Photo By: Patricia Scarlett Clubbs Shared Via Facebook. I Hope The Artist Would Not Sue Me For Copyright Infringement.

HODGEPODGE JOURNALISM: WELCOME TO THE  REAL POSTMODERNIST TAKE ON LOOKING AT THE WORLD
By:  Iris P. Concepcion

I had been both meddling and middling on affairs transgressing my usual calls of unwritten duties.

First, I need to propagate the plentiful pictures in pixels as my citizen's obligation to patrol the discarded but more newsworthy stories from the underside of this planet.

News reporting has shed off its leopard tights and pumps for men who had been skeletized with awful fashion sense but who can quote both the rhythmically correct Proust and Frost.


Even the once and highly regarded quotation marks and proper indexing that had spawned off books on technical writing are relaxing their winking periods for a view of an elephant tusk spewing off spring water.

I am shuddering but is language being overtly democratic? Casting away the sights of board rooms, these witnesses to world news and stories are bringing home their market bags with prime ribs, jumping off an article about the unjudicious pricing of meat in meat shops.

These tales are reminiscent of Blairwitch Project, tracking down on the rejected, bullied, mocked, pilloried and horrored.  It is alarming to note that this miscast, as the disciplined proponents of journalism had found out, have bigger flowers, tastier food, healthier hair and overtly cheerful disposition pegged below 100 baht.  In effect, they have bigger stories to impart trending along their way of the opulent without the tagged retainer's fee for experts.

They are dump trucks waiting for sand and gravel to rain on them.

This breakthrough, I did not come upon hitting through team-building seminars in a caravan, getaway hive. Alas! I found it on Facebook.

I chatted with a member of a networking site whose members include a diverse and highly populous tribal groups discussing about food, legs and their neighbors' cattle inventory. Interspersed within though are haunting pictures of what is truly happening out THERE. Their quest for taste and smell of an environment that they had once inhabited.

The cache, to the discerning eye, are fit for a Victor Hugo plot. The once haughty controllers of the visual medium are seeing competitions from 11 to 13 year old high school students armed only with digital cameras worth one thousand pesos, on sale. No, they do not "fix" their pictures, except for comedic purposes. They do not even recycle old stories; they weave their own tales, using their own language, in a medium they are familiar with. It had shot up blood, wrung tears, instigated threats of colossal portions. What the participants had failed to recognize is this: this is no longer a setting from the past. This is an entirely new ballgame altogether and the ones with the upperhand do not know croissant even if it hits them hard. These are people who had plowed, towed, had fallen silent when men with twang pass by. I had one of  them ate a pizza slice and was replied: "I ate the square thing."

They do not have names for what we gobble but they have names for their screws and bolts. I have seen some distraught faces expecting an area to be paradise but were alarmed by mirrors of themselves flashed heatingly under the cheeky cheeks of those who had often been pilloried as sick and greedy. Folks, if you haven't been inside Boys' Town, this is its equivalent: a reformist school for those who crave for participation instead of division; of productivity instead of endless whining.

I had been deflected too but only to strengthen my resolve. I had lived for social dichotomy of the aware instead of being bludgeoned by a mob spreading evil and bad tidings. My food is imperially made and I am not going to apologize for it. My benefactors are not even complaining so why must I refuse their huge vegetables, their well-packaged snacks, their nuts that are  huge as my head, their farmyards with really edible fruits and veggies and their ultra sleek kitchen gallery? Let me tell you something: I had been known as a pastry hound but I never thought I'd be making my own in 30 minutes and less via a Sharp oven (18k) that I thought was unsexy back in the Philippines. Their beater sounds like a construction material thereby lending my fantasy realizable as I had always aspired to become a construction worker. Baking is my way of fulfilling one of these aspirations.

They had been discussing all about induction burners then while I was burning the midnight oil parrying some workers who are grumbling about increased wages. I never grasped their passionate sense to give comfort to cooking (why an oven must have both burners at the top and at the bottom; it is for perfect, even cooking). They could never understand the geophysical viability/feasibility of a microwave oven that just turns and turns and turns. They only use it to heat their coffee and nothing else. Invention springs from curiosity and these people are overtly curious. Like mad men.

Now I know the depth of these plans, the prototypes of gadgets, land usage and why all these should be exciting for a human being like myself. Their mission had always baffled me since I had been sitting on a chair with its quite rickety, unfunctioning balls: "Nothing Is Impossible."

They are making sense out of our Earth. And that is an awful lot of hard work. Even their taste for paintings I had severely misjudged. I never knew they could make better statues and buildings. If you had been hit by this realization too,consider yourself lucky. Like winning that lotto.

