Achieving Happiness

                    Shocking news here in Hong Kong (besides the Filipina domestic helper who was charged with theft by her employer, a local movie actor).

A HK-based veteran journalist, Ching Cheong, was charged by the Beijing government of spying for Taiwan. After being incarcerated for 16 months (since August last year) when Ching went to Guangzhou.

Ching, 56, is The Strait Times’ chief correspondent for China. He was charged with espionage, accused of sending state secrtes and intelligence to a Taiwanese foundation between May 2004 and April 2004. He was allegedly paid 300,000 yuan.

Ching’s family and colleagues in the journalism profession are aghast. Ching has an established reputation as an activist-journalist, taking strong stands on issues favoring democracy and human rights in the straits. He took a stand against the crackdown in Tiananmen, and supported calls for suffrage rights in Hong Kong. He has consistently helped HR institutions document the various human rights violations in China; and supported moves for peace negotiations between China and Taiwan.

The Hong Kong Journalist Association held a presscon yesterday and its officials looked completely bewildered. They could barely restrain themselves from speaking out more vehemently against the Beijing government, and went on about the curtailment of press freedom and the right to a fair trial.  In the entire time that Ching was incarcerated, all the developments in his case were kept severely under wraps. The trial itself was conducted almost under a cloak of secrecy — no transparency, no detailed reports, the media was not allowed to cover it nor were they given any interviews with Ching.

Legal experts insist that Ching’s trial was prejudged, and that the evidence presented against Ching was weak. Beijing did not even cite which Taiwanese ’spy agency’ its referring to, and specifically what kind of reports that Ching wrote and allegedly sent qualified as ’state secrets.’ Friends and colleagues are also angered by the accusation that Ching would spy on his own country in exchange for money.

Acting like a complete jellyfish, in the meantime, Hong Kong Chief executive Donald Tsang said that his adminstration is not in any position to question Beijing’s legal system and its decision on the Ching case. He said that the ‘one country, two systems’ policy applies, and thus Hong Kong’s hands are tied. Gad, this Bow-Tied One is some weakling. I hope he doesn’t get re-elected.

It’s to be hoped that the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) would issue a statement on this issue and support calls for Ching’s immediate release. Journalists in the Philippines know better than to back down from state repression, and it would be a big boost for the Hong Kong campaign for greater democracy (against Beijing…) if journalists from other countries would comment on this matter.

For their part, journalists in Hong Kong should push the limits of the democratic space in Hong Kong and speak out against the abuses of the Beijing government. The human rights violations being perpetrated in China are the stuff of nightmares.

In the last month, reports have been coming about about how Beijing government has been sizing up Taiwan’s military potential and even nuclear capability. The other day a story came out in the South China Morning Post that in two years, China can launch a full attack against Taiwan, ‘and everything will be over in just seven minutes.’

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Next to human rights, my second favorite cause is animal rights (third ang environment, but I haven’t had the chance to do any environmental work and advocacy). I was very pleased to know that here in Hong Kong, they have very strict animal rights laws, and kicking/hurting/starving/abandoning, etc animals is a crime and one can get fined a maximum of $5000.

The animal shelters and pet stores are very strict before they let anyone adopt or buy pets. They question the would-be owner about their priorities and whether they’re certain up to 100% that they can handle the responsibility of taking care of a pet for the animal’s entire life; and that they can provide the animals with food, a comfortable environment and daily walks to the park, and most important LOVE.

If the would-be-owner is less than 100%, then chances are the animal shelter and the pet store won’t let you adopt or sell you a cat or dog.

I agree with that wholeheartedly, but I also wish that Hong Kong (like any other society that proclaims its love for animals) would care more about the plight of humans more (like the domestic helpers who end up taking care of the animals because their owners go to work or school. The HK government won’t raise wages back to the pre-SARS level and scrap the ant). But that’s a separate blog altogether, and for the most part, I am in love with the legal system because it more or less (90%)  works.

Anyways, I feel strange about this story in PDI. Hurrah for the animals, but I feel ambivalent towards the proponents of the project. I wonder if the human rights activists approached them , would they express the same concern for the HR issues?

Concert for volunteers, canines’ cause

By Tarra Quismundo
Inquirer
09/01/2006
CLASSICAL music will literally go to the dogs in a fundraising concert for volunteers and their four-legged partners in rescue missions.

The music of Frederic Chopin and Filipino composer Nicanor Abelardo will fill the air on Sept. 23 as the Philippine National Red Cross and Philippine Canine Search and Rescue Foundation Inc. (PHK9SAR) stage a benefit concert titled “Dog Day Afternoon.” The concert, which will gather international and Filipino musicians in “an elegant soiree of light classical music”, will be held at 3 p.m. at the residence of organizer Kumiko Kuroda in Forbes Park, Makati City.

“We save human lives with the help of dogs. But we need funds for these efforts, so I thought of putting up a charity event where the guests can also enjoy beautiful classical music,” said Kuroda, who came up with the idea of a fund-raiser with PHK9SAR chair Reneé Speltz.

Proceeds from the concert would go to the Red Cross and PHK9SAR, a group of volunteers and dogs trained to take part in search and rescue operations, bomb detection and evidence tracking. The group was in Southern Leyte last February to rescue villagers buried in a landslide.

The concert will feature tenor Juan Alberto Gaerlan, sopranos Karla Patricia Gutierrez and Jennifer Uy-Wong, violinist Jay Cayuca, cellists Yuuka Omoto and Rafael Laperal, Noriko Kojima, and pianists from the Jovianney Cruz Piano Studio.

