Greetings from Brooklyn, New York!
Ok, I am getting ahead of myself. I think other things need to be discussed on this blog before I get around to talking about my ~new life~ here in this city.
Over the summer, I spent almost two months back on the other side of the Pacific, the side of the world where I spent most of my life. It had been four years since my last visit to the Philippines, so I knew that no matter what, I wanted to spend some time there after I graduated. A lot of it was because I wanted to visit my home country, but a lot of it was also I just wanted to do nothing and lay on the beach. I felt like I deserved it after four years at Harvard.
But wait. This blog has the bizarre mix of letters "atbp" in it. What does it mean? It stands for "at iba pa," which a lot of little side shops in the Philippines have in their names and signs. I guess it means something like, "and more," or "etc." I put it in this blog entry because, as evidenced by my blog entry about India, I did not only go to the Philippines. I also explored more of Southeast Asia. It was amazing to go around other countries in the region of the world I am from, and being from the Philippines was definitely something that played into my experience roaming around. I think I'll start with that.
After I left Mumbai, I flew to Kuala Lumpur, where I reunited with James. James has made enough appearances on this blog that I don't think I need to give any explanation as to who he is.
As we tend to do, we met up in the airport. Because the airport is far from the city, we took a bus, and once we reached the city went to Jadi Batek gallery where we got to paint our own batik artworks! They had pre-drawn designs we could trace, so we went with that. James decided to paint an egret with the Ugandan flag in the background, and I decided to paint a design of Kuala Lumpur.
After Malaysia, we took a bus to Singapore. We had barely a day to explore but managed to get around! We were amazed by the MRT, and even more amazed by the readily available, cheap food, especially from hawker centers (food courts). When I was in Europe two years ago, I stayed with my pen pal Jamie, who had spent a semester in Singapore. My first night visiting her in The Hague, she cooked me laksa, one of her favorite Singaporean dishes. I was hellbent on eating laksa in Singapore in her honor, so I was super happy when I finally had it in Telok Ayer Market.
James and I only spent a weekend in Malaysia and Singapore, because we prioritized (or rather, I prioritized) Surabaya, Indonesia. I wanted to go because that was where Fifi, a good friend of mine and one of the Filles Formidables on Eurotour, was from. And I like to prioritize visiting places where I have friends, because getting to be with people and experiencing their cities is the #1 reason I travel!
Here is a selection of some of my favorite photos from the four days we spent with Fifi and her boyfriend, Adi. (Yup, last she and I met we were still woefully single, so much has certainly changed!)
When I was in Indonesia, locals would speak to me in Bahasa Indonesia a lot (this also happened in Malaysia from time to time). I felt kind of bad not being able to speak their local language, because so many of them would say, "But you look Indonesian!" I would explain that I was Filipino, and they would understand. It's those islands just north of Indonesia.
It was really amazing to see Fifi in her home city, just like I have with many other friends across the world. It was particularly special because this time, it was in another Southeast Asian city, where I didn't look foreign at all. (James certainly did, though.) I loved hearing her and Adi speak Bahasa Indonesia, and learning new words and how so many of them sounded similar in Tagalog. While Tagalog has similarities with Spanish, it is an Austronesian language, just like Bahasa Indonesia, so the two would clearly have their own equivalent words. Surabaya reminded me of a Philippine city, and I easily felt at home.
One moment that stood out was during our last night in Surabaya. James and I wanted to spend the rupiahs we had left, so went to this little food cart that sold something called lekker. It was like a crispy thin crepe with filling. As we waited after placing our order (I picked up enough Bahasa Indonesia to order what James and I wanted using the language, oops), a man who had ordered before us stood waiting for his order and asked me a question. I didn't understand it, and he repeated it. My mind went into semi-panic mode and I said a phrase Fifi taught me: "saya dari Filipina!" The man finally replied in English, and expressed how impressed he was at the way I said that. He also said that I looked Indonesian. I told him well, the two country's languages sound similar, so the pronunciation was easy for me. He chuckled, said something to the lady making our dessert, and then told us we wouldn't have to pay for it anymore and handed her the money it cost. It was one of the nicest things anyone had done for us, and I thought it really sweet, so it needed to be recorded here. What a great way to end our trip!
Except the trip didn't actually end because from there, we flew to Manila. I was super excited to let James experience the Philippines, though even more excited to return after the two weeks away that I spent.