They do not get written about. They do not have enough money to finance experts on how they should spend their own money. Actually, they are poor.

Hence, they took photography as a hobby and invaded Facebook.


This is the much vouched post modernism theory in real time frame.

Throw away the  marketing surveys pulsing the public to decipher whether or not  your product clicks with the mass or not.  Your respondents can answer beyond the Yes and No boxes and can even provide you pictures as reference. They are that giving. Read their networking sites and determine who had been shallow and who had been true to their hunt for pertinent news coverages. Passing through their administrators is tough though. I would like to believe that they are the "new" information gatekeepers.

I was inspired to mesh my divergent words together when I had read this group who had suddenly found a voice through the Internet. I stringed this as an idea that could provide a peek to future communication.

"Warad ti kapi hai ean waay lubi nagdulot sang tubig for a class amelioration dichotomy."


Loosely translated, it means: "We have no coffee since we could not find a coconut tree to provide us water for a class amelioration dichotomy."

The first words are Manobo, the next one, Hiligaynon, and the last words, a competent English composition.

Writers, this is the future.

Stop fidgeting on syntax and percentages.  Stories are much more dynamic than what you had whittled down in print. If you care enough to know how they weave their clothes and why the electric shaver is more useful as a headboard ornament than the embroidered "Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness" tableau sitting beside it, you might be discovering a sleeping Pulitzer that you might not have noticed before.

                         My Life As A Sailor In Yala, Thailand's Lake. Photo Taken By My Sister-in-Law; No Need To Fret About Copyright Infringement.

TALE WORTH THE THREAD
By:  Iris P. Concepcion

Unbeknownst to many people who had known me through my writings, I was never tutored by my parents.

Burning the midnight oil to me was exposing my nostrils to the gasoline-fueled light (lampara), made from a consumed Lady's Choice sandwich spread. The daily activity of the family then was to clean our noses each time we wake up and see who had the blackest repository of ashed wastage out of the man-made light. My parents, however, did litter the house with English books and magazines and made sure that encyclopedias and world almanac grace the humble living room. You enter the rooms and books are scattered. Under the beds, inside the ghostly middle attic, words are king in this abode. The choice was glaring lushfully at that young age of wonderment.

You either pick up and read the whole caboodle of print cache or use them to store your dried fish.

I chose to read them and never looked back.

My parents never dictated upon me which routes to take in my formative learning. Public schooled in elementary, I had nonetheless accumulated quite a fancy fleet of vocabulary from my parents who pepper their conversations with payroll words like plantilla and memorandum.  They did not withhold the images of Life pictures from me. I was not told to stay put in the house and clean the dishes. I was not raised to become unwary of people and become a bigot with feudal-lordism tendencies. It was inculcated by a father who learned the tongues of the tribes there. He wore their clothes as a show of respect to them.

This snippet comes into full fruition as I have interacted with children here in Thailand who are caricatures of myself when I was five. They, too, are given choices but unlike me, they are pampered enough to be tutored by people who are after their productive welfare.

I am quite astonished by their well-managed temper outbursts, the facility by which they parry with the adults and how, like precise clockworks, they manage to teach the old ones the art of self-effacement.

I could not help but compare my own childhood learning with theirs. I need not buy comic books then; my father can draw the Sesame Street characters better than the original ones. I acquired a taste for Burt Bacharach at age seven as my parents insisted on buying  vinyl records everytime they do their market chores. Similar to their word sprays inside the house, you must choose which music you should listen to. They never shove these down my throat. Either you listen to the Radiowealth stereo or kick its gigantic speakers for being bulky.

I chose to listen to the music and not kick the gigantic speakers. Perhaps, this environment allowed me to become Kennedian, democratic and charismatic without meaning to.

This liberality of inculcation stops when it comes to worship obligation. Sundays were homilies and Chippy snacks and grilled pork. My parents took the rod and did not spare me from reminders that the duty to God is reserved on Sundays.

Since both are now gone, my million forebears who now stand as my parents, taught me the reverse of the quite shelled and modest life. I was having a communion with my brain last night and laughed when I had realized that these authoritative figures now expect me to enter a space in cubic centimeters without  boots, a knife, a twinkling tendril, knee-caps and expect me to come out unscathed when faced with vultures. The conversation goes along this way:

Me: "Where, then, are we going?"

Surrogate Parents (SP): " Wonderland."

Me and SP trek the unmentionable roads.

Me: "But this looks like splendid s#it".