I wonder what Truman Capote would have said or written if he were alive today and he knew what had happened to his beloved New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the shameful, despicable neglect of the George W. Bush government?

In his stories and non-fiction pieces (such as Hidden Gardens in his Music for Chameleons  collection), Capote describes the beguiling, seductive mystery of New Orleans and the warmth of its people (and their occasional strangeness, a luminous kind of darkness). He built paragraphs around old buildings, statuary, mint julep. He confided how he never really liked Mardi Gras (or its equivalent the carnivale in Martinique), and all the many small things he did like about growing up in New Orleans and the South.

One year after  Katrina, New Orleans is still a long way off from recovering. The devastation wrought by the killer hurricane is still very much felt by the scarred-for-life residents. They were the victims of nature’s wrtah, true; but more than that, they were victims of their government’s inefficiency and perhaps even callous and deliberate neglect of the survivors.

Katrina killed more than 1,800 people and submerged 80% of New Orleans under water. A year later, there are so many news reports stating that the survivors who were not as lucky as others who had the option to relocate and start again somewhere else (or those who really did not have any other place to go and didn’t want to go even if they had options) live a little more welloff than vagrants: hundreds are still waiting for the mobile homes they were promised by the federal government.

Bush sent so many of American troops to Iraq and Afghanistan that he didn’t have any to order to conduct immediate relief operations when Katrina struck last year. Many died long before the water, medicine and food came.

Spike Lee has come out with a film about the disaster and its aftermath. In it, his message is perfectly clear: political leaders failed to respond immediately to minimize the damage of the hurricane and severely cut down on the loss of life and property. Instead of getting down to work, Governor Blanco was determined to look and appear in control of the situation more than she actually was. As for Bush, he was thinking more in terms of holding fundraisers (and not shelling out actual funds from government coffers) and debating about state rights, accountability and responsibility than he did about the situation in New Orleans. He should have taken action even if it meant preempting Blanco.

Hay naku. The humanity. Americans should remember Katrina and New Orleans (if they can’t stand completely united about Iraq)  and make sure that Bush does not get another four years to wreak more devastation on America and against the rest of the world.

———–

Now what about the Guimaras oil slick?

Ang solusyong buhok at balahibo ng gobyernong Macapagal-Arroyo…

Gad, Yoshinoya is coming out of my ears…That and McDonald’s. Why can’t they open a Yellow Cab or even just a Wendy’s in this building?!

Had a late lunch. Nearly broke my chopsticks as I sticked (not spooned, haha)  the ramen into my mouth — I was so hungry. It’s 4pm, and I thought of running to Central to eat at Jollibee’s (they have daing na bangus), but I was afraid I’d collapse from hunger before I got there.

So I ended up eating at walang kamatayang utang-na-loob-sawang-sawa-ako- Yoshinoya. We eat there at least, gad, three times a week. Hence this mini rant. However much my workmates and friends and I bicker, bitch and moan every lunchtime ("Naknam pucha, Yoshinoya na naman?! Kumain naman tayo sa iba!!!’), we all end up eating there.

We line up in front of the counter mumbling and grumbling about how sick we are of Yoshinoya (beef bowl, chicken bowl, beef and vegetable bowl, chicken and vegetable bowl, tobiko salmon bowl…) and then we sit down to steaming bowls of, you guessed it right- beef bowl, chicken bowl, beef and vegetable bowl, chicken and vegetable bowl or tobiko salmon bowl. We break the monotony sometimes by adding sidings of steamed mushrooms, chicken yakitori, and extra kimchi. Otherwise, aaaaargh, Yoshinoya is coming out of our ears.

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This issue we’re putting out (the paper will be distrubuted Friday morning) is my penultimate issue. I cease to be editor by September 15, and I will go home to my husband and doggies a few later (cross your toes and fingers). I have been asked to maintain three sections (features, kultura and OFW world news), and I’ll  only too glad to do so; after all, I did put up these sections and gave each a firm orientation.

Not to be a bitch, but I really don’t want the paper the revert to its former orientation when I leave…

To be fair to David Chen, I still wouldn’t have been able to stay even if he were less of a 32-year old brat. I would’ve still left by October.

Anyways, I don’t feel too bad about leaving the paper because I will still be able to contribute. I even have an official Hong Kong News correspondent ID (hahaha- like there’s a lot of us here. In any case, it’s a cute ID  patterned after my ID from the House of Representatives).

There are 120,000 OFWs here in Hong Kong, and since I got here I’ve felt such a weighty responsibility to make sure that I be able to contribute if only a little to their knowledge and awareness of what’s truly going on back home.

And what am I going to do when I get home?

I’ll dream a little dream and pretend that there’s a real cool job as a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf barista waiting for me. Or as a chief clerk at a big Filbar’s branch. Or — and this is my favorite daydream -I’ll be a staff of the International Red Cross and I’ll help give health and nutrition talks (and maybe innoculation shots) to communities and  barangays in the farflung provinces.

I’d also willingly dig ditches for water supply systems in the provinces. At least I’ll try my darnest.

Other things I wouldn’t mind doing (and maybe I could even be good at them):

1. Being a florist

2. Taking care of dolphins

3. Being a merchandiser for Toys ‘R’ Us

4. Painting school houses and school rooms

5. Teaching Kindergarten

6. Being a relief worker

7. Covering books for public libraries and protecting them from silverfish

8. Running a fish pet store

9. Cutting grass and maintaining lawns

10. Shining shoes

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I hate the Macapagal-Arroyo government with all of what makes me me. If I had the power to wish anyone dead… And the same goes for Jovito Palparan and his henchmen. Not a day goes by when I don’t wish for a ten-ton cement wall to fall on each of them.

