; curly-haired, bluest of the bluest eyes, plump and wide-eyed) appeared. Cuddled by his Mom, he yelped and gave me a piercing look as if breaking my skull. He is anomalously adorable. God should not make babies like that. It is not sensible. The RPN-9 perpetual baby has arrived and he looks much superior in person.

I had met the Immigration people and they too might have stories to tell. Their faces inspire words.

And yes, this piece is written in singular narrative.

I actually was with a woman who had told me better stories about herself and her sojourns. I shall allow her to write her own tale; she had been helpful and I had taught her only one thing: pack lightly. All our bills, we split in half.

She followed and told me she had a happy experience out of the switch.

And that, dear readers, is only for one day. Experience knows no boundaries, much more, time.

Seizing the experience alters an outlook, in a wheeze.

UNDERSTATED COMEDY

By: Iris P. Concepcion

One thing that I love about the environment in Thailand is its latent marriage with the wryly humorous.

I find myself always on the throes for small grins out of the peculiarity of people and their almost queer and strange ways of unimpeachable existentialism.

Right in the house, the clothes have gone into transformations. Earlier, I went to a place for suits just to modify my future, wardrobe outlook. The man on the post, a guru of fashion who had probably survived Burma, kept on giving me ill-fitting blazers. He kept on going on and on and on and on and I had to express my dismay over the cuts. I had picked one and it suited me just fine. He wrote down the prices as is the new trend catapulted to fame by this blogsite. I no longer minded him but he still kept on pointing at huge attires that do not fit me. I excreted a chortle. I did haggle, nonetheless. That is the reason why I did not look for words to translate in Thai first but to memorize its numbers.

There is a million-dollar-buck velvety blue blazer pegged at 120 baht and it looked priceless. It says Louvre on the tag with a small necklace (minus the chains) on it. It is just too short for my physique but it is a dazzling son-of-a-gunfabric. It looks like art. I chose the not so loud top, for easier matching.

I travel miniscule-ly light. But, as one of my forefathers had advised, you must at least bring one respectable business attire for interviews. Bill Gates might just be lurking in one corner and snatch you from oblivion to become Master Of The Chips. I went to this area once, a corner of car wheels sold and displayed in a very tasteful way. I saw here a Gap blazer looking like a jewel and vowed to return with a sealed purchase.

Besides, I have noticed that some of the vendors here are meticulously attired. I wanted to enter their mindsets. I had my photo taken by a guy in starched polo. He showed me his shots and some are just plain hilarious I had to stop myself from further commenting. I was not able to haggle for a lowered price but the end- product was as pristine.

I looked like myself and not just some frizzed bear.

I passed by Orientals slicing sirloins. One of the sellers was pegging it just below a hundred baht. I fancy he had resurrected himself as a tenor in an orchestra since he looked a hell lot like the late Rolando Tinio of the cultural scene.

Even the servings of Pizza Hut here are mass-friendly: huge and filled.

There is a woman who sells shrimps and she is called Maria.

I think these people had numbed themselves onto the idea of material excess and had channeled their energies into building great structures and novel ideas without thinking first of profit. I saw a mobile learning vehicle and its science school is equipped with new models of computers. These people are engaged in professions, worthy as they are to the calls of mentoring young kids, and they had sustained their families through this honorable means.

I love Thailand's "teleserye" television programs. Their news anchors talk like voracious declaimers with stage actions. Their studio backgrounds have flowers, the Alps and mountain ranges and they present news in veritable touch screens. I saw a woman who was interviewed for a news event. Changing her clothes, she was still the interviewee on the second news item. I presume she is a one-woman news catalogue.

I asked my brother if it is truly a news program: the anchor was speaking like a preacher as if talking to an herd of sheep. They are adventurous and it seems that they never follow any rules in creativity. I wish our own networks in the Philippines would be this less staid. They breed contented people, as I had observed here.

A chance and leap to the future and it is all good. Thinking out of the box is a reality here and the creative perpetrators swim to this niche like what fishes do in seas. It is natural, unburdened and automatic reflex.

I am still stitching together all the loops for a coherent wholeness to this kind of living but it does work in a weird, mutually beneficial way.

So far, I wish these things transposed to my country.

WAT CHANG HAI

By: Iris P. Concepcion

In my fluid state of loftiness en route to the city of Haad Yai, I saw a temple with huge elephants adorned with kaleidoscopic garlands gracing its gates. It is just a walking distance from Wat Chang Hai train station, a stop-over that looks like a prairie on a desert.

Wat Chang Hai's rail area is modernly built and is extremely striking for its visibly engaging aberration. It has the most fascinating line of comfort rooms, stuck in the middle of an agricultural terrain. It has mirrors on the outside with bottled liquid handwash. I vowed to return to this place. The mysterious appearance of a first-rate loo is definitely hard to pass up, considering my terrible aesthetics misdemeanor of viewing toilets like artifacts.

On the train, I was asked for my passport and was immediately accosted to an adjacent coach for passengers. The train ride for a round trip journey just cost me eight (8) baht. That is merely two pieces of Chocnuts in the Philippines.

Upon disembarkation, you can walk to the town's main streets from the railway by passing through the railway. It reminds me of the Makati-Buendia railstation where pools of people jump off from train roofs to commence their working life in that bustling business district. Of course, I had silently wished that this mode of transportation be improved like the Metro Rail and the Light Railway transit systems. I have seen the refurbished Philippine National Railway (PNR) train road along Espana fashioning itself along this platform of urban development.

I went down and opened my borrowed, silver umbrella. Under the frying heat, I viewed the reversed cone tip of the wat with its majestic view from the outside.

I did not see many tourists once I got in, passing by a dainty door where an old lady was just walking out. The temple is filled by uniformed men and trucks. The area is home to monks and Buddhist worshippers. It has ten structures inside. I was expecting to meet Buddha with its fed tummy but this temple has variations of its gods. They look thin. One needs to sort out the various statues with their different facial lines and gender.

I offered my prayer to Omang, the first temple you see at the entrance. Candles and flowers were offered by others; I prayed silently. All the written materials inside are in Thai. I advise other visitors to brush up their knowledge on the Buddhist religion to refrain themselves from being disoriented by the customs and practices of communion with Buddhism.