Without speaking much, being the true Apache Indians and Native Americans that they are, they direct me to a plane.

Me: "Where does it fly?"

SP: "Listen to the pilot."

Pilot: "Dis is yer kapten spiking, we arayb Pakistan in an hour in roler koster."

SP: (Survey the daughter if she is trembling and felt victorious that she is enjoying the free crank).

Me: (Survey the parents if they are clowns. They are taking pictures of the daughter's stalkers and hecklers and waited for them to barf, yell and faint).

SP: "That's your burger. Eat it."

Me: "Ah, this is Wonderland."

Sometimes, I need to get reminded not to get used to bumpy roads and stale food and crappy clothes to jolt me out of my delusion that I could get things in life for free if I do a good deed.

I wish for my parents to come out alive and tell the SP's: "Reminder to the navigating surrogates: Do not bring our daughter to the woods and expect her to wilt. We gave her books but we could not give her adventure. We thank you for taking care of her and for feeding her to the wild boors. At least she can now bake a butter cake even without a butter. Do not make her bored. She throws a tantrum when bored. Again, we thank you citizens for being good people, in action and in words."

                One of Yala, Thailand's City/Municipality Main Thoroughfares. Picture Taken By This Writer Without 
                        Fear Of Copyright Infringement

YALA'S BACKSIDE
By: Iris P. Concepcion

I was looking for fresh vegetables yesterday on foot but ended up discovering new fleets of vehicles for the future.

There is a van with a pink ATM machine and mini-office inside in full battle office gear: airconditioning unit, computers and a mic. This is a pre-look into future corporate work. Manned only by one person, it has brought to the fore the uses of a passenger vehicle into a profit-oriented wheel. I had to speak to the guy manning the van that his engine hardware looks ultra sleek. If the worker gets bored with a scenery, she could always drive around near a dusky lake to change her window view. I adore this idea like nuts.

I had actually envisioned before a mobile office to beat Manila's traffic. What the Supreme Court wizards back in the Philippines did is to create a mobile legal-dispensing office using a lavender bus. I was glad it took off from a social service point of direction.

I had likewise seen roof implements made of colorful clay. I was viewed like a curious alien by the workers as I exuded a facial excitement as my eyes struck the rows and rows of these housing musts. Before, I had hyperventilated over hemlines, skirt patterns, books and films. My outlook had totally changed when I set foot in Thailand. I take awe in comfort room items, tiles, bed cushions, perfume bottles, motorcycles, (I saw a Monster variety with truck wheels and racing rider front----macho sexified), gate carvings, kitchen utensils and lamp posts. If you are an avid reader of this blog, you know who had heavily influenced me on this. He is Heaven's CEO.


I love the minimalist, wood-based designs. Theme now is outback, wildlife, forest, God and colorful deserts.

I even saw a picture of  "Cycling For Life" done within a forest park.  The onlooker-bikers in spandex outfits were watching a politician deliver his political message. Clearer than being clear.


They are eye-catchers/Worth the catch/Cameras are having a day-off.

Photo shared in Facebook via Smart Expat Moms Club. Photographer Unknown. My Thanks to Him In Advance. Do Not Sue Me For Copyright   Infringement.

FRIENDS IN THE APPLIANCES, KITCHENS, PARKS, SCHOOLS, OFFICE AND ROOFTOPS
By:  Iris P. Concepcion

I am a sticking glue when it comes to attaching myself to people.  I keep the names of my kindergarten chums who were one with me when our nappies were still peeking out from our Santa Claus costumes. I often find myself hanging around in their houses, sometimes sharing with them toothbrushes and lollipops. Those who are the closest, I converse using the old post offices in properly transmitted letters with stamps, often embossed with Mark Twain stamps.

I had been fairly lucky to have shared plenty of happy comings in and out of people in my universe whose moles in the faces and necks I could never forget.  I am not a high brow chooser. I do not select people based on their purse content. The funny people always get inside my circle, wittingly or unwittingly. The most engaging and soulful ones are, weirdly, those who have not finished college but are roughly emblazoned more with their craft superiority (drawings, letters, music). If they had finished college, I peruse their credentials and astonishingly learn that they all started from scratch i.e., tending the dishes, plumbing the bathroom, analyzing conduction burners, cutting hair, peddling hotdogs, studying urban maps, studying microbes through microscope to give us a safer source of water, advancing the faces of airconditioners ten years ahead. They make the world comfortable and functional. I had thought of it as extremely tedious, boring and colorless in the past until I saw their "rejected" canvasses of  Mardi Gras-like lobsters on a secluded tourism information office here in Thailand. They looked notches higher than the ones I normally see on prints or museums. Or that bored, pampered kid diving off in beautiful ravines as his own share of showing the beauty of the unwritten wildlife.

