nose bleed

i'll post another before i leave taipei. and then maybe one to wrap it all up. but i dont think the latter is ever possible.

for a talkative jabberwookie like myself its real hard to not being able to communicate. i had a failed effort in teaching myself tagalog in preparation for this trip...studying a selfteaching tagalog book...watching wowowee...and using some electronic flashcards. but if i had to say what my biggest regret in life so far is not being able to understand one of my languages. its one of those things i'm not really good at, i can listen and pronounce, but when it comes to structure and function i suck at it. at the same time it has been a struggle it has been also a lesson. trying to figure out common ground with people. making the most out of a few words. reading and giving body language. its just one of those major thing i will encounter with a lot in my profession. taking a step back, and being humbled in more ways than one. i'm not a linguistics major but tagalog has to be the most flexible and complex language i have ever studied.

funny thing right now in the computer terminal. "if you use English plese key Ctrl+space". "please sing-in before using the system". "if additional time is required, please sing-in again and wait for the next available time period".

i know its trivial but its funny. so ha!

turista

filipinos love to be tourists. theres a lot close to here so daytrips are the usual. i figure its would take more than a month/year a bigger budget and a personal trip planner to really see everything north to south. at least i've seen a lot in south luzon, and if anything it give me more motivation to come back and see more on all 7100 islands. the greyhounds (like ten companies) here are cleaner, and more convenient so spontaneous trips are easy...me and my ateh melo at a mall, "hey lets go to baguio" "ok we'll leave tonight after dinner", so we take a 6 hour trip from 3am to 9am, do all the siteseeing, feel the "coldness", leave at 10pm and arrive at 3am. you knock out anyway in the bus. the next trip is to boracay via boat so thatll take a lot, but three days 2 nights in bora will be worth it.

my mom said she's never been to baguio. its seems like her generation of 8 siblings were on hyperdrive, and really didnt have the time to do anything fun. for her it was gradeschool to highschool in the province, four years undergrad at feu, four years med at feu (both during martial law mind you), and then off to states in '81 to start a family and finish residency. thats straight up hella. i can barely concentrate in this climate, with everything going on around me, with a fully stomach and sufficient funds.

in tagaytay there is pineapples...check
in baguio its cold...check
in vigan theres calesas...

off to find the mythical rarang and its metaphorical pearl.

kalye

at the last nwfasa conference i talked about my experience in 01 when i went back to the philippines technically for the first time (going when you are under 5 doesn't really count for me). i said my experience was "sterile". its like everywhere you go, everything you see is through some sort of lens or glass, real and imagined. from an ac house to an ac car to an ac mall and back was how it went down. we didnt really go through the 'rough' neighborhoods nor at night so i can barely recall anyone asking for money. you see it but don't experience it. but would i really want to, or could i bear one day in their feet? as much as i may think i know about poverty, economics, etc, i still know nothing.

yesterday i watched shrek 3 in makati greenbelt. hung out for a bit and went home. seeing kids on the streets selling sampaguitas. dodging traffic running through fences. they couldnt have been more than 8 or 9 years old but one cant tell with their malnutrition. on one hand, damn, greenbelt is crazy nice. hella restaurants and bars at happy hour prices, but on the otherhand an obvious indicator of the vast wealth disparities. you cant really enjoy anything and cant help but feel guilty with knowing what goes on outside, with how much you've just spent even though it is not much in translation. once the movie stops life resumes. once you leave the protected complex there is a mix of luxury cars, jeepneys, taxis, and people in the streets. driving through squatter areas attempted to be hidden by 'city face lifts' which are bright colored walls. its no wonder why escapism is the preference. malls and media. but i am not one to judge. i am just an observer for now, and will sampaguita after i'm done with school and settled, which will take about a decade. but who knows what will happen in that time. here people measure time by the power of the peso...."back in my day, it was 8 to 1". in this past month its has gone from 47-45, stock markets have been finishing at record highs, both good and bad politicians are being elected and more transportation and construction plans being executed.

the last time i saw a filipino go up to cardoors in traffic was myself during a change drive for my senior year community service project. but that was in the suburbs, after eating breakfast, for some charity which i dont remember, and not for my own survival.

katinpunero

off to our philly...cawit, cavite. from one nation's beginnings to another w/in two months. one's fully realized, the other not yet. my cousin doesnt celebrate june 12.

pineapples

back from tagaytay. saw taal and the best located starbucks. its hard to really comprehend the people living under the shelter of the one of bajillion megasize billboards advertising multimillion peso homes that most people cant afford in this country, and is advertising 'to buy your second home in tagaytay'. in a confused state that retail therapy cant fix, though buying a kahon for $30, though cheap, still makes me feel guilty for what i see around me everywhere. the only thing to help is family...more later.

bittersweet

first post from the rp. cant say much because i am wanted for halohalo downstair. but so far everything has been bittersweet, just as i expected. nothing in particular to expect, but the experience has been like no other. if that makes any sense. its too hot and i am burnt....more about manila, province, elections, pahiyas festival, and else. just for curiousity sake, my goals are:

1. family
2. history
3. nature
4. culture
5. tbd

made in taiwan

not really, but i'm here for about three hours. all the damn filnight scenes were going in my head while checking in, gloria's suicide song, and hella other stuff. i passed out during most of the flight and only woke up for meals and to catch the last half of the pursuit of happyness. food was good, ramen was spicey. no real revelations right now except the idea that "this is asia". there is no order for bording except for business class. people start to get up and line up at the plane door while the plane is still moving and the fasten seatbelt sign is still on and you hear hella different languages surrounding you. also all the duty free shopping is wierd to me. this terminal is more of a mall with the 'trendy zone' and 'spirit way' stores behind me, but at least they got free internet. you can feel the humidity. i'm still trippin in more ways then one. off to explore and look at all the stuff i wont buy.

lets see if this post will work. 80% of the computer text is in chinese.

i'm off.

my bags are all packed....for the most part, been preppin for this trip my whole life, or at least since the last time i came..first time everything was new..mga sorpreza..family i've never known except through bcube box names..kept in touch via friendster..it had enough impact on me to devote the last 5 years to attempting to understand my identity, my culture, who i am..all in all it has set shit in motion..enough to where i don't know where i would be now, or who i would not have met if i didn't go this path..the goal this time..i dunno..maybe find inspiration or ways to go back more..something to give me that push while in school for the next 8 or so years..something to be proud of..something to bring back..it is my home..an imagined placed in a far away land..where all my expectations will be exceeded..a lot of studying..time to live it.

i'm outro. next post will be in taipei or manila. ingat to me!

ps. great job to the filnight cast/crew. maybe i'll run into a boxer, popstar, student, and sayaw in the bathroom.

thank you wikipedia

travelling via air can be problematic. aside from the long lines checking in, no bottles greater than 2oz, and that something that always seems to happen. in 2001, my passport was issued as DODDA SIMANGAN, unknown to me until a trip to canada in 2003; had to use D.SIMANGAN for my tickets to london sep 2004 so i wouldnt be in trouble. in feb 2007, i decided to have only carry ons, forgot about the liquid bottle rule and had to throw away everything except my almost empty toothpaste, which was later thrown away at the kirksville, mo airport, on the one of two flights to kansas city. after congress passed stricter laws on passports i decided not to risk it with my trip to the philippines next week, so i filed for a passport change in the last week of january, only after $100 and 12 weeks later to get it. now today a new issue found via prince harry being sent to iraq news article stating that his uncle was the last royal to see combat in the falkan islands war to being curious about the new passport securities to finding out a visa is required after 21 days in the Philippines. my trip is 29. so i will rush after work to get it all figured out. pay all the priority mail stuff, and hope to get it by this saturday.

billete/chit

i got my ticket for eva air on friday, so its official. more official than setting up a blog and saying i will go. my parents bought it for me at aa travel, down the street from balikbayan cargo. they wanted to buy it at bbc because you get free phone cards, and they wanted to be efficient since they were there anyway sending a balikbayan box which will arrive one day after i do. so that is my two 70lb checkins (probably only 40lbs of my stuff), 1 bbb, and some carryons, so mga 250 pounds. i have a lot of junk in the trunk.

i will be visiting about 9ish families (its sad that i dont know exactly how many, nor all the names and faces) over there (3 live here in the states), and staying mostly with my cousin who is 24, and an MSI (medstudentyear1) on summer break (contacted via friendster). actually most of my cousins are around 20-30yo which will constitute going out a lot. the families are for the most part doing pretty well over there, some in politics, medicine, engineering, all in or have graduated school. ive only met them that last time i went (only one uncle has visited in the past 15 years) so this will be an interesting trip, on top of flying solo, and being 15% competent at tagalog. overall my plans are still in the air. there are some events and places i want to check out but i dont want to overly-intinerize myself. if anything i set goals of what i want to do/see, and its family, relax, music, medical sites, and natural/historic sites. i know i will never really enjoy my stay, perhaps because i know too much, or too little. all in all i think it will be bittersweet.

prologue 1

its been about 6 years since i've been to the philippines, an event which steered me in a direction that i still live by today.

every personal statement for every application in the past 6 years has included this life changing experience. my entire college career was based on this trip and all of my social consciousness and awareness began here. it was the perfect precursor to my senior year of high school, and will be the perfect precursor to my first year of medical school.

for a detached upper middle class filipino american, notions of class and social inequality are easy to forget and get caught up in the system of a society that is more focused on the individual, on materialism, on escapism. i always need some sort of check now and then to remind me of the privileges i have and continue to have. detached in that i grew up away from extended family. detached in that i grew up away from my homeland. detached in that i didn't grow up speaking my languages. detached in that i live in a strata of society that a majority of my people do not. all these things which i cannot change, nor blame my parents for it. they chose what they had to for our family. all i can do from here is only understand and attempt to reconnect the bonds which where forcefully severed by the same system which i live in today.