The Roommate Situation
The Roommate situation: my version My roommates here in Hong Kong are all lunatics. The seriousness of their lunacy are in varying degrees. Am not going to write who’s the worst and who should be dragged off in a strait jacket – but if you know who they are, you can judge for yourself.
Bukaneg is obsessed with finding the best place to have breakfast. Or lunch. And dinner. Also the snacks in between. Because of him, we’re always looking for the best value for our money here, as we don’t have much money. He’s lucky because he’s so easy to please, gastronomic fulfillment wise. A true-blue gourmand, he, however, seems to finds no distinction between a HK$5 dollar bite of animal entrails and a HK$60 dollar per serving of, say, Peking duck. He’s the one who made us buy and eat the weird looking and not-normal tasting Dragon Fruit. Every 2 pm, he sends out reports to Ngayon Na, Bayan – pretending he’s outside in the streets mingling with the common folk when actually he’s just in Victoria Park, inside a relatively warm and toasty tent, hahahahaha! He has a picture of himself giving Chairman Mao a smack on the cheek.
Paulo (or Gian, to differentiate him from the other Paolo, whom we call Miguel or P2), is fussy with his hair. I’ve noticed that he spends about 15 minutes coming his hair every morning, making sure every strand is in place. He’s on the prowl for the best facial wash – one that will help him clear up his supposed pimple problem. I keep telling him to get Kao Biore, which is cheaper here, but he’s worried that if he gets a tube and it runs out, he won’t be able to replenish because it’s only sold in Rustan’s or something. (This, I think, is his one biggest personal worry in Hong Kong is how his face is faring from the cold. Hey Pao – you’re cute enough as you are; but just get a freaking bottle of Clearasil if you’re really worried!)
As for Ron, hmmm. What I can say about Ron? Ever cheerful, never complaining, often the butt of Bukaneg’s jokes and the target of his constant ribbing about tangled and complicated love lives. Ron blushes like a teenage girl, and it’s funny. He collects, for some reason, bottles. He has a bottle of some darkblue drink in his room right now, and we’re all betting that it’ll taste like Benadryl or Robitussin. Ron likes sultana biscuits, wears blue boxers to bed, and usually skips breakfast. He’s a mean machine with a camera, and his presentation on JMS’s speech is something to watch. Kodao’s main –man when it comes to the camera-work. ——————-
Pearl City Roommates (Raymund “Bukaneg” Villanueva’s version)
Look at the picture on the left. That’s me and Ina inside the oh-so-red media center tent in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park. Our tasks done for the meantime, we found a sliver of time to check our Friendster accounts and post our latest blogs. Ina and I have been planning to exchange blogs since a few months ago. But since we came to Hong Kong together and we are roommates at the moment, we decided to exchange blogs about our other roommates. (So check her blog as well.)
There are 12 of us in this small room in a building along Paterson Road. We used to be 13 but, like in Kuya’s house, one of us elected to leave voluntarily. He does not want to sleep on the floor with me snoring wildly nearby. Some people just do not know privilege when they see one.
But enough about losers. Malas lang naman din ang labintatlo.
I’ve known Ka Satur Ocampo for 15 years already. I’ve never seen his demeanor nor his hair ruffled even once. But I got to see how his usually slick hair looks like after he jumps out of bed in the morning. He is a regular Son Goku pala in the mornings. But I suspect S.O’s powers are greater than the anime hero. Ka Satur has eluded the police and military so many times in his underground career. Lalo na siguro ngayon since he now has more-salt-than-pepper mane.
Bayan’s Cynthia “Cha” Vargas, RN has the unenviable task of talking to the desk whenever we needed something, like comforters or pillows. She studied basic and advanced acupuncture and alternative medicine in Beijing so we all assumed she knows the most about communicating with the locals. Well, we were both wrong and right. We were wrong in the sense that she isn’t understood at all and we were right in the sense that she could pantomime through almost everything—from the cold weather, the need to have our rooms cleaned, to why the hell they are telling us that our rooms are good for five people when even my store room back home looks decidedly bigger.
Please do not pity us when I tell you we are bunked together with KMU’s Norma Binas and Tita Elisa Lubi of Kodao. Much that we would like an occasional pillow fight, can we possibly do that with them around?