I consider them the freest of all. This is the reason why those who had undermined President Noynoy Aquino's capability to change our way of thinking may come in for a surprise. He is not a graduate of the Massachusettes Institute of Technology and is therefore ignorant on information technology trending but he surely knows a superior Powerpoint presentation and exceptional semi-conductors. Such is the professional trajectory of some of my friends.

I even have an inkling, these friends had provided me a total assessment of who I am based on product branding. The fixtures in my Mindanao  house are still standing, without failing, until now. Electrolux, Sharp, Radiowealth, La Germania, General Electric. I am sturdy as a person because my appliances are sturdy being well, appliances.

I, too, am prone to middling gossip but never on a protracted basis that could already hurt my skull.  I love exchanges of the visuals and words, gut humor and music.  I seldom engage in envy bull sessions to show who has the best dress ruffles among the skirts inside a videoke lounge.  I was told that I could command help from friends from the past even without me bribing them to get me out of the fix. The lent hands, they instinctively connect.

I am truly a lover of people.  I told a friend from law school before that I like studying their faces and mannerisms to populate my fictional writings. I would love them to have my food, my chips, my cheese, my salad, my viand and my chair. Sometimes, I had been berated for doing it too much more than my own inner circle.  It is not done to pay myself into a world of domination; it is what the genes had been, preferably from my simian ascendants.

When these friends already have babies, I carry them like my own.

I am writing about this component of my human interaction since I had been renewed in spirit by the resurgence of people from the past who had resurfaced with stories and visuals to partake.  Those who are connecting with me literary-wise, I had found in Facebook. The planet is not a lonely one provided you have a connection to plug your computers to.  It has brought a new facet to the name friendship. It is deeper as small talks may be cast away in terms of sharing activities not otherwise discussed personally. They make for incognito affinity but the humanity is never lost.

An anthropologist should look into the psyche of getting immersed in Facebook and how it had altered the dimensions of building friendships. Here, I have found "friends" who have sights to the inner beauties of the world. Commonality and/or divergence of interests are even widely shared, if not respected.

That is my view of having a friend, whether hanging from a roof or staying on the ground.

Here is a blurb on the social networking site about my classmate, and a friend, the director Jim Libiran. Read his credentials to know fully why he has unbelievable depth:


"This native of Tondo, is a multi-awarded writer, poet, essayist, documentary filmmaker, activist and television producer and journalist. He has, tucked in his belt, a total of ten years work experience in television news – from segment producer, he rose from the ranks to become a reporter and then as manager of ABS-CBN’s news and public affairs division. He transferred to ABC 5 to become the Head of Production for News and Public Affairs. Before television he spent ten years working in various print media companies, from tabloids to broadsheet dailies to magazines. While working as a newspaper journalist, he was also a labor activist, and a grassroots organizer/educator. In his spare time, he works on short films, joins literary contests (poetry and essay), and produced documentaries for television. As a broadcast journalist, he has done documentaries and reportage on the eve of the wars in Iraq; the Taliban defeat and the Northern Alliance take over in Afghanistan;the rebellions in Mindanao; EDSA DOS uprising; as well as socio-cultural investigations on things uniquely Filipino."

Friends are extensions of my own humanity.  The baby above is a friend even if we do not share the same roots. He shrieks from unbelievability and I come whacking those who had made him shriek.

Photo By: Anton Pablo, A Classmate  Of This Writer From The University Of Santo Tomas, Liberal Arts, Freshman.

ON BEAUTY PAGEANTS
By: Iris P. Concepcion

I had been following the Miss Universe pageants to view women who seem to be out of this world. Sculpted perfectly, they are built as if from the gods of Mt. Olympus who had descended upon Earth in designer gowns.

I found the recently concluded beauty rites charming in that it has weeded out the flimsy contours to the shallow connotations usually attached to pageants.  It is to my eyes' bias perhaps but I saw and heard the Top 5 candidates mouthing off values unhaltingly like reverence for God and that often violated word, "respect."

The normal course of exchange under this premise is to scout women in their bikini swimsuits and putting the bets on who is going to snatch the crown. I viewed the pageant here in Thailand in English but I had heard overdubs done by a curious voice pair in translation.

Like the spread of tweets on the website, I view the proliferation of effecting positive changes in the littlest actions and words that we may undertake or speak whether we are donning heels or mere slippers. Watching women with talent and graceful poses create another vibe for the womenfolk, that of forwarding their personal causes even when blessed with 36-24-36 vital statistics.