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What a dink Macapagal-Arroyo is! There’s this story a friend of mine spotted in a Canadian newsserver (I have to ask him for the link) that says GMA is asking the international community for donations of, get this, hair and feathers. The story also came out in the Manila Bulletin, I think.

Hair and feathers to clean up the oil spill in Guimaras!

I mean, I suppose they work, but jeez… Raymond nearly choked laughing. He comes from a First World country and has background in environmental issues and campaigns, and he said that execs of Petron and  GMA should be tarred and feathered for not taking swift action to soak up the oil spill and clean the affected areas. More than two weeks have passed and jeez, we can all kiss Guimaras goodbye.

He saw the oil spill in Cancun, Mexico a decade ago, and he said that the beachfront was never the same. The sand and the soil were permanently oily and had a sickening black and brackish sheen. 

"The employment of hair and feathers as an oil ‘absorbent’ in the Philippines marks a low-cost strategy for battling oil spills. Traditionally, booms, skimmers, and chemical dispersants are used methods to clean up ocean oil spills"

The Philippine government won’t even lean on Petron to immediately shell out the money for an honest-to-goodness clean-up drive and to rehabilitate and revive the detroyed areas. Let’s not even talk about the damage to the health and welfare of the affected residents.

Kung hihimayin ang bawat isang hibla ng buhay ng mga aktibista, militante at progresibo, ano kaya ang kulay na makikita? Ano ang kulay ng dugo at laman, ng buto at bituka, ang init ng hininga at lamig ng luhang natutuyo sa pisngi? 

Hindi ba’t pare-pareho lang naman ang ninais ng karaniwang tao at ng mga aktibista, pero mas masaklaw lang ang pangarap ng mga huli dahil niyayakap ng kanyang pagnanais ang kinabukasan hindi lang ng kanyang sarili at sariling pamilya, kundi ng pagkatao at pamilya ng iba?

Tuwing nag-uusap kami ng kaibigan kong si Raymond, sa tuwing hindi ko mapigilan na maiyak sa galit dahil sa nabasang balita, ulat, sanaysay na pawang naghuhumiyaw para sa hustisya para sa mga pinaslang, walang masabi si Raymond kundi ‘Ina, it happens in other countries, too. The Philippines is no different from any other country under an inhumane dictatorship…’

Para namang mapapahinahon ako ng gayung klaseng katotohanan.

Dapat, sa Pilipinas, gabi-gabi na umuungol ang mga sirena, malakas na ingay na nagbibigay babala sa lahat ng nakakarinig: Mag-ingat sa gobyernong berdugo at pusakal! Ingatan ang inyong mga mahal sa buhay!

Pero hindi rin sapat na magbigay lang ng babala. Hindi naman dapat na katakutan ang isang mamamatay-tao na pamahalaan. Bagamat ang bawat isa sa atin ay tinatablan ng bala at kayang gutayin ng mga patalim, hindi kayang patayin ng pamahalaan ang bawat isa sa atin.

At may taglay na tinig at kapangyarihan ang kahit sinong karaniwang Pilipino. Ano pa’t dapat nating gamitin ang mga damdamin ng lungkot at pagkamuhi sa kawalanghiyaan ng gobyernong ito na wala ni katiting na pagpapahalaga sa buhay ng masa. Ano pa’t dapat na magsilbing mitsa ang tumitinding sitwasyon ng panunupil upang tuluyan nang silaban ang gobyernong matagal nang dapat binagsak at pinarusahan!

Sobrang dami na ng kwento ng pamamaslang. Napakarami na ng paglalarawan ng mga huling araw, oras, minuto at sandali ng buhay ng mga aktibista at masang pinatay nang walang kalaban-laban. Kada kwento ay may katumbas na ilang mabibigat na sako ng pag-aalala at pagkalumbay. May katumbas na nag-aalimpuyong galit na parang apoy na hindi mapapatay ng kahit anong lamig at dami ng tubig.

Itong komite na sinasabi ng gobyerno, itong Task Force Usig. Anong klaseng katarantaduhan pa iyan? Isang gahiganteng insulto sa alaala ng mga pinatay at ng kanilang mga iniwan!

Sino naman ang maniniwala na magiging matapat ang imbestigasyon ng mga institusyong pumatay kaugnay sa kanilang mga pinatay? Anong klaseng kongklusyon at resolusyon ang kaya nilang ibigay sa publiko? Na pinatay ang mga biktima dahil lang sa matinding galit ng mga di kilalang tao? Na minalas lang sila at napadaan sa harap ng lumilipad na bala? Na misteryo ang lahat at walang malinaw na paliwanag bakit pinapatay ang mga aktibista?

  Ang higit pang nakakagalit  ay ito: HINDI NA NGA PINAYAGAN NG GOBYERNO NA MABUHAY NG MAY DANGAL AT DIGNIDAD ANG MASA, HANGGANG SA KAMATAYAN, PAGKAKAITAN SILA NG HUSTISYA.

Tuwing may nagtatanong sa akin kung kamusta ang Pilipinas (dahil alam nilang reporter ako, at palaging nagbabasa ng dyaryo at internet, laging nakatanghod sa mga susunod sa pangyayari sa bayang pansamantalang iniwan), ang una kong sinasabi ay ‘Maraming pinapatay. Gobyerno ang salarin, at mga aktibista at masa ang mga biktima. Parang hindi na umaabot ang liwanag sa Pilipinas, pulos kadiliman ang kulay ng mga balita.!’

