8 days and too busy to see

Simply an interesting thing to stumble across when too busy to do anything but numb yourself to work avalanches and not bother spitting out more words that just become more meaningless the more you stare at them (it was, so the caption said, taken at a United Nations Day Celebration in the Philippines).

mangoes and me

I am seriously addicted to eating dried mangoes, i have been for the past several months and don't think it has anything to do with this trip, just happens that mangoes are the most important fruit in the Philippines and the national fruit. The Philippines is the 5th largest mango producing country in the world.

So i am really getting scared of learning what happens when you eat too many dried mangoes and tried to look into it (because i once thought hijiki was healthy and then looked into it thinking i'd feel good about it, but found out it was not at all healthy except in very small amounts, having actually recently been restricted by a lot of countries because it has really high toxic inorganic arsenic levels). But all i found out about eating too many mangoes was that in India (it is said) they used to feed cows nothing but mango leaves and water to turn their pee yellow, which they then collected and dried into rancid smelling dirty yellow balls that were sold for oil painting as the color "Indian Yellow" or "euxanthin" (a transparent yellow pigment). The practice was eventually outlawed in 1908, being considered inhumane because the cows would die from being undernourished (having nothing but mango leaves and water can do that) and now there is a synthetic "Indian Yellow Hue" that's used instead. I don't eat mango leaves and have never seen them on mangoes. I think they are just high in calories and make your jaw sore if you chew too many too long.

booked, not booked, booked

NEW hotel, new previews... Boracay, first of 3 sunny jaunts



And a simple map for simple perspective:


Falling slowly into place... work ramping up, hotels secured down, storms brewing, vacation needed....

reminds me of a favorite movie's first line... "They were predicting storms for the end of the day but the sky stayed blue and the wind died down..." (although it was much more elegant and strong in overlay with the story)

i don't think i will be so lucky to last out a calm and just be stuck with the anticipation before the storm that doesn't come before i can fly away and take off for my (hopefully?) crazy adventure.... It will surely be choppy waves ahead before i leave... all the better to fly away after a a week like that i suppose...

images images and 17 days

too many words already
here's the best part....
...the the first part for now....
hotel booked!








(Boracay)





mmm.... running on those beaches and mango shakes afterwards, then exploring it




allllllll......

my name is __ OR "big phallus"

You never really get to pick your name, and if you believe in numerology (i'm not saying you should), it doesn't even matter if you change it, because the name you were given is the person you'll always be, forever and ever, like the day you were born on or the genes you were given, ...you're stuck with it even if you try to hide it. Is it any different with countries?

The Philippines were named after the son of Spain's King Charles I (aka Charles V if you mean emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, which he also was). Charles' son was the then crown-prince who later became King Philip II in 1556, until 1598. Many Filipinos don't like being named after him because they say he had "a venal reign and venereal disease." So it's been suggested to rename it a number of times.

It's not clear, though, that Philip had venereal disease. It's now said that he probably died from arteriosclerosis and nephritis (hardening of the arteries and inflammation of the kidneys.) A lot of people today also seem to say that he, like his forebears, suffered from the gout, and as he grew older, attacks of the gout recurred with increasing frequency and were compounded by other ailments. But maybe that doesn't really matter because most also say he was a cruel womanizer, who near death had "suppurating sores"(pussy sores) whose stench overcame the doctor. In that case, venereal disease or not, it's all just as bad isn't it?

It does seem a lot of people consider his reign venal, though (venal = open to corrupt influence and especially bribery). But from what i'm told, though, this still also characterizes a LOT in the Philippines, and changing names won't change that, except maybe look more like a con game. And i guess that's just like letting the fate of your name, that you want to change, control you. Like Oedipus or something.