The Top 5 contestants are pretty but from the outset, one would already be aware who can pull this off without sweating the coaching benches with innate breeding and grit when allowed to face the world.

The most beautiful persons I have seen upclose are stunners because of their fortitude, ability to change when prodded, spunk and absence of ill will whenever they face another sprightly, sunny morning. They have good words to spread about people they know of and are not selfish of their time in calming tense-filled situations.

They have clear notions of what is right and what is wrong and shall not sulk when pricked.

Strong women become stalwarts of nurture and shall never point, even if they are mere toy guns, at children below five years old during the Christmas season simply because these kids have golden hair and are adorned with the most winsome, bedimpled smiles. It is the fact of simians: being naturally beautiful invites hate and envy. There should be a book with percentage data sheets to validate my assumption.

I saw the faces of these women today. I saw who had used junk food and stepped on toes as decent, humane actions  to irk the needy. Inevitably, pride, greed and bad manners lost to clearcut sanity. The judges had spoken in an even manner and called spade a spade.

A woman, to me, is essentially a person who sees things on a positive way, watching his vista with her graceful breasts, adoring lips and caring eyes.  The picture above can only be an ode to a woman who should see the universe along these edges of somber threads, captured in lights of piousness and reverence.

I wonder when they shall produce a male counterpart of Miss Universe to world stage with the same probing of anatomical circumference meant for women. I have enough proof to show that males, when cornered, resort to genitalia threats to assert their maledom. It is silly, shallow and irreverent. It has gone on a trite feedback now. What they are missing are the saner, more humane links that are present here in Thailand. This is a new ground, God is King here and women are treated responsibly. Even the mounting of the Miss Universe pageant, walled enough not to be hacked, is dignified without the usual shrieks and yellings reserved for horsefightings. Here, education is sweeter as it is brought out of the classroom and into a lifestyle psyche.  It is numbing and humbling for the once haughty to be facing these faces of somber and serene gangs of warriors who would rather clean your tubs than scissor your bedsheets when caught in a wrong step.

This is not a terrain for mob thinking. If you insist on continuing doing your usual routine of crabby missteps, you might get a surprise of a cake with icing on top. Sugar free and shipped directly by the owners of Mrs. Fields. This is decorum. If you could not tow it via boat ducts, find the finest shores instead where more domestic helpers are looking for you for great benevolence. Help them out as women should do instead of letting them pay atrocious amounts to earn their decent keep. I know these people and am one with them. You demean them, we just have to increase our bunions of cake frostings to thaw your conscience.

Miss Angola who won the title, stood for this. No translation foul-ups can stop this woman from saying her innermost gut to the world.

A piercing friend thus capsulized the entire proceedings as the triumph of both brains and beauty with the ominous words: ‎"They finally got some smart and gorgeous ones. The dumb tank must be running low."

        Photo shared in Facebook via Smart Expat Moms Club. Photographer Unknown. My Thanks to Him In Advance. Do Not Sue Me For Copyright   Infringement.

A DIFFERENT THAI CULTURE
By:  Iris P. Concepcion

I had really sworn even before my rite to full womanhood that I was the most creative, superior-minded writer within other people's radius of about 180.

I never did equate brilliance with anonymity, not by any footlong standard.  I am realizing slowly that the  underpinnings of my youthful cockiness does not hold any bearing in actual reality.

This is more than traversing the homophobe themes that had filled the media air over the years.

I am currently bombarded, in fact, with images and words that had been woven and lensed in Galilean time with its telescopic capture of the world.  What benumbs me is this:  they are products of people I would not have talked to if I am sniffing for a Soren Kierkeegard conversation.

My altered preferences are caved in from the Natural Beauty of more heavenly diametrics.  The meadows and creeks and piquant glints. Superior rainbows mitigating the anxieties of the subconscious.  The guy I had dismissed as a model-lazybug turned out to be a word wizard.  I do not claim to be sitting around the almighty presence of Stan Lee but I am now feeling how it is to be a creation of Spiderman.

Thailand has yielded riches overshadowing the glamour, propaganda and media events very reminiscent of Manila's hoi-polloi.