Hindi inaasahan ng mga kausap ko ang ganitong sagot. Hindi ko naman mapigilan ang gayong sagot ang ibigay.

Saturday afternoon. It’s hot out, and I feel decidedly lazy. I’ve cleared out my desk and began putting all the book I’ve bought in the last seven months that I’ve been here in this big balikbayan box.

The box is so big that I would fit in it, and I need at least four rolls of packing tape to secure the sides and the top. Gad, I wouldn’t mind so much if I lose my clothes and shoes in transit from here to the Philippines; but heck, I will raise bloody hell if my books get lost. Most of them got second hand, and picking them out from the precarious stacks  and rickety shelves of books in Flow was a major effort. Each one of them is actually worth so much more than the few dollars I shelled out — I practically shed tears of joy after finding each book ("Aaaargh! Haruki Murakami!" ).

——

My turtle Enrique died yesterday. He was eight years old. I can’t write a proper eulogy right now because I might end up weeping over my keyboard. For now I will write just this: I loved him very, very much and I will never keep another turtle because Enrique is irreplaceable.

——–

Some days I feel like I will never write anything really happy again. On those days, I feel like I could write so many things. Happiness is such a boring subject, there’s never any real need to expound on it. To go on and on describing it is to risk writing purple prose, to read like a syrupy sap. It takes really good writers to describe happiness in its pure and naked form, without the embelishment of too many words. It’s like describing warm sunshine and light streaming through an open window at 6am.

Anyways, I am sad right now because of my dead turtle. Yes, I know I wrote just a few paragraphs back that I wouldn’t write about it, but jeez, it’s all I can think about right now. My Enrique — grumpy, grouchy turtle whom I took care of since he was the size of an old one-peso coin. When he died he was bigger than my palm.

Aaaargh. I used to clean him up under the tap and he would hiss and fret and struggle to get away. He was never afraid of me — he had a grouchy personality even as a baby, and he never once hid inside his shell when I was giving him a bath (to get the scum off his shell and from between his feet). I would talk to him all the while as I rubbed his shell dry with an old towel —- "Settle down, settle down! You want me to drop you accidentally? You’ll break open like Humpty Dumpty!"

He never minded me. He would just struggle and twist in his my hand, and he would crane his long neck and look at me straight in the eye, looking mean, hissing.

"Don’t look at me like that!’

He would continue staring at me, never once retreating into his shell.

Then I would put him back in his aquarium. As soon he settled at the bottom he would start walking around or swimming like crazy, banging himself against the glass.

He also knew how to wake me up when he was hungry.

When he was still a baby, he had a shiny, flat rock to rest on when he wasn’t swimming. Every morning at 6:30 he would push the rock against the glass of the fish bowl and it would make a clinking sound. Clink-clink-clink, increasingly louder until it sounded like the glass would soon break. I would wake up and feed him his terrapin pellets. As I dropped the pellets into the water (I would change the water every day), he would hisssssss.

Gad. I feel so sad.

  It’s raining very hard outside. The horizon has completely disappeared — no more demarcation line separating the sea and the sky. Everything is charcoal and gray, and I feel my mortality keenly as the cold and wet assert themselves.

I feel like wilted lettuce in a refrigerator vegetable bin. It’s so freaking cold. I’m glad I won’t be in Hong Kong by the time winter starts. I wouldn’t be able to bear it on my own. I suffer in cold weather, and I always feel sorry for myself. I never seem to get warm enough. Showering, in particular, becomes a method of self-torture, even when there’s a heater.

————–

So Arroyo’s allies have succeeded in killing the impeachment process against her. Wow, big surprise, am so shocked…

But something good still came out of the entire infuriating and exasperating exercise. People are even more exasperated, and the true character of the so-called ‘democratic processes’ of the incumbent illegitimate regime and the corrupt and bancrupt economic and political system it represents is being completely exposed.

So long as the class character and class loyalties of the people in the positions of power in government remain unchanged, there will never be any genuine social transformation. At least none that will work in favor of the poor and exploited, and none that can even hint at heading towards the achievement of justice and lasting peace.

Anyways, I have ceased to be surprised. I was not even upset. I just shrugged and said to myself "Ang kakapal talaga ng mukha ng mga lecheng walanghiyang walang kwentang kongresman na yan na pawang mga palamunin ng sambayanan at salot ng lipunan!!!’

There. I was compeletly calm. My temperature didn’t rise the slightest and my ears maintained their natural color.

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At the risk of wrecking my teeth, my complexion and my, um, body weight , I’ve become addicted to Poppycock gourmet popcorn. The Watson’s shop closest to the office (it’s in the other wing, actually) is selling the stuff at 30% off (the wretched sweets are not cheap, darnnit) and.I. Could. Not. Resist.

The labels state that there’s 0 trans fat (the kind of fat that the body doesn’t absorb and keeps) and I hope that’s true because I’ve been stuffing my face with popcorn the last few days.

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In the meantime, in the news, a Russian scientist/mathematician has solved a most complicated puzzle called the ‘Poincare Conjecture’ (Don’t ask me what it is. I don’t know what it is, I can’t even begin to understand it, and all I know is that Will Hunting in that movie which starred Matt Damon and Robin Williams was also able to solve something also confounding.)

News like this makes me feel like uniting with the rest of humanity and saying — ‘why can’t we all just be friends?!’

"While luvvies, cooks and cokeheads line up to share their views on everything from Aids to Zimbabwe, Dr Perelman seeks only to be left in peace. While fat cat bosses of failing companies award themselves million-dollar bonuses, Dr Perelman is content with a hard job well done. He is not alone. Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, is one of many who chose to keep their brilliant lights under bushels."