Luckily for me, a member of the Royal Thai Guard can speak English. I asked him why the temples inside vary. He was a fellow who taught me that the first temple I visited has a god named Omang. I further asked why a woman goddess is placed on its roof. He does not know the answer but was very helpful about my questions. Besides, he looked impeccable in his uniform which is different from his companion. They were taking pictures in front of the temples.

My eyes focused on a small hut but the area is closed. It is a comely structure. Caricatures of a praying kid adorn the door. Statues of gods are inside.

I also went inside a house-like temple with dark gods. I saw the various shapes and sizes of elephants made from different materials. Their altars resemble like dressing rooms. This is where I saw the portfolio of monks who had studied in the temple, preserved in modern photo albums. The men had their monk robes on.

This particular temple-house has a wonderful living room set with carved marbles and are blended with wood. I saw a monk with tattoo and another one was sitting on an Arabian carpet. On hindsight, you need to recall the vows of chastity and self-sacrifice to understand the affinity of all these furniture, pixie photos and frames in captured films. Nonetheless, I am not armed with the language to transpose my queries to the people discussing their spiritual concerns, or so I thought. One needs to go to Tibet for this I suppose.

On deeper thought, the indie people back in Manila had shown me these traits of skeletally-projected self-denial when I had encountered them but then, they are not inside the temples.

I had found a most amiable companion through the Royal Thai guard. He told me that I am brave. He dished a very suitable, touristy advice for me to pass under the elephant with garlands to experience good luck. I desisted from replying that I had wanted to ride atop its tusk. A note to the reader: these are not live, zoo mammals. They are made of cement. I told him that I find the structures outside more tourist-attractive. This is where the waxed elephants are situated.

I went out after a brief homage of respect to the gods and used the bigger exit this time.It has a body scanner, built like a 2095 century tunnel passage. An airport staple. The women guards look the most approachable. They were wearing well-tailored skirts. Stan Lee meets his fashionable coterie of Batmanives.

Waiting for my returning train, I whiled away my free hours across the wat. It is an old food stall strip with men who look like they had preceded pages of History.

My discovery of the day was planted here. Via a voodoo-like frying pan. It has a goat skull floating in liniment oil, with burnt coconut husks around it.

It was omnivorously horror-fabulous.

I asked the vendor what it is. She could not understand me but said, it is used to free one's self from body pains. She gave me a neat thumbs-up, for good sign. Two men with different stages of skin diseases approached me and explained the spectacle better. The taller guy conversed in Thai but I can verily understand him since it his syllables were aided by his personal, visual aids: hand signals. He first pointed at a bullet mark on his nervy hand and brushed it aside. He then pointed at the oil with the floating skull.

I told him, it is "talisman" in English. A protection against the evils of the neanderthal world. Despite my dialect handicap, he understood me. I asked the vendor how much it costs. 50 baht, she replied. She wrote it down on a clean piece of paper. Of course, I already know how to count in Thai and was just humoring the grinning lady.

I told her I will buy if it is reduced to five baht. Her eyes went ovally aghast.

The policemen nearby laughed conscientiously with my latent haggling prowess. I expressed my profuse thanks to the vendor. She probably did not know that hers is a religion that was taught impromptu and it harks back to the jungles of the wild, where the wails of the forest swamps echo with the cries of the cannibals.

No, I did not buy the ointment.

I can almost see a corn son who had been abnormally touring, sniggering at his mother who does know how to parry.

I walked further and saw a greying man manning a store. Certain that he is the owner, I asked for the prices of his goods. He was mouthing by tens and hundreds. I told him I could get them at 20 per cent off. He gave me a knowing mouth nudge.

Farther, I met a cross-eyed woman from whom I had bought my 5 baht bag of potato chips. Lays and Ruffles combined, I am getting this deliriously crunchy food junk right in the middle of an almost Divine-forsaken place with two guys drinking hotshot wine called Singha. It means liquid snot in my own dialect. I had likewise bought from her fried mangosteen peel, still at 5 baht. We both called this grapes even if we both know that it is not. It tastes like banana chips. I was severely happy with my purchases.

Lunch was at the beautiful station. Hagrid-look alike is the train manager. He shall be telling me hours afterward that my train had come. He politely asked me if he could be of help. It was charming, coming as he were from the door with an astronaut-like garden gadget hanging by a coffee tree.

I had earlier bought a 12 baht cheesedog from a 7-11 outlet in Yala and had carried my own water. I offered these to the guard but he refused. I wrote some lines with my new found discoveries as women chatted nearby.

I need to scout the comfort room to continue with my dreams.

Hotel-like, friendly and clean, I was expecting to be charged a salutary fee for its use but was told by the man in green beret who looked dandy and honorable in his guard uniform, that anyone can use it for free. Some bus stations in the area charge 3 baht for peeing in their toilets.

All speck and well scrubbed, I wondered how a bathroom like this can exist in acres upon acres of rice fields.

What can this municipality offer? The temple, a goat in liniment, a beautiful train marker and a reason why it rained in a sun-drenched spot.

I copied this from the station building :

"Wat Chang Hai station constructed and donated by Wat Chang Hai, under direction of Pra Krou Anukulpariyatikij. On the anniversary of H.M. the King's 72nd birthday on 5 December, 1999. At construction cost of 4,5000,000 baht. Opening ceremony 22 July 1999."

On my way back, I saw water ponds with catching fishnets, functionally tied in cryptically-arranged blue drums. Like the playground materials, these people had recycled them for daily usage in whatever form, in whatever capacity and without prejudice to places and recipients.

That, to me, is religion.

It ceremoniously allowed me to gain flashbacks about my own forays at the Roxas Boulevard with men in raincoats asking me what I am doing in swaying shades, under the trickling rain. I remember them now as I do my own mental streaming in this land of aspirations: their focused attempts to tie worms together as baits to cods.

Today, I came upon a place called Wat Chang Hai and it delivered me promises without being grumpy about the past.

Religion sits like wisdom-laden Buddha in your mind. It always breaks loose in spiritual jitters to finish a good deed.

TRAINS AGAIN

By: Iris P. Concepcion

"Airplanes get you to places faster; trains educate you about their secrets with celluloid touches."--Iris P. Concepcion

You could not miss the sight: the towering building that never bows to the minions of people throbbing on their heartbeats, slippers' glints and muck combined,the hurried looks of immediate farewells.