Here, rocks in moss come before canvass shoes with thin guitars.  These people have embraced the wilds in hale, robust forms and they had made pacts with rivers and lakes and windmills.  These earthlings have truly gone out of their cubicles in search of Bigfoot in the mountains. On a personal note, I am touched ridiculously tearsies to have been loved by these people by loving and developing my community first. I would not mind the wounds, frizzed hair and chipped nails if I can see a loo inside a school that is functioning. Riding in  graveled roads, they had discovered more about a world where I had been cocooned for years as opposed to their month-long "touring." Pampered with tons of good hunt, they could name the exact diving ranges at my nose's tip with me simply dropping my jaw in wonder. No wonder one of them abhorred my urinary pan and showed enough disparagement why I could remain so blase about domestic comfort.

This is the grit of Meryl Strip thrillers with her easy switches of American/Scandinavian accents coming to the fore. Even Mr. Lee had drawn his inspiration from an image of cutting the legs of his lady innamorata that could nail him a $100 writing contest reward in that little digest.

I shall not subsume my experiences with those who had just settled in and are just discovering this foray of visual wonderment. You had been invited with the safe assumption that you can make this world a little freer and more democratic in talent sharing. I hope that this is not in vain.  I have a richer source now (experience-wise) if ever arrogance becomes my amulet for misjudged naivete.

These images are nuanced, smelling of barks and feels of drizzles.  The Philippine press is catching fast with the onset of this outskirt plague: those leaves in hues, being stepped on for impromptu dives in a local, untouched river in vivid glistening shots.

I am recalling the visages of Life magazine with these contours of the film. California sun, girls in bikinis with golden skin, Sundance Kid.  The whole lifestyle arrow is pointing at a way of living instead of catching a trend.  It is personally exciting for me as it borders almost on a sacred ground.

I enjoin then these readers to feel the warmth and magic of these collaborative outpourings:

Jason Mraz's musical videos with their newly-megged Martin Scorsese film grains. Absolutely powerful videos. With compelling stories within songs. Click the Nerd In Pink, (with his pink shirt on with the word Otaku which is the Japanese term for Nerd)  I'm Yours, Remedy and You and I. He has a video with the Sesame Street cast and had changed the I'm Yours lyrics with going outdoors to embrace the world and the earth and the sky.

And Vic Damone of course. His As Time Goes By stills with dolls astound. Shuffling of faces, accompanied by full orchestra. With a solid, firm, incredibly experienced voice.

You shall never disrespect music again after watching these Thai finds. They are American but  are alarmingly Thai in spirit.

Just like the very surprised baby captured above.

 Photo By: Dolly Z. Arroyo as shared in Facebook, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines


September 11 Ode
By: Iris P.Concepcion
(9/11/2011)

Twin peaks/
Had burned/
From Underground/
To arise/
Again into/
A monumental/
And emblazoned glory/

Skeletized for greed/
Mocked for upscale retainers/
The emission of tact/
Highly beseiged./

Arise, arise/
To the Fight!/
The hours to /
Inclusive democratization/
Of our hidden riches./

Pulling all the plugs in/
For renewed optimism./

Photo By: Dolly Z. Arroyo, Shared In Facebook


"Talk about our country on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Multiply because our country deserves a visit from the world."----Philippine Department Of Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez.


I Am Talking, Rather, Writing, About My Country In Blogger
By: Iris P. Concepcion


Philippines before a one year old's impressionable eyes is a pebble on a dirt-mud road, claylike when rains fall, adrift with soiled feet shod in craggy boots without naturally alarming the newly-cut logs.


This is Mindanao in the 1970's, a southern most island in this archipelago where my small town, Magpet, has known poinsettias but not electricity, fireflies but not clear running water, bulldozers but not highways, Singer sewing machines but not lamp posts.


Mt. Apo, the country's tallest mountain peak, stares boldly with its one-eyed tip in front of my primary school where old pine trees are lined, leaves detaching from branches like hair strands in grainy green. Gifted with lush hills and terrains, it snubs any citified intrusion like a dame guarding her chastity from demons.


The Philippines is Nature and Wildlife and Animals and Heat and Small Stores and Rain and Logs and Men In Pomade and Pious Church Goers.


Bedecked in rivers and uncemented roads but with a galaxy of fruit trees ready to be teethed and be eaten from the bushy backyards of neighbors,  I learned the word "sweet" from its sugarcane produce, "sour" from the kalamansi vine, "salty" from a wooden box filled with salt sold by a local merchant in used, lubricant oil plastics.


River in the Philippines is Life itself. We bathe, dive, swim, frolic, wash our laundry in this bountiful stream of water adorned with mossy rocks. What it lacks in spiritual symmetry, we propel for underground pop art. Dug water wells in "batyas" carried by maidens in "sarong." A Norton Anthology of English Literature and traders plying the roads with encyclopedias can delight a surprised visitor whose cultural slant may consist of us, locals, camping, up there in trees with G-strings on.


