Bits and pieces strung together with messy narrative
Am currently reading Rohinton Mistry’s ‘Such a Long Journey,’ and though I’m only some 30 pages into it, I already feel involved.
Involved. That word again. For me to get involved with anything or anyone is already something. I am one who either dismisses or adopts. I either care about something or I couldn’t care less about it. Often there is no middle ground.
Anyways, this book has already broken open for me and I am inside, beginning the journey through it. So far, it strikes me as a social commentary about India of the 1960s. Yet again, it is written by an Indian national who has left his country (out of pain? Out of disgust and helplessness?), and there is more than a drop of wisfulness, an amalgam of bitterness in some passages. Hay, I suppose it will always be like that. Writers from impoverished countries with histories steeped in social conflict will always write that way (of course it’s a given that I’m writing about the more ’serious’ writers who go beyond self-introspection).
—–
It’s Labor Day tomorrow and I am excited and apprehensive at the same time.
The first because it will be my first Labor Day outside the Philippines, and I will get to see first hand how its that other nationalities celebrate this most historic days.
The second, well, because back at home, there’s the threat the Arroyo government will yet again instigate violence and crackdown on the rallies tomorrow.
This wait-and-see thing is really getting on my nerves; and I monitor the sites of the Inquirer and ABS-CBN every hour to find out if Gloria– like some mutant, carnivorous chicken, has hatched anything foul again. I worry for the rallyists, and I worry for the masa who will be joining the protests.
Tomorrow I’ll be joining UNIFIL as they launch the ‘Bantay Konsulado’ program at Chater Garden. (It’s a campaign which, as the name implies, entails keeping an eagle eye on the doings of the Philippine Consulate. There are so many reports about how OFWs are being turned away empty-handed when they seek assistance. Or worse, how OFWs turn away in outrage and disgust over the shoddy and rude treatment they receive from consulate employees.
Hay naku. Sana may organizing work dito ang COURAGE (Confederation for the Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees).
The Labor Day rallies of migrants here will be spearheaded by the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB. The UNIFIL is one of the organizations allied with it), and they they join the march organized by the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU).
The AMCB will carry the slogan “Bring the minimum wage of foreign domestic workers back to HK$3,670” and “abolish the levy” as the main calls.
My French-Canadian friend Raymond keeps telling me to start enjoying Hong Kong. He says that there’s so many things that I can learn, discover and do here that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to learn, discover and do back at home.
I tell him, ‘Heck, I’m trying already, okay?!’
And I do try. I’ve taken walks in the parks, gone to the night markets, went to see museums, etc.
Kaso, ever so often, I’ll run into an OFW who works as a domestic helper, and I can’t help but wonder how it is for her and her family back home. I can imagine how difficult it is to be working as a maid for a foreign family, and for slave wages. Tapos, when they send their wages home, the equivalent will never be much, given the peso’s mediocre value. Hay.
Thinsg to look forward to this week:
1. Watching ‘House’
2. Watching ‘Monk.’
3. Watching ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’
4. Reading new copy of Alain de Botton’s ‘The Art of Travel.’
5. Going to the Powerstation Beach if it isn’t rainy.
6. Getting a pair of hamsters.
7. Listening to MP3s of U2’s songs from Achtung, Baby and Zooropa
8. Watching Woody Allen’s Match Point.
9. Visiting the IKEA store in Causeway Bay (functional art all around. really. Semi-disposable Swedish-designed furniture made in China. My friend Elias would be so envious of me…hahaha!) (Let’s forego the unfair labor practices in the Mainland for the meantime, please? Every little bit of enjoyment is tainted, I tell you. Reality doesn’t bite. It chomps chomps chomps like Pacman gone rabid.)
10. Buying more fake Lego.
