Drop off centers for relief operations

Tulong KABATAAN! For the benefit of typhoon Ondoy's victims. If you have set-up centers for relief goods, post them here.

LIST OF RELIEF CENTERS:
1. Kabataan Partylist...HQ: #118-B Sct. Rallos, QC
2. USC Office, Vinzons Hall, UP Diliman
3. College of Social Work and Community Development Student Council, UP Diliman
4. College of Arts and Sciences Student Council Office, UP Manila
4. Sentral na Konseho ng Mag-aaral Office, 2F, Charlie Del Rosario Building, PUP, Sta Mesa, Manila.

Expand the list by copying above and adding your center. Thank you!

A Fistful of Colors

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Su-Chen Christine Lim

“Once a thing is remembered, it is seldom forgotten. It is remembered and recalled in different ways, and in a way which shapes and reshapes the past; the past as retold in stories shaped by the creative memory…” Christine Suchen Lim, A Fistful of Colors

If Christine Suchen Lim was a painter, I think Singapore would be painted with all hints of hue and color. However, she is a novelist, and it seemed as if a whole country for her would be depicted in a whole lot of colors: Babas, Hokkien Chinese, Hybrids, Indians and even Englishmen. Amidst this diversity lie the diverse problems that are always present in Asia: westernization, discrimination, colonial education and multiculturalism. A Fistful of Colors tells of the story of Suwen and of how her past and present became interwoven into the lives of her friends – all faced with the contradiction of distorted identities of race and culture. Indeed, it is true that at the time the novel was written, people of Singapore and Southeast Asia are faced with vast range of adversities. In this book, we will see how they as a people cope with these, and at the same time, how their characters have been shaped by the conditions that they have been in.

The characters of the story would seem to have been a product of a long process of what one of the characters called as cultural sculpting. Each of them show different facets of the cultural diversity of Singapore. They each have a different story to tell in each chapter that explore the little nation’s multi-faceted depth. Singapore started out as a country of mixed races, who follow sets of different traditions. The colonizers came into the country and gradually transformed their culture through different means – education, politics, even force. The author contextualized the characters based on their backgrounds. She has made the characters as an effective medium to portray socio-cultural history, especially in the case of Suwen and Nica.

The irony of their situation is that education does not liberate a person. In our context, education is seen as freeing ourselves from the clutches of traditions and superstitions. But here in the novel, the old ways still remain and are actually reinforced. Divisions between social strata and between ethnicities still plague “modern” Singapore. It is a conflict that finds expression in a continuing clash between the old traditions and modern ways. Suwen is not comfortable with marrying outside her race and the supposedly educated Mr. Sullivanignam still perpetrates the caste system.

The story opened with the image of the protagonist, the synthesizer of the stories of the novel. Suwen never knew her real father, and only came to live with her mother and step father when her stepfather’s mother died. Her mother fetched her bribed her grandmother and gave her the first mark of colonialism: the western doll. She then used to live with her mother and stepfather at the Ong mansion and had traumatic experiences of molestations from her step father and abuse from her grandmother. She set out to become an artist, wishing to find her identity and express herself through her medium. At the same time, she teaches at the university and maintains an unclear relationship with her Scottish colleague, Mark Campbell. She was only one of those many “like-minded English-educated malcontents,” professionals of Singapore. She and her friends, “swapped stories… grouse about the sanitized politics of Singapore, and dissect the plays they had attended and the paintings they had seen as they drank beer till the wee hours of the morning.”

It was a collection of various stories and various characters. Suwen’s stepfather’s father, the residents of the Ong mansion: Ong Tay Luck who never really had direct blood relations from the Ong family. Ong Tay Luck is the son of the concubine of Ong Ah Buck – who changed his surname to Ong for the sake of keeping the family name. Their family has become a product of the distorted history of the country. Another story is that of Nica’s. She was half-Indian and half-Chinese, and has been filled with issues in her family in terms of preferences in cultural traditions. She escaped the turmoil of her family to build her identity. She can be considered as a typical expat who has broken free from stifling tradition.