Genius Grigori Perelman shuns fame, lives with mum and is a fine example.

He looks like someone who lives in a box begging from strangers. The truth is hardly less downbeat: unemployed Grigori Perelman lives in penury with his mum in a St Petersburg flat.

Yet Dr Perelman is the latest star to adorn the firmament of celebrity. At lunchtime today, it was announced that he had declined the Fields Medal, the ‘Nobel Prize’ of mathematics. Dr Perelman is a shoo-in for the $1m reward, awarded by the American financier and maths enthusiast Landon Clay, for solving a century-old problem known as the Poincare Conjecture.

Will the champagne lifestyle go to Dr Perelman’s not insubstantial head? Will he reveal top tips on topology to a wide-eyed reporter from Hello? Unlikely. Few expected him to turn up to today’s award ceremony in Madrid. As for the $1m reward, he seems to find this as thrilling as the prospect of talking to the media. As he told one reporter: "I do not believe anything I say can be of the slightest public interest."

It is a statement that reveals Dr Perelman to be that most elusive of people, a genuine celebrity with no interest in celebrity life.

We should all celebrate the paradox that Dr Perelman’s failure to appear today is glorious proof that such people still exist.

————
I just checked out a few of my high school classmates’ Friendster profiles, and it’s turned out that most of my high school mates are married with kids.
I’m married and I have kids. Well, they’re not of the same species, but heck, I love them as much as if they were homo sapien.
I have a fear of having children. There.
It makes me feel nauseous, just thinking about having and raising children in the Philippines, given how terrible the economic and political conditions are. I don’t think I (or my husband) will be able to give our kids the same kind of upbringing my own parents gave me and mys sister. We were pretty sheltered, and we were made to believe in the innate kindness that MOST people are supposed to have.
I believed in that. I used to.
Until I discovered all about how the country is run, by whom and what sort of values are actually being perpetuated in the world outside my parents’ house.
Sheewiz. I can’t even take care of myself. I wouldn’t even begin to know how to take care of another life that’s totally, completely and hopelessly dependent on me.
Aaaargh.
But then I would so love to have kids. We’d be friends, and Kim and I would take them to the ballet and the museum (like what my parents did when we were growing up! We went to watch Swan Lake, the Firebird, Giselle, the Wizard of Oz; look at the dioramas in Ayala Museum …) then we’d get all their clothes from the ukay-ukay stores in Cubao; and then we’ll paint their rooms and put up literary posters and those of the Beatles (or scientists, those idolzied by their dad) and black and white photos of life in the Movement…

But the Philippines is in such a terrible state right now, and children are so precious and fragile.
It’s clear to me that the leaders in govenrment and all those corrupt officials and the butchers in the mercenary military care nothing about children and what kind of country is being passed on to them as the days progress and history unfolds.
Everyday the Philippines is recreated and reborn, and the transformation is always worse than the previous day’s imaging and essence.

When we were kids, we watched tv programs were honesty, kindness, compassion and truth were always highlighted. Cooperation. Sharing. Tell the truth. Admit when you’re wrong. Be Friends. Say Sorry.
I would like my children to inherit a country where life truly matters and the values I learned from the television programs I watched when growing up.

Sometimes I think about all the other things I enjoy doing and wistfully wish that I could be employed as someone other than what I primarily am, a person who writes (it still sticks like a fishbone in my throat - adopting the label ‘writer’. It carries so many pretentious undertones, somehow…No offense to friends and colleagues who have no problems appropriating the title).

I’ve frequently come up with lists about alternative employment I would liketo get into; and ever so often I would revise these lists and dream that I can spend a few blissful years doing things other than just writing.

In any case, in a universe parallel but infinitely kinder than our own, I would be

1. Comic and book store supervisor. Major perk - I get a free copy of every book, magazine and comic that we order from the publishing houses.

2. Orchidarium or cactus house tender. I would study all about the different kinds of  aerial plants and the hardy desert and dry soil dwellers,and maybe create a few varieties which I’ll name after Andres Bonifacio, Crisanto Evangelista, Edgar Jopson and Lorena Barros.

3. Tea and coffee bar proprietor (said bar co-owned with Anthony Ian Cruz and Janice Lee Monte). Bring your own mug. Jang likes to bake, and Tonyo loves coffee. I’m a tea person — next week I’m going to a local museum here and sit in a workshop about archaic tea ceremonies.

4.  Reseacher, scriptwriter for National Geographic specials on marine life and elephants. Of course, this means that I will also get to travel with teams of scientists and marine biologists etc etc.

5. I wouldn’t mind being a dishwasher at a high-end hotel. For a month, just to get the feel of it. Then I could move on to becoming a potato peeler and garlic crusher.

6. Carpenter. I really wish I had carpentry skills. I have the will to be a carpenter nevermind that I yell bloody hell whenever I hit my thumb with a hammer, and I can’t cut through wood even with the sharpest of handsaws. Carpentry, to me, is a worthier skill than cooking. I would much rather learn to be a carpenter than to, say, learn how to ballroom dance. I used to want to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity International. I want to create something solid and tangible and physical and real.

7. High school journalism teacher. I will make sure that my students grow up with clearcut biases for the poor and exploited; and even as they learn objectivity, they will already know that there’s a propaganda and information war out there (apart from the real, actual war) and they won’t any qualms about taking definitive stands.

8. Tuna cannery factory worker.

9. Cemetery cleaner and greenskeeper.

10. Executive producer of a political talk show.

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Last Tuesday night I finished Douglas Coupland’s ‘Eleonor Rigby.’ Among all his books, I think this is the most well-written and the least…contrived. Okay, so I haven’t read ‘Hey, Nostradamus!’ but I do have a copy already back in the Philippines (my Tita Agnes sent it from DC), but I’m willing to bet that Eleanor Rigby is much better.