This is Thailand's pre-fab luminescence of its train stations. They are not modern. They reek of the Old World with deeply-creased people waiting for their future. It is India and Vietnam combined, the lurking mysteries of the past crawling, in transit, implying the lost transitions of what could have been.

They invite reverence more than awe.

I hop into an ordinary coach, paying 23 baht for that rare, railway experience.

It alters my sense of belonging. I sit in front of a father carrying his two kids. The little girl has a mole on his cheek with rabbit teeth. She is curly like I was at one and a half days old. She is abnormally adorable in an un-tyke manner of cuteness. She looks like an expensive wat (temple). Rare are the moments when you aspire to paint the oval fields residing on little people's cheeks. Hers can hue some gobbled football, complete with a stadium.

The boy readily eats the biscuit I offered him. I have amnesially forgotten that it is Father's Day. I could have expressed better my respect for the man who has fed milk to his daughter's plump mouth, currently sleeping as a if bored with this writer's attempt at being cordially engaging. The chugs-chugs-chugs of train wheels march on with Plathian recall of boot steps. I peek on a guy who looks like Kojak in Hindu gear, planting himself on a direct visual angle with mine. He sits beside a more silent, smaller version of himself. Their eyes are pools of encyclopedic promises with hidden treasures of long forgotten histories and maps.

Their wordspeak: The world is square and we are wiser than you.

Across the aisle, a woman is garbed in a white, queenly clothing as she surreally surveys the vastness of the green horizon. Each station evokes an eclectic surprise. She eats with her bare hands. I see how she feeds herself gracefully in calculated moves. Each mouthful is in exact proportion: rice and viand in a Newton division.

How vast the land outside the window/How derelict people are when compared. Lines cargoed from my mind.

I talk to the father since he is nearer. He speaks understandable English and can name me the names of trees and flowers suddenly floating on isolated ponds. Small talks as streams of rubber trees never seem to cease growing outside the opened window. It is to define the rustic emblems of Thailand's outskirts that tend to enflame memories of my own province.

It is newer only because of my fellow passenger, Kojak. As I speak, he is a relic. He disembarks on a station, Chang-na, a bustling area of markets and playgrounds (they use blue-painted, used drums as playground addages, very smart), and rediscovers him as a 3011 being.

Lugging on a bag with the alternatively prepositioned word that defy Vogue embossed in it: "Freedom For Expression." I can foresee the coming generation reinventing communication as a tool of renowned, creative engagement.

I continue talking to the father of the two kids as I look back, surveying the fellow who looks like a Japanese. I am taking the whole globe with me, in this coach, at this precise moment, in this revolving planet.

A young, lanky woman asks me, while I am talking to the father, if she can take her seat beside me. I reply in the affirmative while giving an impish smile. [I am reviewing the immediately preceding words and silently softballed a guffaw. This dialogue is like Henry Green's.]

I switched on, like a benighted light, the recipient of my conversation and now aims my words at her instead of the father.

She is going to Haad Yai, a city two hours from Yala, just like myself and the man with two kids.

I probe further if she is employed.

"I am a scientist," she casually declares.

I am tightlip, absorbing the ferocity of the sworn words. It is clawing, aberrant and a genius reply.

I learn that she uses microscopes to study blood and other anatomical components.

"You are a medical technologist," I moronically try to correct her. I say to her, scientists fly to skies.

I sound dumb, idiotic and clueless.

She points at my skin, my neck, my arms using words like "get". I supply her words with a Harvardian medical vocabulary.

"Stem cell," I gush.

We both laugh and are in an agreement that the baby who is still sleeping is ridiculously adorable.

It is a continuous barren of fields outside. Scorching as it is, I am obliged to give gamma ray a wink as I enlist nothingness from where I may embark as a point of destination.

Contrary to the harbinger of a smelly doom, I am actually entering a mini city of paradise.

The zoning plan of Haad Yai is with the precis of a traveller's mind in sketch. Its train station is not as high as Yala but the welcoming roads are easier to navigate. Straight lined-roads with visible intersections.

This is place of hotels and shopping malls. You immediately smell the aroma of a KFC outlet, an adjunct of its own version of Robinson Mall. Walking forward, one gets inside a massive shopping building in pastel pink named Odean. A white couple is gorging on fresh bananas outside while a giant screen playing house music lingers in audio form. Paul Van Dyke. The tribe of modern James Joyces, reeling in the hours of inner melodies and expurging their minds from societal constraints. Free coffee is given inside.

I need to discharge my urinary bladder and asks around for a comfort room. I was not understood. I ask a Dennis Hoffer look-alike guy, he of the Sundance Kid variety of clearcut acting, where the comfort room is. He tells me that they use the term "toilet" in this area. He shows me the way to a "pub." His description of it is baffling. He says: "You can use its bathroom. It is very good." A hefty person trapped in a funny, curious line. I guess he talks like a staid man rating places in a travel guide-like manner.

My verdict: two stars in a scale of five.

I change my strides and turn to where the golden M arch adorns a beautifully erected building that defies architectural logic. Ronald McDonald is sculpted with a customary, Thai greeting. Minimalist in spirit, I have seen an outlet in Manila following this new cult of space usage. Lee Garden Hotel is where it is housed. One could not ostensibly miss it. A huge billboard of Thailand's King and Queen signal its entry.

The Regency Hotel is just fifteen steps away from this area. This mix of exciting hodgepodge is a delight to any tourist or any universal explorer. Everything is packed in one street without me hailing vehicles, carts and cows for transportation to go anywhere. Everything is a virtual walk-in-the-park.

This is the One. Across it are the beautiful buses going to Singapore and Phuket.

A shopping establishment called Central fronts the Lee place. Beside it are strips of seafood fare that are cooked luxuriously: shrimps and crabs. It is a lively picture of Chinatown and the different faces of delighted Orientals. I have seen that their food servings are ample. You can eat the emperor's food even if you only have 100 baht to save your palate dream. They are bundled like lost crustaceans from the Baltic Ocean. I have had my feast of Chinese and Muslim food in Yala that are superior and is now salivating for massive, space-like burgers as that ominous M sign beckons like a tummy traffic light.