We lack basic utilities then but I had tasted bacon, cheese and peanut butter from a mother who insists on having them as staples. She brought with her stories about chocolates freely given by Americans to little children when her own hometown in the North, Laguna, had been bombed by the Japanese during World War II. Philippines does communicate with food instinctively. We had battered roads but compensate for it by owning extraordinary snack food. I did not own a bulb but ate Chiz Curls.


Native bags are gifts from a school nurse; dresses from parents who insist to doll me up with ruffles as an impressionist's elan prior to my weekly doctor appointments.


My headline: Magpet Bedazzled By Dawn Rain. Lifestyle section: Beads From Manobo (local tribe) Doubly Yarned. Sports: Under The Twinkling Stars, Little League Scores In Patintero. We had no lights but we had the most mystifying moon.


It is strictly the woods without the cabins. I was pitched out from this habitat when I turned teen.


The roads in Kidapawan, where I took my secondary school learning, is paved with cement and asphalt. It has a fanciful restaurant named Rendezvous, gasoline stations, printing office  and hardware stores. Its public market sells plenty of shoes in neatly arranged boxes. Some of the vendors speak my mother's dialect from Luzon, "Tagalog". Its church is called a cathedral. Streets are adorned with pine trees. A radio station is near my Catholic-run high school, the Notre Dame of Kidapawan for Girls, where a radio deejay wakes up people, goats and cows in "Ilongo" (a dialect from the Visayas) unhaltingly at 5:00 a.m. This is my first foray into the urbane.  My classmates had electricity. I offered my mother's  tastiest goat meat and cosmopolitan macaroni salad with chicken bits to balance my lack of flourescents. And I had white gabardine pants and wool tee shirt from my brother who was studying in the capital of the country, Metro Manila, which made me look impeccably scrubbed. 



I lacked water source but I had breeding.


Eventually, light and water were introduced to my town when I was in high school.


This is a traditional Philippine development component. You shall be judged according to your access to basic utilities. The farther you are from the sources, the least your ranking shall be in societal circles. It is a caste variant. Point number one: investing in water and electricity in hinterlands is a democratized manner of giving people their dignity and pride. It is not a badge for the few.


Luckily for tourists, now that we are in the year of God 2011, most parts of the Philippines trekking along my own habitat narrative are already electrified with safer water systems being further developed. The country is opening up to other players in tapping energy and water resources to pull the costs down as preparation for year 3011 when cars could be flying above humans like airplanes.


A visitor to the country always lands first in Metro Manila. This is where I took my college degree in Communication Arts. Since most of the travellers end up here, explore it without using guides and maps. Filipinos never use maps. Get lost if you can; better to try our own myriad of transportation means. Railway, buses, jeepneys, tricycles and taxis. You are lost in this city, you shall always be bumping into a new mall with information directions. Or schools and universities. 


Today, Manila has sprawling malls comparable with the best of the world. Our new tourism czar is asking Filipinos to write about the Philippines in Twitter, Facebook and Multiply links and I must do my share of writing beyond our mesmerizing shopping complexes.


I have said it before and I shall say it again, our magic lies in our people. Immerse with them. Sit down and share a can of Coke with them in their households. 


Forget about the structures and Westernized opulence that we now have and the vibrant spirits of creativity sprouting from everywhere. Linger on my first sentences when we had virtually nothing but had seen our country as a Fairy Tale setting.That is the charm of the Philippines. Filipinos talk a lot that we become virtual palm readers without our batteries dying out. My co-Filipinos have better stories than I do. They have better comedy skits than the Three Stooges. Discover them and you discover the country that we have shaped along the way. They may have travelled half the world but they can recall and reminisce with glinting eyes the times when they had no lights but had gobbled Nutri-buns (protein-rich, gift and subsidized to malnourished public school children in late 70's) with ice-cream under tree shades.


Discover A Filipino. Discover The Philippines.


Ninety per cent (90%) of the population can speak and understand English. Their twang could even be better than a native Yankee.


You can get here not very original souvenirs, but you shall be bringing to your home fabulous tales, street fright, sometimes awful stench, odd people, dirt and smog that you can wipe off immediately running to another, well, mall. Our beaches and underground Nature can speak for themselves. They are God's creations without needing any pamphlets.


To wind up, the best souvenir item you can actually lug with you is, you guessed it rightly, a Filipino.