We stayed in my lola's apartment in Makati, where I spent a lot of time growing up and where I was based for the first two weeks of my summer in Asia. It felt great to be home once more, and to bring someone (a ~special someone~) from my life in the USA and show him around! Of course, since it was a family trip, most of it was spent going around with my parents, my sister, and my lola, and we didn't have complete control of each of our days. That was fine, since that meant little effort was exerted on our part and we got to go around and experience parts of the country we might not otherwise have gotten to. It was also lovely for me to be able to spend that much time with my family all together in the Philippines, since now that I'm done with college doing so will be harder in the future.
There were many highlights during this trip. There were also impressions left upon me that I want to put down on the record somewhere. But before that, let's go through some photos.
This was technically in the first part of my trip to Asia before I hopped around outside the Philippines, and it was just Lola and me. She suggested we have margaritas one night so, even though I rarely drink, I agreed. (These are also not the frozen kind of margaritas and are way stronger than margaritas should be, but that's how she likes them.) Lola is truly something. She only seems to grow younger as I grow older, and I am in constant admiration of her energy and zest for life. She's just as spoiled as my 6-year-old cousin and knows how to get what she wants. I honestly had so much fun spending one on one time with her, since she has many stories to tell. Sure, we would disagree on things sometimes, but I think that's also a product of the generational gap. In the end I am proud to call her my grandma and always brag about her to my friends.
Anyway, speaking of my 6-year-old cousin...
I first met Cassie during my trip to the Philippines four years ago, when she was two. This time around, she was a stubborn, precocious, adorable 6-year-old. It was fun spending time with her and her parents and getting to know her better. Well, to the extent that that one can get to know a 6-year-old who is still developing her personality! I would say Cassie's is very strong. She definitely takes after her grandma.
Cassie doesn't have any siblings, so I think she enjoyed having me stay at their house for a few nights. Since I was also working remotely for my office job, I was on my laptop a lot. She picked up on this and when she said she was going to draw me, she made sure to include a portrait of me in front of my laptop. I found that super funny. (She even remembered to draw the lighthouse sticker that I have on it.)
After some time in Manila, we flew to Cebu, my home island. This is the street where I grew up, including our house and garden to the right. Ate Ching can be seen in red. She's my yaya's daughter, and the two of them are basically family to us. They continue to live in the house with my grandpa and take care of him and their new dog (well, new since three years ago) Bruno. Cebu City, my hometown, had become unrecognizable to me after four years. There has been so much new construction, it actually has a skyline now, and unfortunately the traffic has become abhorrent. I was in awe of it, of course, and wished I could have spent more than a week so I could more deeply explore things in the city I had never known before. Nevertheless, in the midst of that urban chaos it was comforting to see that the street had barely changed.
Speaking of friends who were single last I saw them, I got to reunite with my best friend from elementary school, Jillian! Jillian is the one friend I have consistently met up with during each visit to the Philippines ever since I left in 2007. James and I spent an evening with her and her boyfriend Rey eating pizza, eating popcorn, watching Crazy Rich Asians, and doing karaoke. We all got along really well, even if I had never met Rey and James had never met either of them, and I can't wait for the next time we get to hang out. As usual Jillian and I had much to talk about, and she actually brought up memories from our time in school together that I hadn't touched in a while. We also had a great time reminiscing about things that James and Rey had maybe only heard vague things about before, and bursting into song singing our school's anthem.
When I said I wanted to lay on the beach, I meant it. One of my favorite things to do is to go island hopping, which we were fortunately able to do while in Cebu! It was glorious being on the bangka and cruising among the islands. One such island was called Pandanon, and it was basically just a beautiful sandbar. Cara and I made sure to take lots of photos. We also stopped by a marine sanctuary and got to go snorkeling. Along with plenty of fish, I also saw a sea snake and a few eels. It was the first time James had gotten to do anything like that, so I think he had a hard time trying to swim and fight the waves while breathing through a snorkel at first, but he eventually got the hang of it! Couldn't blame him coming from a landlocked Midwestern state, and I pointed out (perhaps excessively) that snorkeling in the sea was something I first learned to do when I was 7, so that's why it was effortless for me.