I order a Big Mac (cheaper here than the Philippine prices). A meal with french fries and Coke is called set. A Big Mac set. Mindful of Thai culture, its catsup dispensers have three choices. One for chili, the others for Thai and American catsup.

My burger tastes like I have conquered Wimbledon. Heaven. I did not consume my upsized fries. Its burger container is environmental-friendly with the words: "Each story has two sides."

I could not believe one can shrink the multitudes of cultures in taste, sight and sound in one street. I long for minimalism and I envision streets exactly looking like this city does it. Streets are of my height scale. Compact but with fulfillling sceneries. I squire a tee-shirt with a guy wearing an I-Pod sitting in a loo. It trumpets: "I poohd." It sells for 250 baht.

The city synthesis, I mentally dissect in just three hours. I bought lunch boxes and pastries with creamy barquillos (20 baht, at the foot of the train).

I have to catch my train back to Yala.

I re-enter the train station and befriend the guys at the Information talking on the microphone. They talk like disc jockeys. I see a white guy in expertly polished shoes like an Arundhati character waiting to return to Neptune. He sits there like a forlorn teenager but with an impeccably-tailored suit. His shod are like jewels. Its color is like the samarudin Muslim food in Yala. Dark, olive green. But a notch deeper in hue.

A mouthy football-clad Caucasian is complaining about his train ride. He wants to be home and is loudly manifesting his concerns via buffoonery why his ride never came. He is from the United Kingdom, as I can glean from his accent. I see him ten minutes back bringing an electric fan. Why he is hauling off an appliance in an old railway area, I certainly give back to Vishnu the answer.

I often wonder why I get little bits of the odd and sublime, the foolish and the intellectual, the gold and the ore in this thread of re-awakening travels.

I ditch the brochure guides and Internet directions and find these people in patchwork characters waiting to get printed, read and reviewed. They are books onto themselves.

I have found my characters; they, too, shall experience how to be lettered in ink. In paragraphs, with a title and staggering adjectives.

I return to Yala with the father bringing only her daughter this time. He left the boy with his mother-in-law. I play with the kid and teach her the words "window" and "ceiling fan".

I bid goodbye to the pair and promise to meet the happy child again. This is a happy comeuppance oasis. Surely, a curly-haired, healthy tot can find her way to me.

To the clued, my seven-hour discovery is already an O. Henry material. I shall baptize these characters according to the Gospel Of Fiction.

Trust me, I aspire to become a traveller.

EDUCATION FROM WITHIN

By: Iris P. Concepcion

I had often wondered in my four-fold decade of existence on Earth how I came to develop an avid fascination for the English language.

We were bi-dialactical at home (Bisaya and Tagalog) and English was a foreign language heavily used by my parents. On a further note, it was the only foreign language they ever knew about. They spoke it when they do not want me to understand their adult talks. My mother was a strickler for grammar. My father was the more lyrical and poetic. He had my mother edit on his school reports and speeches.

It could be a sixth sense of the wonders of conversations but they had always surrounded us with books and other reading materials. Dictionaries, Readers' Digest, short stories and magazines are a common sight in the bedroom. A distant uncle from the Visayas who was writing for FOCUS magazine (an agricultural quarterly financed by the government) would give our household copies of his articles. Even the surrounding, immediate friends of my parents partook in these tables of exchange, in English. Some had to move elsewhere later.

A teacher taught me my declamation pieces in English. I had enough mentoring to fit all words in a box with laces using this primary language.

I am currently housed in an abode where every corner literally spills with books. Instructional books, dictionaries, work kits for reading and writing. You may have to choose from which of these sufficient materials can address the needs of a particular learner. I love browsing on them since they made me recall my childhood forays of reading under the gas lamps. The tales of Cinderella and other Handersen stories come forth like book leaves.

I had learned a lot through this informal manner of absorbing things.

I had observed that the materials came from a variety of publishing houses: the United States, the United Kingdom, Malaysia and even Thailand. I was told by my sister-in-law that some of them were shipped from the Philippines. I like the idea of a moving knowledge, this partaking of brain-worth breads to make us worthwhile beings as we live. The more quirky and fun signages are Japanese-like in nature.

Perhaps, this is the key to a creative mind. Instead of expensive jars and chandeliers, every member of the Educational Jedi Council ( a figure of speech to my thread) must ornamentalize his/her home with reading materials. Why must language be closeted? Why couldn't little people speak multi-lingually when they could be fed these right in the doorsteps of their homes. Perhaps, they shall be more tolerant of each others' differences if they know more about the world at an early age and are possessed with different languages to explain them.

I like the idea of people huddling under calm shades for dialogues on, not only grammar, but incorporating water concerns, into the grammar. If the conditions are such that the venue for learning is hot, then, have Nature incorporate the enclaves of education to more comfortable areas. As what my favorite author had written, let us convert non-performing lands or spaces to arming the minds of these children with words, music, character-building and value formation. It is a daunting task but you gain a more caring, responsive and if I may add, smarter generation in the years to come if these are wholly embraced.

I had a dream and I am still having a dream. Everyone years to learn. Give this area of wonderment a fat chance in this world.

On the second thought, give these people not only a chance but a certainty that they can have access to it.

I was taught according to these rules; I am sharing it with others this time.

TEMPLE OF THE ARK

By: Iris P. Concepcion

As a manner of purging his juvenile demons that had taught him to write about gnomes and bugs turning into men, Franza Kafka, that existentialist exponent of literary paradise, self-healed himself through his "Dear Father" diaries.

The highly psychological writer is very consumed with his portraits of fathers as tyrants with their knavish and warped sense of authority. He had thus invented the most horrible and weirdest characters that are still as avante-garde now as when they were years ago.

I do not have memories of this fierce and towering like monster figures wielding rods as a result of bursting tempers.

My own father bought me ill-fitting shoes that he returned to stores for the right size even if it means travelling for eight straight hours.He merely admonished me to keep quiet when he is receiving visitors at the house. I also remembered him drawing Big Bird of Sesame Street for my own sketching fulfillment. He had taught choruses to children using native songs from Denmark, the United States and Scotland. We had a vinyl record and songbook for this repertoire. This came free if you had subscribed to the Readers' Digest which my parents did. He barked at me when I commit infractions. He drank with his friends too. Nonetheless, I have never seen him absent from our meal tables. He was always punctual.