It’s a book about loneliness and how it takesover people’s lives. Loneliness for some is a disease that they cannot ever cure themselves of. Some have a propensity for it, or a tendency to be lonely even in the company of others; they hate it, but they  can’t do anything to end it.

Unless something particularly out of the realm of their immediate understanding and belief happens.

No,it doesn’t have to be a UFO landing in your backyard; or a billion dollar jackpot at the lotter; sometimes what shakes us out of our apathy for ourselves and our immediate surroundings and context is something we have done in our past that lay dormant for a while, but reawakened, rekindled, and our rediscovery of it is what takes us out of ourselves.

In his book, Coupland analyzes lonely people as people merely struck in a rut, and they know they’re stuck but they don’t have the motivation to break out of it. They yearn for change, but they don’t have the energy for it; or they don’t have the inspiration or drive to do it.

Loneliness is when you are incapable of change, and the amalgam of ennui, boredom, general dissatisfaction cements into a shell that protects you not only from being hurt, disillusioned or disappointed; but also from discovering and experiencing new things.

(I think, though, that loneliness, sometimes is simply other people. When you’re stuck in the company of people you have nothing in common with; or you share no happy history with; or people you simply do not like you feel that you’re better off on your own. You are not inspired or encouraged to push yourself to do more, to be more, to show your true and happy colors, even if they appear pale and muted to the world.)

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It’s a wonder that the more or less liberal or even progressive readers of the Inquirer don’t run amok every morning when the open and read their newspapers. I don’t drink coffee while I read Inq7, but every morning, I click on the site with trepidation and dread: What now?!!

Oilspills nobody wants to take responsibility for.

Lawmakers as law breakers and highly-paid professional liars.

One life of a political or human rights activist a day is viciously ended and a government defends the killers it paid and awarded with medals to perpetrate the killing.

These days it really takes a cast-iron stomach to read the news. 

I just got here, and already I’m tired.

I’m supposed to be editing contribution-stories today, but none have come in yet, and for the most part I’ve finished my own articles (except for one, and I’m not particularly excited about it. I’ll write it probably tomorrow afternoon during one tremendous burst of energy that’s the immediate effect of downing a Berocca tablet). I can’t read books here (will explain later why not), and I can’t simply walk off and leave because it’s too early in the day.

I’ve been thinking about Jim Paredes, his family and their moving to Australia.

I admit that when I read the article a few days ago in the Inquirer I was a little shocked; but as I read it, I fully empathized. I understand how it is to be so drained and to wish for a little space between myself and the horrors of living in my country. Back home before I went bonkers and had to fly here, I had wanted to do so many things for work, but the because of so many things that happened all at once (personal, professional, chemical imbalance, bad nutrition, my anguished reaction to activists being killed, etc), I had to GET OUT OF THERE.

Jim Paredes and his family are pretty well-off, and they’re sheltered  and protecte from all the gut problems that affect the most Filipino families (namely hunger and extreme deprivation); but it’s not surprising that they, that Mr. Paredes, would be eaten up by disillusionment and exhaustion. He has done his share, he has exerted effort, and he has tried his best to make a difference in his own way; and he got mentally and maybe even emotionally tired because of how slow the changes he wanted to happen were in coming.

There.

Actually, it’s never as if the struggle for genuine change and social justice can ever be hopeless or invalid. It is never as if fighting for causes larger than one’s self can ever be passe or useless. It is people who get tired.

It’s how one interprets this exhaustion that’s crucial, now.

I have never given up on my country, and I have never given up on the Kilusan.

I have, however, given up a little on myself and how I am. I could simply dismiss many of my shortcomings as an inevitable class trait (madaling mapagod ang mga burgis; madalas padalos-dalos at nagmamadali; nauupos parang kandila sa harap ng matinding hangin ng mga hamon ng magulong panahon); and the argument would not be wrong; but I prefer to understand myself and what I’ve gone through a little deeper.

I admit my weaknesses and my limitations, and I acknowledged months back before I left that I have to recuperate and get my strength back if I had any intentions of being a fully-functioning activist again.

It was that or die.

I send my husband postcards every week (vintage cat postcards. Cats photographed in the old backstreets of Hong Kong back in the 80s), and with every postcard I tell him I grateful I am that he let me leave; that he made this sacrifice with me. Leaving my country hurt because not only did it mean leaving my family and friends behind; it meant leaving the work that means so much to me, the work that defines the best part of me and my being. I simply had to go because my brain didn’t work right; my heart was too emotional; and my body was weakened by the former and latter brawling all the time.

Now, eight months later, I feel a little stronger. I’ve learned a lot about myself and the way I am and why I am the way I am. I’ve learned how to walk again, and to see other colors again, no longer blinded by the white stressful light of wanting to do so many things but being unable to because of various limitations.

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This is why I can’t read books here:

I just finished writing a review of a new book that was published by a Canadian NGO here in Hong Kong. They sent me a copy through the mail, requesting that I review it for Hong Kong News.

That’s what I did, and gladly.

          The book is titled Take Your Rights Seriously (a manual on the legal rights of migrant workers in Hong Kong and the politics involved). It was written by Tim Rice, a lawyer and assistant professor in philosophy in Lingnan University. He does pro bono work for refugees and migrant workers.