This picture represents a lot. Obviously, there's my family, my parents and my sister. Then there's also the statue of Lapu-Lapu, the hero of Cebu, a chief who became well known for actively opposing Spanish colonization and winning in a battle against Magellan and his cronies. What a hunk! The palm trees provide a nice and islandy background, though looking closely you can just see new buildings rising up that I don't think were there before. I'm not heavily opposed to the island changing and having more built on it; I just hope that it doesn't encroach too much on the beautiful nature that already makes it up, and I hope it's not displacing local people and forcing them to leave their livelihoods. There's a lot of empty space on the island so I can see the latter not being a problem, but also knowing the way things work in these kinds of things, it could very well be happening. I wish I knew more. All I can do is accept that Cebu is rapidly changing, for better or for worse. No matter what, though, it will always be the place I grew up and always be considered my original home, no matter what happens within it.
Something that I found myself thinking about during my most recent visit were the ties the Philippines has to Latin America. They are very few, but I do believe that they could be strengthened and this ought to be looked into more. The geographical distance is a major obstacle to that, sure, but I saw the beginnings of such efforts in a not-quite-open museum called The Galéon, which documents the history of the Manila-Acapulco trade. I read in a news article that, "There’s a plan to build a galleon museum in Manila that will not only make Filipinos appreciate Philippine historical ties with Latin America but in the words of Mexico’s First Lady Margarita Zavala, 'could serve as an intercultural and globalization research center which will further help in uniting us.'" I couldn't help but agree, considering how much I love both Latin America and the Philippines and how much the two regions share culturally and historically. I was really bummed when we tried to go to the museum but it wasn't open yet, and has still been in the works for quite some time. Maybe one day!
If I had to make a comment that encapsulates my time in the Philippines this summer, it would be, "I left too soon." I was very sad to leave. This was different from the last time I left–I was sad, sure, but more excited to be starting my life at Harvard. Back then, I knew that for my Harvard life to begin, I had to leave the Philippines for the time being. But now, at a point in my life where I don't have the next four years or next x amount of years fully planned to the same extent, I find myself wishing I stayed longer. I really wanted to keep working on my Tagalog and Cebuano and eating amazing food, and also learn more about the complex issues that the country is facing today, as well as its role in the world. It is nowhere near perfect, and there are things that I wish were different about it. But I can't help but think that I could one day contribute to its betterment. God knows I don't feel the same motivations toward the USA (for reasons that would be too long to discuss in this one blog entry about the Philippines). I just think that because of who I am, my background, and experiences, I could make a fulfilling life for myself there working for some kind of international entity where I wouldn't be plagued with issues like, "Is it right for me to be living and making decisions on behalf of the international community in this country, as somebody coming from the privileged west who would never assimilate with locals?" Because that is definitely an issue that I have learned about in recent years.
There are so many questions I have for myself and for my future that are not going to be answered anytime soon. I do know that I hope to return to the Philippines in fewer than four years, and that I eventually get the chance to stay a while to do more than just eat and lay on the beach. But for now, it's time to make sense of my new life and try to adult. Stay tuned.
Ok, I am getting ahead of myself. I think other things need to be discussed on this blog before I get around to talking about my ~new life~ here in this city.
Over the summer, I spent almost two months back on the other side of the Pacific, the side of the world where I spent most of my life. It had been four years since my last visit to the Philippines, so I knew that no matter what, I wanted to spend some time there after I graduated. A lot of it was because I wanted to visit my home country, but a lot of it was also I just wanted to do nothing and lay on the beach. I felt like I deserved it after four years at Harvard.
But wait. This blog has the bizarre mix of letters "atbp" in it. What does it mean? It stands for "at iba pa," which a lot of little side shops in the Philippines have in their names and signs. I guess it means something like, "and more," or "etc." I put it in this blog entry because, as evidenced by my blog entry about India, I did not only go to the Philippines. I also explored more of Southeast Asia. It was amazing to go around other countries in the region of the world I am from, and being from the Philippines was definitely something that played into my experience roaming around. I think I'll start with that.
SOUTHEAST ASIAN SIDE TRIP
As we tend to do, we met up in the airport. Because the airport is far from the city, we took a bus, and once we reached the city went to Jadi Batek gallery where we got to paint our own batik artworks! They had pre-drawn designs we could trace, so we went with that. James decided to paint an egret with the Ugandan flag in the background, and I decided to paint a design of Kuala Lumpur.