Today, I shall address again the world through this bretheren of the male pack; a bevy of ubiquitously butt-shaped homo sapiens whose own confessions had me mock-self my own attachment to senseless concerns. They have thrown away a pricey item as a protest for mistreating their clueless (that was before, this is now) offspring. They got mad and storms came afronting from heaven, giving thunderous roars and bellows. Woe to people who had received the wrath.

First off, I need to find alternative words to "Dear Father". I could use "To The Male Members Of The Dietary World" but one of your own could have already expanded his imaginary stick in Snape manner cutting me down with : "Strike that out!"

Curtains opening, allow me to start this in a traditional form.

Dear Fathers,

Yesterday, I saw some intricately pruned pine trees up on the road like an orchard park. Your daughter has wandered off to Yala's Wongsaang 1 Road on foot as she normally does in Manila. She had passed by acres and acres of land devoted to educational buildings. Instead of business establishments, the massive structures house numerous children yearning to learn. Everyone seems to be thirsty for knowledge here. Science-themed parks, formal and non-formal education (my biological one had insisted on this), technical campuses and tutorial centers abound. It looks like a frenzy warpath onto mental spunk, sponged and dunked to rebuild the face of the future.

Unlike your constant admonitions in the past for your daughter to avoid speeding vehicles, Yala has spacious sidewalks for pedestrians. This has made her strides stress-free.

Remember Aenid, the consciousness of being, when you had to give screws and bolts (in both literal words and symphonic hardware tools) to maggots as a means to protect thy daughter from offensive aesthetics? You had forewarned her of paradise. She found this to be closer. Yala's government agencies are built respectably. By that she means, without a sense of mediocrity. They are huge, well-painted and visually pleasing. Its Hall of Justice is like Clark Kent's imaginary building. Picture-perfect that your daughter found herself utterly ridiculous in her stained but beautiful clothes, astounded that a province can look this. She is flabbergasted that what she had read from books may be accomplished easily.

She had travelled outside the vicinity too. Campuses that had been left as derelict, worn-out that need rehabilitation. She had met articulate and amiable teachers from here. Theirs is a contrary view and like what you had taught me, she needs to find her own screws and bolts to protect herself for being free. She had done enough preaching to know the difference between respect and comfort. Your daughter is treated well and you need not worry. She will not develop boils in this readily-equipped environment. She adores meeting builders.

On a lighter note, she had discovered a street version of pancakes yesterday. It made her sweat, similar to a gym work-out. It is only six baht (huk in Thai) and it is delectable in a manner of disciplined delectability. Made from "kai" (egg), it is a waffle with coconut (buko) fillings.

You have shown her the evils of the world, she is now shown the goodness and bounty that she needs to rediscover if only to find her sense of universal self. Not exactly nirvana but a haven of mutual assent to community development, done in the correct manner.

She shall visit temples again, where prayers are offered to divinity gods. The people's religiosity here is not folksy: it reverberates to the silent forces of the unsung Nature, swept by the verbal hushes of winds. It could be the reason for the residents' contentment here. Even its cemetery looks like a park.

Always, but always, fathers, she knows the reasons why these utopian concepts click here. Material wealth is subservient to the Higher Being upon whom everything is designed.

That, to your daughter, is likened to the morality plays and dialogues of the ancient times. Between good and evil, God makes a succinct distinction.

She still eats chocolates and has been reawakened to the wonders of milk. She misses the banters of the thugs but she is thankful that she has not seen a beggar tugging at her shirt on her way to the shops.

She had discovered one thing too in this area. If something goes awry dear Fathers, you only mention one word.

7-11.

It is convenient as that convenience store can possibly conveniently convene.

I am playing on my words but isn't that the gist why I was sent away, for Gretel to appreciate the wonders of blue hues and other forms without the biscuit-housed witch?

I am waiting for your answers. I shall not fail you in treating dreams like my own body.

You clean them everyday for better use in sun and merry. (This is grammar-spocked but more poetic, I believe).

P.S. I love its train station; it is duskier than the blazing sights of airports, my favorite hotels in the world. Yes, you read it right. To this offspring, airports are the best hotels in the universe.

CHILDREN OF THE SPEAKING TONGUES

By: iris P. Concepcion

Immersion is a different word from Emerson, the poet, but someone has gorgeously inserted it in one of his testaments to broaden his guffaw armory into the vocabulary.

I am never pampered. Only judiciously, when I deserve the food fit for gods. One needs to learn everyday about one's self, about one's environment and about one's culture.

From afar, I am baffled why I could not do in the Philippines what I am doing in Thailand : this abundance of disciplined exchange even in disparity of thoughts and actions. The operative word here is tolerance. Opposable forces can still mingle in a community without throttling each other as they still value the human sacredness of dignity and pride.

Whereas I need to deal with expletives flying high like blown cellophanes back home, often with riotous and funny results, I encounter modes of disagreements here done as what human beings should do. Conflict is resolved through understanding. It need not pick on the berserk hair and demeaning terms to stress a point. I learned this the offbeat way. I was politely asked if I wanted a haircut. My hair was in total disarray. I pointed at a fashion magazine with Scarlett Johanssen on the cover sporting my own incorrigible 'do.

"I think my hair is in fashion," I sheepishly replied.

I am extremely lucky to have found my favorite people's clothesline in my space backyard. Familiarity is homey; of remembering addresses I merely Microsoft-worded before and had written repeatedly in various correspondences.

I love the people here for being blase about the value of things in their midst: they do not know that the Peking duck is expensive fit only for the obesely moneyed. They eat it routinely here and call it in the vernacular. It is hilarious.

Thailand makes me remember the quaint habits of my father. His manner of polishing shoes; the smell of the polisher, and how his socks must be clean always.

I remember stores with doors designed back in the '70s and faces unwrinkled by the passage of time.

I could not find an eatery that sells Phad Thai here; my hosts ordered noodles and I mixed one for me without the soup. I never realized I was already making my own favorite Thai fried noodles.

I am in love with oyster sauce right now. It is a malleable condiment.

I have no problem with my customary chow habits. I was advised by a friend before to be adventurous with my taste and learn culture from it. I decided not to be afraid to taste weird-looking food and I am richer for it in knowledge.

A student is holding a Cambridge dictionary and I am relieved he is not totting a weapon. Education is a real armory and it is an armory of the mind.