         Primarily the book is all about the specific laws that affect foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong and govern their lives and rights. In his preface, Mr. Rice says it’s an issue of social justice that migrant workers be given all the opportunities to know and understand their rights; and that Hong Kong (just like any other society) can and should be judged mainly on how it treats its most vulnerable members.

        The format is mostly Q&A, and the questions and the answers are written in  plain, no-nonsense language.  The tone, while sympathetic, is also frank.      

        There is the recognition that sometimes, migrant workers get into trouble because of their own doing (such as in the cases of falsification of identity documents; or incurring thousands of dollars in debts); but for the most part, the book bends over backwards for FDHs and analyzes the situation as one of forced labor migration an the failure of the governments in the countries of origin of the FDHs to provide adequate employment and living wages to their constituencies.

        The book doesn’t drown the reader with legal jargon; what it does is give a comprehensive but comprehensible overview of Hong Kong law when it comes to migrant workers; and gives advice to readers (targetted to be domestic helpers) on how to react and act under circumstances wherein their employment and criminal civil rights are under threat.

          There are case scenarios, and the solutions are pretty much step-by-step; like for instance what to do from the moment the police arrives and hauls one off to the police station for interrogation and possible criminal offense charging? (1) Don’t say anything and take advantage of the right to remain silent; (2) Say that you need to consult a lawyer (or get a duty lawyer, in most cases of FDHs ); and (3) Do not sign anything.

       Needless to say, a lot of FDHs, Filipinos in particular, get arrested on an almost daily basis for one infraction or another (mistaken, invented, or actual). The Philippine Consulate here does not have a single lawyer, and OFWs are pretty much left on their own when it comes to settling legal disputes (even over employment rights and benefits).

      Most FDHs (the Indonesians are worse off, but Filipinos are not having a field day everyday at work, either) don’t know their rights; and most unfortunately, like back home in the Philippines and private sector workers who are unorganized in unions, most are not part of associations or organizations who can at least give them some basic information on their employment rights. They don’t have the immediate means to contact help and to recieve immediate assistance when they get into legal or criminal trouble.

      Atty. Rice published the book on his own, with the support of Christine Houston of the Executive Search Group International (ESGI), an education foundation.

      It’s the small but serious and sincere efforts like this that give me back my hope in humanity. Ordinary people making extraordinary measures and gestures with the intent of doing a measure of good for other people.

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This Thursday, August 24 will be the birthday of one of my favorite teachers (and long-time crushes, ehem) Prof. Luis Teodoro.

He was my teacher in newswriting and editorial writing back in college, as well as my thesis adviser. Silly me, I used to comb my hair and make sure my glasses were on straight before I went to my weekly consultations with him over my thesis (the impact of the political and ideological errors in the trade union movement in the Philippines); and it was all I could do to not be flustered whenever he asked me a question ("Are you sure you’ve gotten your names and dates right?" or "Up to what period in the labor movement are you thinking of tracing your topic’s history?).

If I ever I do finish a book, I want him to write the introduction for me (yes, I have ambitions), nevermind that he never pronounces my name right (he says "Eeena’ and not ‘Ayna’).

Anyways. The following is a birthday greeting to him by a friend and colleague of his. It’s funny, sincere and heartfelt. Notice the title, though — it reads like a manifesto, but this is the style of the birthday greeter all his own.

Warmest Greetings to Prof. Luis V. Teodoro on the Occasion of His 65th Birth Anniversary

From Jose Maria Sison

I am delighted to join the close comrades, colleagues and friends of Louie in conveying to him warmest greetings on the occasion of his 65th birth anniversary (August 24). This is a time to salute him for all his achievements and wish him to enjoy many more years of good health and productive life.

       At the age of 65, one may be assailed at times by intimations of mortality. But there are more than enough inspiring examples of greater creativity and even virility beyond that age, even for those less accomplished. In the case of Louie, he has a great stock of accomplishments to further build on. I do not think that soon he will turn to full time gardening.

          I presume that a number of us can try to present in a structured way his best qualities as a progressive, as a teacher, as an administrator, as a journalist, as a creative writer, as a man of honor and possibly as a lover. I prefer to play the role of the slightly older man who initiates reminiscences in order to draw some chuckles from him.

          It was Joe Burgos who popularized through Malaya the nick name "Joma" in the early 80s. But it was Louie in the early 60s who had originally baptized me as "Joema" in the same way that he called Jose Nadal Carreon "Joecar". I do not know if Louie still remembers this creative act of his. But I cannot forget it and I always remember it as a term of endearment.

          I became close to Louie in the course of discussion groups of the Student Cultural Association of the U.P., weekly press work when he became editor-in-chief of the Philippine Collegian, informal get-togethers of campus writers and frequent conspiracies with Pete Daroy in the early 60s.

          I became so close to Louie that I knew when he had an upset stomach just because a certain pre-med student whom he fancied seemed to ignore him (in the first place he was only "ligaw tingin") or because he was having serious trouble with the faculty adviser of the Collegian.      

         He was only a bit worried when there seemed to be no contribution for the features section of the Collegian. But he could always tell me to pull out an article from my "baul".

         So much for the anecdotes. It was during the consecutive terms of Reynato Puno, Leonardo Quisumbing and Louie as editors-in-chief that the Philippine Collegian became an outstanding and consistent vehicle of the ideas of the national democratic movement against US imperialism and the local exploiting classes. Since then, most of the time the editors of the Collegian and the student council leaders have been staunchly patriotic and progressive.

         After his Collegian editorship, Louie was with me in the editorial board of Progressive Review. He was an active supporter of Kabataang Makabayan and the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism. He edited the book, Struggle for National Democracy. At the same time, he was editor of a national commercial weekly. He did much more for the national democratic movement than I can mention here. Suffice it for me to say that unwittingly the Marcos fascist regime honored him when it arrested and detained him.