As for his womanizing, all I know is what's said by some. And it's not clear. He did have 4 wives, all died before him. First he married his cousin, Princess Maria of Portugal, with whom he had a "delicate and deformed child with a mental condition," Don Carlos, and Maria died soon after giving birth. Next he married the Catholic Queen Mary I of England. She was 11 years older. When she died (no children), he wanted to marry her successor the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I, but she refused, and he blamed his mentally ill son, Don Carlos, and then proceeded to marry Don Carlos's fiancée, Princess Elisabeth of Valois (who was 14, when he was 32), daughter of Henri II of France. Elisabeth provided him with two daughters, but then died in miscarriage of a son, so Felipe married Anne of Austria a few years later. She, curiously enough, was also first betrothed to the mental deformity, Don Carlos, but he died the same year Elisabeth died, so Philip arranged a marriage with her (she was 21, he 43). Anne was also the daughter of his first cousin (some say she was his neice, though), the Emperor Maximilian II (of Austria). As luck had it though, related or not, she provided him with a satisfactory male heir, finally, Philip III .

Even though some say Philip II was horrid, and some Filipinos want to run from his name, not all do. But most people do seem to say that the defense of the Catholic Church and the defeat and destruction of the Protestantism was one of his most important goals. It's said he was "vain, bigoted, and ambitious," and "placed freedom of thought under a ban, and put an end to the intellectual progress of the country." Then again, others say he did great, and wasn't a womanizer or a tyrant, but actually quite an even-keeled intellectual himself. He did wanted to marry a protestant, Elizabeth I of England, at least once, but then again, maybe her rebuke made him angry. It's said he was a fanatical Catholic who intensified the Inquisition. But he also ruled Spain when it reached the peak of it's power. Maybe he was just dealing with the times at hand. I'm not sure and quite honestly don't care enough to find out. When Felipe died in 1598, others again note that Spain was bankrupt and beginning it's decline. I guessit's not much different from today if you ask about politicians. People choose sides for or against them with little agreement. I didn't know him, i'll withhold judgment for now.

Well, for those reasons and because of it's general colonial roots, the name "Philippines" has been suggested to be changed several times. But it always comes back to not wanting to erase the history they fought for and to be free from, and for the blood shed and work done to take their true selves and true heritage and advance themselves to where they are today, or want to be. Where they are today is a question that i won't know much about until at least a few more weeks.

Some of the other suggested names were: Rizal, the country's national hero; Bayani, an indigenous Tagalog word meaning "hero"; and Luzviminda, a compilation of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, three main island groups of the Philippine archipelago. Obviously, the Philippines has stuck.

Ferdinand Marcos wanted to rename it "Maharlika," which meant noble-warrior (like a samurai), but he wanted to name everything Maharlika, from his own unfinished movie with a hollywood starlet who became his mistress, to government buildings, radio/TV stations and a highway. Too many people saw him as a dictator on an ego trip, so they tried to humilate this idea. Many began spreading word that the word "Maharlika" derived from a sanskrit term meaning "big phallus," but that's not at all that clear, either, and a lot of businesses still use the name "Maharlika," anyways. It was rejected because no one wanted to give Marcos that sense of entitlement and power.

Well.... since Spain gave just about everything in the Philippines new names , including the peoples' surnames like Marcos and Ferdinand, it only seems fitting, i guess, to keep the "Philippines" the name, accept it, learn from it and adopt it as one's own, like a win, like capturing the flag, like conquering the conquistadores and being proud of the good stuff that was made of it. Otherwise, seems you go down the slippery slope of asking why doesn't everyone else change their Spanish name, too, because i'm sure you can trace that back to some oppressive person, too. We're all full of bad histories and good ones, i guess i'm one for embracing both. Well, i guess that's my opinion, for whatever it's worth.

And then there was light....

So, in the beginning... there was wave migration. That means first the "Dawn Man" then the Negritos then the seafaring Indonesian tool-users, then the Malay iron-agers.

That’s the story, at least, by an American/Iowan born in 1883 to Bavarian pioneers, named H. Otley Beyer. He was the founder of the Anthropology Department of the University of the Philippines and headed it for 40 years. He also apparently liked young filipinas, having married the 16 year old daughter of a village chief when he was 29. He became the unquestioned expert on Philippine prehistory, but it’s now disputed by some.According to Otley and still many others, the "Dawn Man's" migration was 250,000 years ago. He was a cave-man who came across the land bridges from the south and west.