I wonder when I could bump into Alex Garland; I would like him to give me an idiotic but spooky directions to Phuket. Inside the Isaac Asimov buses.

Right now, I am eating Thaveevong Fish Snack and I am scouting for some poetry lines after I have digested this.

EATING IN GOAT LAND

Iris P. Concepcion

The fed mouth underwent a tremendous dicovery of palate travels along with the effervescent glows of petals and flowers by the roadside.

Their version of dried ice-cream is a literal one. In the Philippines, the ice-cream is placed on a hot grill normally reserved for hamburgers.

In Thailand, they are wrapped in "ensaymada" type of bread called "pao" like lumpia and dipped in hot sizzling oil. It is astounding in that, the outer bread crust is ultra, hot crispy but upon biting deeper, the coldness of ice-cream is like an Alps experience as it is doubly sweetened. It is a magical route to desserts and it does not only look like paradise, it tastes like one.

We (meaning, my hosts and I) scouted another roadside where slacks are sold. Some call it second hand, I call it first hunt. We found treasures of brands fit for Sak's Avenue. No wonder everyone loves to return to this place. When one is hardworking enough, the economic structure fills in its share to make living a worthwhile feast. This is not exactly nirvana but the Thai king has something to teach the world a thing or two about the exact implementation of social democracy. Their rice produce does not go beyond 20 baht/kilo and they smell wonderful. Jasmine. They are packaged in small, beautiful sacks that are camera magnets. That winsome.

I also tasted another version of curry that is eaten with leaves to take the chili off from the food. It tastes like mango. That is where I cracked a joke that we probably look like goats eating our lunch with various kinds of leaves.

It inspired my entry title for today.

I already befriended a Thai who learns English from me (as I learn Thai from her). Yesterday, we walked along Yala roads bouncing off the language barriers that sometimes cripple our line of communication. The learning is fun though. Semantics can be baby walk steps at the park. Interestingly, we still understood each other.

It is like a Genesis sojourn as we dicover Nature: names of flowers, food and animals. She owns a wonderful book on Thai flowers and animals cutely titled 4,000 words about Thailand. With matching pictures just like in first grade. This comes in handy to non-locals like myself.

Earlier, I tasted a sugar cane juice and a dish we just picked from a vending place. We put these directly to our mouths. We do not know the dish's name but it tastes like blended bananas and other mixtures of fruity flavors. I found a coffee bun here, very much like the Japanese-themed staple I heavily rely on during my Sunday mass worship back in the Philippines.

There are churches here as well as temples.

Today is Sunday and unlike Bono's famous song, it is not a bloody one.

I already found an aesthetic alternative to electrical posts that anger me with their ugly cables in the Philippines. We could pattern the innovation from here; it is light, it looks like an arch and it surely makes funny sense.

You could not steal the flowers from gardens here. CCTV cameras are plentiful and they force the locals and non-locals to behave according to law.

Again, this is simply sensible.

THE THRIFT SHOP MARKET IN A MINI PALM SPRING LOCALE

By: Iris P. Concepcion

What is essential is getting wider with the rotation of retinas.

I was browsing through major Philippines news on the Internet but was summoned for a brief motor ride to Yala's version of "ukay-ukay" by one of my hosts, my sister-in-law (the other one being my brother). Here, it is called "salat mapher" or something close to it.

It is no different from the fiesta bangketa sales back home. We entered an old but beautiful line of arches with a lanky girl entering it by her lonesome. Our Honda wheezed through the burnt gates as we see pick-up trucks, normally regarded as prime commodities back home, used as farm transportation in this area.

What greeted us first were football shoes in various colors. They looked sleek and adorable, with spikes ready to kick in. They were fashion oddities in the setting; I was thrilled upon discovering these World Cup marvels though. I am not an athlete and could not use the shod display to practical use, hence, we skipped the mini shoe bazaar.

The vendors were busy putting back their merchandise back to sacks. I asked my sister-in-law why they seem to be hiding their products. She replied that selling here has an allotted time. After which, the vendors move elsewhere. Besides, noon break has turned to a dusky ember, with rainfall signalling its trickling entrance.

We hurriedly looked for the bargains. My sister-in-law directed me to a rack of denims that are priced 100 baht for two items. I am used to this kind of hunting in the Philippines. It did not take long for me to choose those that fit me.

The 20 per baht clothes are a mix and match of the previous and the present in that rich case of textile history. We had laughed at some of the clothes for their blazing colors. Surprisingly, I had huddled with the aqua-colored cotton gears that are easier to dry after washing. Of course, they wear me like true winners.

Unbeknownst to my companion, I was surveying the area with a curious, creative eye. The palm trees are majestic, tall and regal. I have seen these in films located in Sunset Boulevard. Here though, the distinct Asian culture is felt; even the people looked like a casting of Oliver Stone's Vietnam-themed ditties.

I saw a California Mickey Mouse at the end of the road and had to grin at the impish way things are sold over here. The curtains and towels looked Princetonian. I saw a familiar guy I had exchanged pleasantries with in little comic funnies.

They are packing the merchandise and we had to sidle up to the clothes' journeys.

We headed home, passing by massive jars of green olives and traffic lights with CCTV cameras.

Even here, the peekaboo erupts.

I opened a pen case and was expecting a writing gadget inside.

Not a Parker day.

Instead, a smiling Sponge Bob with his silly tooth lazed on it, like Ali Bhaba in his magic carpet.

INDIA, JAPAN AND THE PHILIPPINES IN THAILAND

By: Iris P. Concepcion

This place is at the northern part of Thailand and is called Yala.

The people here look like Indians. The young men and women, in Muslim lavender gear, drive their Honda motorcycles daintily. They look pretty and proper.

Universities and other schools are located in just one area. Education seems to be a very valuable and valued commodity here. Instead of shopping malls, you see constructions of school buildings done opulently. Tutorials in English abound.

I could not speak Thai; the language has quaint and beautiful intonation though. I have still to visit its famous temples. I have seen one on my way to the Coliseum, its own version of a shopping arena. The temple reverberates a rich history in a glance; it looked sublime and serene from the outside.

The food stalls here seem to bear daily themes. Today, it is fried chicken and green oranges (dalanghita).