The book even touches upon the politics of art. Suwen feels oppressed as an artist. She was criticized by the authorities as painting unworthy pieces because her works were too abstract and westernized. The paintings supposedly betrayed their Singaporean roots. But she wanted to paint for herself, to express her passion and hate. The thing is, the history of their race has been a history of passion and hate. And she can never remove herself from the milieu.

An artist, a human being, is always part of her socio-cultural milieu. She always depicts that milieu’s biases and hopes. Even Suwen is not aware of it, saying that she wanted to paint for herself though she herself could not but help paint what composed her thoughts – the history of her roots, the history of her country. Contrary to this, Nica went as far as sculpting a nude white man to make a political statement. In her letter to Jan: “…It was art as a vengeance. One. The whites have exploited us, Asians; so I, in turn, exploited a white man. Two. The male has exploited the female body since time immemorial. So why was it shocking if a female artist exploits the male body?”

Today, Singapore is seen as calm collected business oasis. But it was forged from the blood, sweat and tears of the common man. Fistful of Colors depicted a particularly horrifying rickshaw strike-riot. While the author had Suwen, the artist, desire to paint for herself, it seems this does not apply to the author herself. She actually takes the authorities viewpoint on the strike; that it was more trouble than it was worth. Though this point-of-view is obscured by a mention at the end of the narrative that the strikers were to be pitied. It might have been obscured but since pity is the only thing that the author can offer to the strikers, she still upholds the talking points of the Singaporean elite.

Singapore is known as the melting pot. In A Fistful of Colors, this melting pot is deconstructed, exposed and painted as a melting pot of different contradictions and struggles, cultures and ideologies through the interwoven stories of the characters.

(With Carlo Pulido's editing powers. Acknowledged. Salamat.)

Arbitrary depression. Arbitrary sadness.

Noah's Ark Reenacted

My whole body is still aching due to my lone adventure yesterday. I walked from Katipunan to Project 2 through Xavierville. One third of the journey I was submerged in 4.5-5.5 feet of murky water. Can't get over it. I remember distinguishing between water, mud and crude oil as I was trudging through the deeper parts of the flooded street, holding on to the grilled fences of houses along the way, hoping to at least elevate myself. When the current became stronger and the water get deeper, I stopped at the middle of the sea and a manong came to help me carry my things. Otherwise, I would have drowned or have stayed there till God knows when...ALONE.

We were at least lucky that our spot here in QC is high enough for the water to reach. The streets not so far from here are all flooded. But the hassle and frazzle that this typhoon has brought upon us is no big joke. I have a few friends who woke up with all their appliances and furniture floating up to the second storeys of their houses. My co-teahcers at Mapua slept inside the campus. I was not able to attend my meeting. I am scheduled to visit my Grandma at Filinvest Antipolo today but it was not possible; Marcos highway is a disaster. My phone is not working yet and my students' school papers are soaking wet.

I don't want to make this a rundown of my personal calamity-related rants. But the thing is, these are all not normal. Everyone are all pointing to that synthetic phenomenon called Global Warming/Climate change... We are being accused that we are all suffering for our incessant desire for civilization that ruined the planet. Before the flood, the bell was rung like hell to save mother Earth. They called for...

energy conservation.
water conservation.
reforestation.
recycle-ation.
SM greenbag-ation.
woe to our salvation!

That is not the point. The real point is to find the main culprit. There are like a hundred companies "chimney"-ing industrial smoke more than all the population of the world's cigarette smokes put together. There are more mining companies spilling out poisonous chemicals in the world's main water sources more than all those homeless people shitting on their shanties straight to the rivers in third world and even capitalist countries put together. There are a lot of government institutions who have let illegal loggers do away with their activities and all that jazz.