Bayan Chair Dr. Carol P. Araullo, MD spent her birthday morning and night with us. What struck me as curious about her was when I arrived at the room one afternoon and found her working on her laptop on the claustrophobia-inducing hallway. She was sitting on a low chair while the laptop was propped on a stool. I guessed it was her way to squeeze out more creative juice for the paper she was preparing the other day. May ibinubulong kaya ang mga pader?
Here’s one for the books—I saw BM’s Grace Saguinsin wearing a pink skirt. Plus, her doggie bags are always worth the late nights we spend waiting for her to arrive.
When I was a new recruit years ago, I once rode with BM Rep. Teddy Casino on a crowded late night bus going back to Manila. I swear this guy could fall asleep standing up. Parang kabayo. The other night, he did it again. I thought he was writing something on his pad but he was already fast asleep. (Check out the pic!) But I think Teddy likes my feet several inches from his face when we sleep. He wakes up looking refreshed every time.
Gian Paolo Oliveros and Ron Papag are a study in contrasts. If we let Pao be, we would be hard pressed to see a space that isn’t occupied by a discarded article of clothing of his. Ron on the other hand is obsessively compulsive about making his space as tidy as possible. It his feminine side showing daw. But the only thing feminine I see about Ron these days is the owner of the Philippine cellphone number he surreptitiously calls in the dead of the night while he is buried under the sheets.
Lastly, there’s Ina who I’m gonna exchange this blog with (so I can’t say much about her). Except this: she does not flinch when we boys strip to our undershorts with her in the room. Married na kasi. #
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I’ve forgotten that it’s almost Christmas! This actually comes as a shock even to myself, considering that Christmas is my favorite time of the year. Not really so much because I’m eager for the gifts and loot I expect to get (well okay, so maybe am a little eager); but mostly because, well, I’ve always had the idea that during Christmas, people are less prone to being evil and they make more of an effort to be decent.
I know, I know – this is pretty naïve of me, but heck, it’s how I feel. It’s most unlikely that I’ll ever outgrow this unshakeable belief that people are essentially good. Even among the big businessmen and the landgrabbers and the other criminals like them, there’s a drop or two of genuine human kindness. But am not in the mood for making observations about the human condition and the ponder over whether Camus is right or not.
Being in Hong Kong, I’ll try to think the way ordinary Hong Kongese think on most ordinary days and be…consumerist. I’m not really into the craziness of shopping for clothes and shoes (but I do admit to being a sneaker person), so the pull of Hong Kong’s fashion district has no real effect on me.
The things that I like best among the stuff being sold here? Toys. (I have to make my conscience and political awareness tone down a bit if I’m going to be able to write this. Because otherwise I’ll end up writing about the conditions in the toy sweatshops here and in Mainland China – the way the fumes from the vats of melted rubber and plastic smell and enter the noses and lungs of the workers who are paid $1 a day for their pains. Or about how ironic it is that the workers in the toy factories – the makers of the Mattel toys like Barbies and Tonkas or even just those dime-store dollhouses, cooking sets, miniature pianos and xylophones, etc can’t even afford to get their own children things to play with because their wages are only enough for the most basic necessities – namely rice.)
In Manila, there are Toy Kingdom stores, but here and in Hong Kong and in the west, the toy mafia is the monopoly is headed by Toys ‘R’ Us. I’m not really into stuffed toys, but I do like train-sets, carpenter tools, and dolls. When I was younger (like two decades and 3 years younger, harhar), I had a doll I named Claudine. She wore a 50s French walking dress, and I loved her to distraction. My father gave her away when I was in school one afternoon, and I missed her so badly I couldn’t sleep properly for weeks –worrying about her and wondering whether her new owner would comb her (Claudine’s) hair, and sew her new dresses (I used to make doll clothes! Hand-stitched, of course. I could make corduroy pants and flowing skirts. ). Now that I’m supposed to be an adult, I still like dolls, but it’s not like I still collect them. I didn’t have too many friends growing up (as am reclusive by nature, but becoming an activist has helped me get out of my shell, and I don’t think about people the way I used to. I used to think other people suck. Nothing specific – I just didn’t like talking to other people, period. Too…exhausting, and often they demand too much), so I suppose I turned to those miniature artificial people for company and even conversation.#