P.S. The photo grab above is my university alma mater, the University of Santo Tomas. It does look European in structure; this is the color hue of my childhood memories, minus the wintry look. If ever you get lost, go to this university and ask for directions. Thanks to the photographer Dolly Z. Arroyo whose avatar on her Facebook account is that of a cat. I hope she does not mind my posting here her beautiful picture.


P.P.S I am actually dreading my proposal here. We might not need the RH bill anymore if Filipinos become souvenir items (lessening the population via trans-migration). Imagine if every foreigner brings, like trophy, a Filipino to be cleared through Immigration. And declaring at Customs the words: "Exquisite Find".

ELEPHANT, SURPRISED

By:  Iris P. Concepcion

Proclaim!

Thuds of the wilds

Lugging on top

My favorite

Chair in green

Look at my eyes

A pinch to your globed

Irises

A friend coming out

With tusk behaved.

Iris P. Concepcion, Phang-nga Experience

Thailand 9/4/2011

RECLINING BUDDHAS IN TIME OF TRANSFORMATION
By: Iris P. Concepcion
August 31/mid-afternoon, thunderstorms declaiming

Bolts of lightning had struck as I am scribbling down sentences right now.  Nature is nagging in screaming, booming natural speakers. It creates an intuitive havoc to people underneath longing for earthly redemption.  I can never possess a spunk to converse with Nature when it is raging mad.

My brother and sister-in-law had invited me today to visit a natural cave within the vicinity of Yala.  They had just gifted me with Big Mac, a comfort food whether or not I am thrown to the wilds or marooned in a deserted island. They had just come from Haad Yai for a meeting.

I did not expect this natural sanctuary to be  a square-off with Asian/Oriental transcendental meditation, the nerve of Thailand  essayed in international publications which is the exact opposite of paragraphs garrulously depicting it as a sex trade frontier with exotic ethnicity, seat of tsunami and coup rumors.

I was not prepared for this Immensity which made me speechless in a wand strike for minutes.  I was devoutly astounded with nary a gaping word coming out from my mouth even in silent hisses.

The reclining Buddha is the Power Of Immense Herself (a she).

Simply put, it is beyond the sphere of aesthetics and spirituality; it has revolved around the universe that no music nor poetry can ever usurp its multi-dimensional openings to self-awareness. It is sacred, it holds conversation in subliminal contexts, it is not for the faint-hearted and men trapped in skis.

I was stunned, bawled, frozen, unskyped as my brother and sister-in-law, both with cameras each, took grails of a spiritual wat unbeknownst to mortals.  I look ridiculously flayed and senseless as a human appendage to the lens, an obscure entity to its glorified majesty.  This is awareness travel and I will never trade it for a steeply-priced concert of an incomprehensible boy band.

I think no one is ever prepared to this classical-folksy religiosity.

Coming off from the lesser, touristy version of this temple underneath with monkeys I so dearly love, one might find little consolation that the world has edges far beyond jumping in and out of airplanes and heading straight to fancy hotels.

Here, you climb a 100-steps stairs with white railings and is greeted by a black, ghetto-like sculpture of an aborigine, all big and robust.

You climb more stairs and shall come across with a row of Buddhas and gods sitting in an otherwise touristy nook.

The gate beckons though.  We entered it and there, she reclines. With ten toes on Her feet, well-trimmed and shaped.  She is big.  A blimp. Breathtaking wonder.

In immediate reflex, I motioned and paid homage by giving these gods a sublime and heartfelt Thai peace greeting.

This is why you explore. That is the very reason why holiness is not a traded word in the stock market.

It says: "Some things are held sacred and should remain as is." 

You spit on the King's holy ground just for entertainment fracas, confession is not enough a big box to atone for that transgression.

As an adjunct, meditational segue, here is a thread lifted off from "philosophers" as posted in Facebook. The writer is a friend and I shall render him nameless here. It reads like a shortened novellette. I dub it the novelletisimus. For good thinking and mind widening:




Underneath a mango tree, a Karma Yogi and a Jnana Yogi had a tiff one afternoon on how to view the concept of "ripening" from a spiritual perspective. The Karma Yogi said: "It is action that propels one to ripeness...just like that mango fruit" to which the Jnani Yogi said: "It is being and becoming that propels one to ripeness...just like that mango fruit". Then coming out of nowhere Kanhaiya Lal, the young Krishna, squeezed himself through the narrowing gap between the two, climbed up the tree and gobbled the mango up. Coming down, he said: "Enjoying the fruit minus all the talk and the thinking is what Bhakti or devotion all about. Life is to be lived and God to be made your lover. Now, shut up."