After Malaysia, we took a bus to Singapore. We had barely a day to explore but managed to get around! We were amazed by the MRT, and even more amazed by the readily available, cheap food, especially from hawker centers (food courts). When I was in Europe two years ago, I stayed with my pen pal Jamie, who had spent a semester in Singapore. My first night visiting her in The Hague, she cooked me laksa, one of her favorite Singaporean dishes. I was hellbent on eating laksa in Singapore in her honor, so I was super happy when I finally had it in Telok Ayer Market.
James and I only spent a weekend in Malaysia and Singapore, because we prioritized (or rather, I prioritized) Surabaya, Indonesia. I wanted to go because that was where Fifi, a good friend of mine and one of the Filles Formidables on Eurotour, was from. And I like to prioritize visiting places where I have friends, because getting to be with people and experiencing their cities is the #1 reason I travel!
Here is a selection of some of my favorite photos from the four days we spent with Fifi and her boyfriend, Adi. (Yup, last she and I met we were still woefully single, so much has certainly changed!)
When I was in Indonesia, locals would speak to me in Bahasa Indonesia a lot (this also happened in Malaysia from time to time). I felt kind of bad not being able to speak their local language, because so many of them would say, "But you look Indonesian!" I would explain that I was Filipino, and they would understand. It's those islands just north of Indonesia.
It was really amazing to see Fifi in her home city, just like I have with many other friends across the world. It was particularly special because this time, it was in another Southeast Asian city, where I didn't look foreign at all. (James certainly did, though.) I loved hearing her and Adi speak Bahasa Indonesia, and learning new words and how so many of them sounded similar in Tagalog. While Tagalog has similarities with Spanish, it is an Austronesian language, just like Bahasa Indonesia, so the two would clearly have their own equivalent words. Surabaya reminded me of a Philippine city, and I easily felt at home.
One moment that stood out was during our last night in Surabaya. James and I wanted to spend the rupiahs we had left, so went to this little food cart that sold something called lekker. It was like a crispy thin crepe with filling. As we waited after placing our order (I picked up enough Bahasa Indonesia to order what James and I wanted using the language, oops), a man who had ordered before us stood waiting for his order and asked me a question. I didn't understand it, and he repeated it. My mind went into semi-panic mode and I said a phrase Fifi taught me: "saya dari Filipina!" The man finally replied in English, and expressed how impressed he was at the way I said that. He also said that I looked Indonesian. I told him well, the two country's languages sound similar, so the pronunciation was easy for me. He chuckled, said something to the lady making our dessert, and then told us we wouldn't have to pay for it anymore and handed her the money it cost. It was one of the nicest things anyone had done for us, and I thought it really sweet, so it needed to be recorded here. What a great way to end our trip!
PHILIPPINES
We stayed in my lola's apartment in Makati, where I spent a lot of time growing up and where I was based for the first two weeks of my summer in Asia. It felt great to be home once more, and to bring someone (a ~special someone~) from my life in the USA and show him around! Of course, since it was a family trip, most of it was spent going around with my parents, my sister, and my lola, and we didn't have complete control of each of our days. That was fine, since that meant little effort was exerted on our part and we got to go around and experience parts of the country we might not otherwise have gotten to. It was also lovely for me to be able to spend that much time with my family all together in the Philippines, since now that I'm done with college doing so will be harder in the future.
There were many highlights during this trip. There were also impressions left upon me that I want to put down on the record somewhere. But before that, let's go through some photos.
This was technically in the first part of my trip to Asia before I hopped around outside the Philippines, and it was just Lola and me. She suggested we have margaritas one night so, even though I rarely drink, I agreed. (These are also not the frozen kind of margaritas and are way stronger than margaritas should be, but that's how she likes them.) Lola is truly something. She only seems to grow younger as I grow older, and I am in constant admiration of her energy and zest for life. She's just as spoiled as my 6-year-old cousin and knows how to get what she wants. I honestly had so much fun spending one on one time with her, since she has many stories to tell. Sure, we would disagree on things sometimes, but I think that's also a product of the generational gap. In the end I am proud to call her my grandma and always brag about her to my friends.
Anyway, speaking of my 6-year-old cousin...
I first met Cassie during my trip to the Philippines four years ago, when she was two. This time around, she was a stubborn, precocious, adorable 6-year-old. It was fun spending time with her and her parents and getting to know her better. Well, to the extent that that one can get to know a 6-year-old who is still developing her personality! I would say Cassie's is very strong. She definitely takes after her grandma.