I took a glimpse of a picture of a squid walking in one of these foodie joints. The main entrance to the city has a trimmed version of a tree in the shape of an elephant.

I likewise passed by domed "aratiles" tree from back home bearing sampaloc fruits. I never allowed myself to get spooked by the weird nature mix.

I likewise passed by a huddle of people planting flowers on the road. Volunteerism is a way of life here. I asked for the flower's name in pine pink that is too good visually it could be mistaken for a cotton candy. I was not understood. I just exchanged smiles with the gardeners as they scooped down the rich soil for autumn and spring to fictionally grow. It is blossoming, blossoming, blossoming.

Subduedly artistic but rustic, this place reminds me so much of the television show Northern Exposure set in Alaska minus the biting frosts.

Its traffic lights are digitally managed like a New Year countdown (Stop. 50,49,48,47,......0, Green, Go!).

The locals are quite smug about the abundance of superior technology that is obviously surrounding it.

I passed by a mini Sunset Boulevard minus the French sexuality. Instead, I saw a curious blue hotel named "Galaxy". It looks like a palace.

This is Arkansongkor and I am passing by Suntisok Road.

I love looking at the condiments peddled by the sidewalks. Placed in small plastic containers and tied with rubber bands. The colors of spices are pleasing. They do not look like food; they look like paintings.

Everyone takes leisure in opening up their businesses every morning. They seem extremely content. Mercedes Benzes and BMWs are parked beside Toyotas without any fear of thievery.

I walked further and saw a place named Hair Do. The door specifically says "Adull Hair Do Center Of Fashion". Hilarious.

It looks drab inside; it is a barber shop with only one chair and a grinning customer. The saloonist went out of his way to open his door for me. I could not understand what he was saying. I think he wanted me to have a haircut. I gave him a high five sign, smiled, and left.

I presume this is Thailand's Knowledge Park. Everyone here loves drinking milk.

They have their white lights planted on the ground. The lighting is film-like in effect.

I switched on the television set and the actors and actresses looked like my neighbors in my Philippine hometown. I could not help but excrete chortles in total metric cadences.

I am getting used to the mixed quirks. I love its understated "backward" fashion. They are funny when worn.

This is compact Asia and it is getting the vibe of the most clueless comedy in a hidden concave of creative imaginings.

The best tasting waffle in the world is here. Vendored by a Caucasian who looks like an Indian writer or a whitened version of M. Night Shamalayan.

"At night I see fleets of futuristic buses. Be ready to hop in."

ANOTHER COUNTRY
Iris P. Concepcion

I have repeatedly enthused the merits of checking in at NAIA-3 in this blog. I finally used it for an international destination and had a very educational trip on travelling and immigration rules. This airport is cutting down on red tape inside the premises and it has yielded better staff and better informed crew on the ground.

Cebu Pacific did good by making its passengers breeze through travelling rules. It hands in the arrival and departure cards right inside the airplane for easier facility at the immigration counter.

My plane arrived ahead of schedule. I was accompanied in the ramp by a kindly, old woman who happens to be an Ilongo.

Thailand is a happy, quirky and a truly Asian experience right at its Bangkok airport. I was impressed by its steely design. The futuristic look is uber modern. The arrows of directions are functional and cosmopolitan. It truly welcomes its tourists with embracing arms right at the immigration area. Now I no longer wonder why it is a top spot Asian destination. It has its facilities and infra laid out for this industry. We have a long way to go in our air travel accommodations but this is where it started lowering down the prices, improving the ground services.

I truly love the cuisine here. It is very affordable and feels more of the palate underground. Taste buds would really look for this fusion of taste bursts as the rest would pale in comparison.

Writing about this with a deeper understanding of the cultural preservation and path of progress is a great blueprint for governance. Especially when you take into account that the baht had experienced a currency devaluation in the past. It had recovered fast.

We can learn a thing or two about this country in terms of governance. It is closer to us in topography and economics composition.

Again, the food here is truly tops.

ON SAYING THANKS

By: Iris P. Concepcion

I have made women weep in the past not because I am stubborn but because I had refused their generosity.

Now is my time to credit them for the things done to me even if I am incorrigibly frank.

First off, I really think like a man. It has nothing to do with my chromosomes. I banter with verbal talks against the worst of the lot to let them know how horrible they are.

Women, to me, are like my mother. Feed. Live. Nurture. She lived by these rules.

For many times I had been bitched by women too; you no longer allow them to creep into your mindset. I have said my brief sentences, my riposte, and that was the end of it.

Recently, I have come to realize that this band of women, friends in work and leisure, have been religiously fronting for me against the uncouth.

In the process, they plant themselves as opposites of my favorite ladies: these young, carefree and happy women I truly love. I had often stated, these are women who had kept family bonds, inspite of.

I do not know if these two groups will ever meet eye to eye but rest assured, the young ladies will not show any ill-temper even when required. I never question the well-meaning hands these groups had extended to me regardless of opposable thumbs and all.

You already know I am not cut for a staid existence. I am my own being and I like zapping guys who have become out of bounds. I want to be with the cornkids and their clown masters. And my moms are really elvins. Small and enduring.

To this band of mammals, thank you for :

1. making my clothes smell good.

2. providing security to my belongings.

3. leaving food for me when I am alone.

4. for understanding that my fathers are truly my fathers and they mean no harm. They annoy but they are one hell of a fun bunch. Responsible too.

5. for providing me shelter.

Now that you had this chance to meet my ladies(and gents), I hope you are richer in spirit for it. Respect comes when deserved.

You had it today. Thank you BTP. You have come a along way to embrace middle age gracefully.

P.S. The better other is really a beautiful soul as you now realize. Keep on discovering him.

This should not end without comedy.

Seen on a colorant that lightened my hair:

"Colorant treatment with various shades to make beautify and glamorize your hair.

This product is introduced ahead international hair beauty science and technology which is adopted active hair cell components, imported materials. It can infiltrate rapidly through your hair, supply hair with moisture. While dyeing, it can rehab the damaged hair, upgrade cell activation. Keep hair colorful and colorfast in the wonderful world."

Isn't that a riot?

WEIRD MINDS ARE GREAT MINDS

By: Iris P. Concepcion

I was looking for an offbeat place yesterday, hoping to scout some bargain hunts.