Then about 30,000 years ago the first nomadic negritos (aborigines) came across the land bridges, but no one is sure exactly from where. The Spaniards, having named and disparaged quite a lot of things in the country, named them “negritos” (little blacks). Now they are sometimes called Aeta, but that’s really just one type of negrito, since they dispersed into many different cultural groups, about 25. In some places of the Philippines they are called Pugot or pugut, a name used for people with dark skin, but which also means “goblin” or “forest spirit.”

They are compared with Pygmies of Africa. It’s said their arms are abnormally long and feet are too large in proportion to their bodies. They also have a large toe that extended inward, which might have evolved as consequence of constantly having grasped tree branches with their toes. It’s also said that their sense of smell is so extraordinary that they can track down snakes that way - by smell.

It’s said their boundless journey around the Malay Peninsula resulted to their widespread existence in the Philippines. By the time the Spaniards came, they were so widespread that the Spaniards failed to "settle" them in one area, although they tried.

And they still exist, about 20,000 of them. They are still nomadic and vacate their homes upon scarcity of surrounding food. The prosperous ones generally live in grass and tree branch houses, and the others just live under two forked sticks covered with palm or banana leaves. Now they usualy have to migrate when food is scarce from depressed lowlanders exploiting the forests for food.

They believe in a myriad of animal and environmental spirits but aside from the pig hunt, shellfish hunt, or bee honey dance, they don't have special praying occassions. They weave and make rattan hammocks and palm leaf raincoats. They used to wear wrap around skirts, bark cloth and loincloths, but today often wear T-shirts, pants and rubber sandals. Some wear neckbands with pig bristles. They are said to live a simple life and enjoy decorative disfigurement, such as scarification and dying their teeth black in late puberty.

It’s also said they have no sense of money or land ownership and sometimes can be seen camping out in city parks or panhandling.

I will check on all this.

a spotty start

Chronological is always an easy place to start, but then you run across other things and they seem better. So, before the plunge into prehistory of the dark little "goblins" or "forest spirit" people, first a summary (stereotyped) description of modern Philippines and Filipinos as pilfered from another (that means I make no strong claim or endorsement as to accuracy):

"The Philippines is a unique nation unlike any other in the world in that it can claim four cultural heritages - Asian, European, Mexican, and American. Thus, it is not unusual for the Filipinos to look Oriental, have a Spanish-sounding name, speak like English with an American accent and have a Latin temperament. Filipinos are famous for their warm hospitality, friendliness to foreigners, musical and artistic talents, romanticism, deep religiosity and bravery. They are fond of music, fiestas, and politics. They have the resiliency of the bamboo and the durability of narra, its national tree. When wars and calamities come, they bend but not break. Although colonial writers slandered them as being lazy and stupid, Filipinos can work hard and adjust to any type of work."

And here's a picture for a preview of the next post:

...of which the photographer/journalist, as garnered from his reports in 1901-1904, was likely (in his opinion) to title it, "Friendliness and Mirth of the Little People" or "Yet they were also the dirtiest people I had ever seen".

24 days but not counting

So the trip is nearing and now I have my tiny e-space flying carpet, glass bottle, stardustey speck in the internet launched and planted and waiting to collect my adventures and send them off along with my thoughts and memories and pictures and anything else that goes in and can come out, filtered perhaps, or maybe not, from my hopefully sun-soaked restless or relaxed mind under the Philippine skies. Runonsentences will abound and rambling thoughts and stream of conscious observations. As the days near, maybe i'll have some preparatory ideas to air. Maybe. Maybe not. Probably so. Practice not editing what's once written, see how it goes, spinning spinning mind, who knows what will actually spurt out. Until then, in between work and coffee and reading and writing and yoga and boxing and more yoga and saving money and spending money and music and bike riding and all the rest and more bike riding and more coffee, perhaps an occasional thought towards the trip...