          When I myself was under detention, he was active in the committee to seek my freedom and helped edit the publications of the committee. I was happy and thankful to meet him again after my release from detention in 1986. Since then, I have watched and admired from abroad his successes as a teacher and dean of mass communications and as a practicing journalist in the patriotic and progressive tradition of Marcelo H. del Pilar.#

Sometimes I dont know which to believe: is ignorance bliss and what you don’t won’t hurt you; or is not knowing what’s happening is exactly what will kill you?
I have friends who are completely oblivious to what’s happening in the Philippines and the rest of the world. They’re good people — they have stable careers, they love their families and they are loved by them; they take care of their pet dogs, cats or the occasional cactus and orchid plant. They read good books, they eat right, they get to travel every three months or so. It’s an ideal existence for the most part, a comfortable niche and zone where they can exist and flourish despite the bombs that rain on the rest of the world.

Doesn’t everyone wish for normalcy? A life that doesn’t necessitate extreme effort? An existence that can be petulantly called -  on a bad day -  as boring; and on a good day as ‘complete’ and ‘fulfilled.’

To embrace and maintain a schedule as steady as clockwork; as reliable as sunshine. To never want for anything beyond what one needs; to never cause anybody else pain or hurt or anger or worry; and to never be the  target of anyone else’s anger, punishment or self-serving agenda. To never have anyone or anything near and dear and essential taken away from you, destroyed or irrevocably broken.

There are people with normal lives, with and right now I envy them. Maybe it’s not the worst thing to wish on anyone; not the worst thing to want for one’s self. To have, as Adrienne Rich says, a certain stay that cannot be undermined. It’s so ironic, so brutal in its plainness that most people just want a simple and unevenful life. To be allowed to live and  dream and evolve as a human being without fear of being stifled or crushed.

Sometimes I am tempted to agree with a friend of mine who insists that human nature is what truly drives and motivates most people; and that this human nature is for the most part  mediocre, lazy, unambitious and even cowardly. He says that the challenge is to awaken this nature and to encourage its development into something with  the glint and sharpness of knives, the sensitivity of  flowers and the generosity of the sun.

I guess I don’t have to add that he doesn’t believe that class background and orientation are vital in determining how one acts, thinks and feels about one’s self, others and the world.  It’s human nature.

On a not-so-up kind of day, I think of this: How many prisoners of necessity are? Is a man condemned to live in pursuit of work and food? How many have their fates written on their faces the day they make their way into the world and cry for the first time? How many are denied sun and salt?

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I like the excitement I feel when I’m searching for a particular book. I like how eager and anxious I get looking for a book that has caught my attention in some website, or newspaper review article, or from word of mouth.

Right now I’m looking for a 132-page watercolor picture book titled ‘A Certainty of Sunshine’ by Jimmy Liao. 

When I first came to Hong Kong, I saw a small poster in one of the Chinese bookstores -

  and I felt immediately drawn to it (I have ceased to be surprised or disappointed with the way I am and how pathetically easy it is to make me happy).

The poster was in Chinese (except for the book title) , so of course I couldn’t understand what it was saying; but all the same the drawings felt somewhat dear to me.

Late last week I went to Wan Chai to check the pirated DVD and CD stores (they have actual shops. I don’t know how they get away with it, it’s dead-sure that the media they sell are pirated because everything’s a fraction of what original copies would cost at HMV. ), and I found this DVD titled ‘Turn Left, Turn Right.’

I immediately bought it and that same night when I got home I watched it. Sure enough, it was based on on A Certainty of Sunshine.

The story is about two people who appear to have been destined to be together, but they never meet. He’s a violinist and she’s a translator who loves poetry (Nobel Prize winner Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska to be exact. My friend — a brilliant poet herself — Jovy loves her), and they’re both shy and dreamers and creative and clumsy and awkward. He has a tendency to run, walk move towards his right even when hurrying away from aggressive women who want to be his girlfriend ; she always turns to her left whether rushing for work or plodding home in the twilight, dejected from dealing with a publisher who doesn’t appreciate her worth.

For a little over an hour I forgot all my problems (even the imagined ones). One could say that the plot is a little contrived, but it worked well and one cannot help but be taken in by the simple beauty of a movie that seemed carefully-made (the soundtrack was beautiful; and the poetry, too) yet also reckless in its rendering (the two characters keep rushing left and right. Just like in the book, I suppose)

  I think at the very core of me I’m an escapist and for all the horrible things I have seen and experienced and learned, I am still essentially a believer in fairy tales.

In short, naive. To be brutally honest, tanga.

——————–

Nothing Twice by Wislawa Szymborska

Nothing can ever happen twice.

In consequence, the sorry fact is

that we arrive here improvised

and leave without the chance to practice.

Even if there is no one dumber,

if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce,

you can’t repeat the class in summer:

this course is only offered once.

No day copies yesterday,

no two nights will teach what bliss is

in precisely the same way,

with exactly the same kisses.

One day, perhaps, some idle tongue

mentions your name by accident:

I feel as if a rose were flung

into the room, all hue and scent.

The next day, though you’re here with me,

I can’t help looking at the clock:

A rose? A rose? What could that be?

Is it a flower or a rock?

Why do we treat the fleeting day

with so much needless fear and sorrow?

It’s in its nature not to stay:

Today is always gone tomorrow.

With smiles and kisses, we prefer

to seek accord beneath our star,

although we’re different (we concur)

just as two drops of water are.