I found real good ones. I kidded the vendor, I need to see the prices further reduced to my beggar's state. Bought kikiam at P5.00 late night and slept with my delivered speech.

Prior to this, while the heat of the sun was blazing in the walking horizon, I visited the La Salle area. This is the better other's cave before he got snatched by aliens to build satellites.

If I were a student, I would stay here if only for its nearby food mall. It is minimalism at its functional best.

You get American, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Ilongo (a new continent by itself) staples. It is a fun, quirky and gregarious haven. Papa Joe's pizza is sold here and it looks like a spaceship from afar. My favorite Miguelito's dried ice-cream (P25) is likewise sold here. Bliss.

Someone outdid the minimalist concept though with a John Malkovich-like space constriction that I could no longer enter. It is an RTW store. The answer to this problem, operators, is to form a line outside like your handy ATM queue. This is under the premise that your merchandise is worth doing suicide for. If what you hang is unappetizing, why bother?

The comedy yesterday was via a mannequin standing just outside my new place. Her hair was in shambles, teeth chopped and nose cracked. I told the sales lady she looked awful. Even the vendor saw the gag and smiled with me.

I saw notebooks priced at P16.00 with beautiful covers. Taglines like "Robots made this notebook" are on the front with my entry title embossed in writing pads.

The National Bookstore here is likewise small. Gorgeous as it emits guffaws if you are in the loop. I saw a scrapbook of kids that eerily surprised me with electrifying pictures. Fronting the MAC ART HUR book.

A five-leaf notebook includes freebies. A huge pencil marker. And the eureka: White Pond's cream. This, at P99.00.

I am not advertising but the whole point to this narrative is how people deserve a laugh when they part their money with businessmen. It is good karma.

The previously staid outlets are now opening up to these bubbly gizmos that turned purchasing power into Saturday Night Live Presents.

The bakery has a fatman sitting on a bowl with his butt exposed. Beside the most delicious pastries you'd see in the universe. Yummy. Paco public market is getting a facelift and it looks like a hotel-museum from the outside.

Fun?

As it should be. As they ought to be. Then, we would not mind paying our taxes since we got entertainment on the side while improving the plight of men and women.

P.S.

I can't resist writing this. Beside my new surroundings is a bible store with curious spiritual books. Scriptures are defined by authors like Mary Baker Eddy, along with a tagline: "Who Is Mary Baker Eddy?"

The answer is in the clothes line with the book title: "Wiser Than The Serpent."

Funny as hell even if you have Health and Science biblical studies conducted here. It looks ghostly from the outside. But the books rock. See them.

Where I am staying, Cosmic Anthropology classes are offered. I have not seen a spaceship still. I just close the unattended faucets since water runs deep over here.

NEVER A LATE RISER

By: Iris P. Concepcion

I am not a lte riser. Getting up past 9:00 a.m. gives me lethargic headache. My favorite parts of the day are early nights and dawn break.

I am in new surroundings. My body is not used to a soft mattress. After more than two months of bunking on floors and tiles, this nirvana of cushioned slumber is again, new territory for a malleable body.

I do not eat full breakfast but today I did. I love eggs and its uniqueness to invade itself in culinary gastronomicoscapes (landscape, seascape).

Readers, this morning, I have seen the most gorgeous sunny side-up egg in my entire egg-eating tongue forays. Its shape is perfect; I wish I have a camera to take a shot on this wonder but I had already disposed my camera phone. I paired it with two "tinapa" with sliced tomatoes.

I told the owner of the cafeteria that I could never cook in this manner.

I may have to skip lunch. It is that filling. On the second thought, I may need to chow again.

I miss the newspaper verbal tussles back in the old place at this time. Expletives had already been thrown around this hour. My contribution to the fracas was merely to read the newspapers for free, sharing whatever food I may have with the newspaper guy. If I am badly irked, a sentence or two are vocalized to shush the kibitzers.

Here, comedy is understated. I walked out from the gates today and found a new source of reading haven. I was not scolded for reading the papers. I could not do the browse with coffee though.

I asked the vendor nearby where the public market is. I always go to the markets to view if the magic wand has not waned.

It did not.

It is almost ridiculous as I am used to crappy sights of stale bananas and sweet potatoes. Here, they are fresh and huge. They are likewise stacked neatly. Some are messy, but that is for contrast. I am angered by the ugly electrical cables hanging above but that too shall be repaired.

I thought I had already seen the best of affordable pandesal until I saw a newer variety priced at P3.00 that looked like sumo cheeks. The tomatoes are huge; the "kakanins" are reasonably priced. The normally steeped price of P30.00 per bundle of suman with latik is only P16.00 here.

Weep, oh wicked merchants of hell, manna did fall. Over freshly picked fruits and vegetables. They are no longer reserved for the chosen ones. Even beggars deserve to eat these. I gave my cinnamon bread (those that you get for over P100.00 at coffee stall, I get at P19.00. What raisins!") to a scrap guy who greeted me "good morning" on my way to the market. He returned it, saying it is mine. Here, they are polite.

I said, "No, you can have it."

Perhaps, in all his scavenging life, he had been swamped with food flies. That bread could be his only chance to discover that there is a God of Meals. I adore his dignity of saying "Sa yo po kasi yan Ma'am" when he returned it. How many corrupt men in our society can match this penniless decency?

I am not a saint. I have turned down beggars since they look heftier than my built. But you learn along the way who had truly gone under the weather and who are there merely for bilking. I had experienced extreme hunger with men and women dangling food from a nearby fastfood chain, taunting. I know how it feels like to get demolished and everything is unnerving.

I know now that misappropriation is the work of Satan and these are its effects.

In less than an hour, I know that this present dispensation shall improve electrical meters, faces of public markets, telephone services ( a saw a new PLDT service mobile with Super Mario cartoon giving the thumbs-up and the caption: "We change lives") and how social welfare must truly be laid out. It is not devoted to spa therapy.

Beware when the gifted, moneyed and privileged people do serious social work though. It is not fleeting. It is not for propaganda. It is not for a brochure. They act and do their talk rather than investing enormous resources to planning and recreation. They do it because they have seen it done everywhere in the globe.

I do not even know there is a thing like a National Federation Of Women Clubs in this country. I plan to discover what it does.

The bliss of moving is this: wonders come in small realizations and they, truly, delight.