Cassie doesn't have any siblings, so I think she enjoyed having me stay at their house for a few nights. Since I was also working remotely for my office job, I was on my laptop a lot. She picked up on this and when she said she was going to draw me, she made sure to include a portrait of me in front of my laptop. I found that super funny. (She even remembered to draw the lighthouse sticker that I have on it.)
After some time in Manila, we flew to Cebu, my home island. This is the street where I grew up, including our house and garden to the right. Ate Ching can be seen in red. She's my yaya's daughter, and the two of them are basically family to us. They continue to live in the house with my grandpa and take care of him and their new dog (well, new since three years ago) Bruno. Cebu City, my hometown, had become unrecognizable to me after four years. There has been so much new construction, it actually has a skyline now, and unfortunately the traffic has become abhorrent. I was in awe of it, of course, and wished I could have spent more than a week so I could more deeply explore things in the city I had never known before. Nevertheless, in the midst of that urban chaos it was comforting to see that the street had barely changed.
Speaking of friends who were single last I saw them, I got to reunite with my best friend from elementary school, Jillian! Jillian is the one friend I have consistently met up with during each visit to the Philippines ever since I left in 2007. James and I spent an evening with her and her boyfriend Rey eating pizza, eating popcorn, watching Crazy Rich Asians, and doing karaoke. We all got along really well, even if I had never met Rey and James had never met either of them, and I can't wait for the next time we get to hang out. As usual Jillian and I had much to talk about, and she actually brought up memories from our time in school together that I hadn't touched in a while. We also had a great time reminiscing about things that James and Rey had maybe only heard vague things about before, and bursting into song singing our school's anthem.
When I said I wanted to lay on the beach, I meant it. One of my favorite things to do is to go island hopping, which we were fortunately able to do while in Cebu! It was glorious being on the bangka and cruising among the islands. One such island was called Pandanon, and it was basically just a beautiful sandbar. Cara and I made sure to take lots of photos. We also stopped by a marine sanctuary and got to go snorkeling. Along with plenty of fish, I also saw a sea snake and a few eels. It was the first time James had gotten to do anything like that, so I think he had a hard time trying to swim and fight the waves while breathing through a snorkel at first, but he eventually got the hang of it! Couldn't blame him coming from a landlocked Midwestern state, and I pointed out (perhaps excessively) that snorkeling in the sea was something I first learned to do when I was 7, so that's why it was effortless for me.
This picture represents a lot. Obviously, there's my family, my parents and my sister. Then there's also the statue of Lapu-Lapu, the hero of Cebu, a chief who became well known for actively opposing Spanish colonization and winning in a battle against Magellan and his cronies. What a hunk! The palm trees provide a nice and islandy background, though looking closely you can just see new buildings rising up that I don't think were there before. I'm not heavily opposed to the island changing and having more built on it; I just hope that it doesn't encroach too much on the beautiful nature that already makes it up, and I hope it's not displacing local people and forcing them to leave their livelihoods. There's a lot of empty space on the island so I can see the latter not being a problem, but also knowing the way things work in these kinds of things, it could very well be happening. I wish I knew more. All I can do is accept that Cebu is rapidly changing, for better or for worse. No matter what, though, it will always be the place I grew up and always be considered my original home, no matter what happens within it.
Something that I found myself thinking about during my most recent visit were the ties the Philippines has to Latin America. They are very few, but I do believe that they could be strengthened and this ought to be looked into more. The geographical distance is a major obstacle to that, sure, but I saw the beginnings of such efforts in a not-quite-open museum called The Galéon, which documents the history of the Manila-Acapulco trade. I read in a news article that, "There’s a plan to build a galleon museum in Manila that will not only make Filipinos appreciate Philippine historical ties with Latin America but in the words of Mexico’s First Lady Margarita Zavala, 'could serve as an intercultural and globalization research center which will further help in uniting us.'" I couldn't help but agree, considering how much I love both Latin America and the Philippines and how much the two regions share culturally and historically. I was really bummed when we tried to go to the museum but it wasn't open yet, and has still been in the works for quite some time. Maybe one day!
There are so many questions I have for myself and for my future that are not going to be answered anytime soon. I do know that I hope to return to the Philippines in fewer than four years, and that I eventually get the chance to stay a while to do more than just eat and lay on the beach. But for now, it's time to make sense of my new life and try to adult. Stay tuned.
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