I am more than willing to use green bags, conserve water, and turn off my faucets, dvd player and flourescent bulbs. But it can only do much. The people can only do so much. Find the culprit, and uproot the root of the problem. The people have lived long enough under the bridges, under the yoke of poverty. Let us just hope that some people out there would be willing to let go just SOME of their profits for the sake of humanity. That would be more effective than all of our little efforts put together, than all of our efforts facing the effects and not the cause.

"Actions should be measured by their effect on the greater good of the world, not the consequences for the individual." - David Hume


****


Post ko ito kahapon. Ngayon, mas marami pa akong nakikitang mga maling kaganapan. Parang hirap na hirap sa rescue operations ng gobyerno. Hindi handa ang gobyerno sa pagharap sa kalamidad. Kulang sa mga rubber boats, at maraming mga lugar ang hindi matunton ng rescue operations.

Totoo ngang may climate change. Pero sapat na ba ang ulan na naganap kahapon para makapagdulot ng ganitong uri ng baha? Well, anong dam ang binuksan na wala man lang patumanggang pasabihan ang mga tao na maghanda!?

Wala lang.

Now I'm anxiety ridden. :z

“Once a thing is remembered, it is seldom forgotten. It is remembered and recalled in different ways, and in a way which shapes and reshapes the past; the past as retold in stories shaped by the creative memory…” Christine Suchen Lim, A Fistful of Colors

Nabaliktad na ata ang mundo.

Inheritance of Loss

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Kiran Desai

Inheritance of Loss is a novel that tells of parallel stories of different members of the Indian race, and of how, in the present time, they are confronted with issues of multiculturalism, discrimination, economic inequality, and globalization. At the beginning, the house of the Judge is the central part of the story. We can find here different faces of ancient Indian culture – Sai, ideal Indian woman, “the cook,” a typical servant, and the judge, real-time epitome of the Indian male. From that point thereon, narratives of the present and the past intertwines in a particular structure that is nonlinear. The story moves back and forth to the present, the recent past and the past. Alongside with this, are chunks and bits of the story of Biju, a parallel story with the same theme, occurring in a different place, to represent the face of the new Indian – the illegal migrant and the migrants’ encounters with discrimination.

The Indian woman, repressed for years, finds in herself a realization to find her own identity by becoming conscious of individuality. We see her in front of the looking glass, thinking of her future, as if she herself can arrange it. Her affection for Gyan, forbidden and unthinkable in the light of Hindu tradition opens this for her. However, such a love did not prosper, because we see Gyan fighting for another form of freedom as he joins the Nepali movement for liberation.

The typical servant is found to have given much hope, and a tendency to believe in a messianic hero, his son, Biju. In chapter 15 of this story, amidst the celebrations that exclusively belongs to the Indian culture, he was holding another celebration, a celebration of his son’s so-called achievements in his stay in New York, flaunting his ambition to go to that greener world. He offends his heritage, and he offends the son, who was almost crawling between restaurants, experiencing the most demeaning taunts from the foreign race.

The story has been set in present India, a product of the transition from the traditional India that we know of to the present past-colonial “modernity.” In this novel, we will see how traditional Indian practices mix with that of the new post-colonial practices. What changed? What amount of progress has been made? It is clearly demonstrated here that as much as the country is lifting itself up from the hierarchical order of things, borders are built anew, nothing really changed. Brahmins still remain the highest caste although members of other classes get to move to higher ranks through education, as that of Jemubhai’s. I see a sort of rearrangement of classes, changing of methods of oppression. If the Hindu religion has become an implicit promoter of old hierarchies and subjections in the old society, as that of Ramayana – Rama’s exile, Sita’s ordeal, etc.



Education, economic status and migration has produced for India a new basis for elitism, like those women for whom Biju has delivered bowls of soup and for which Biju had to transfer to another restaurant again. Alongside with it is the hope for a change toward the piecemeal modernity that can only be attributed to their past colonial masters. The judge himself is a glaring example for it, and Lola’s obsession for her British-accented BBC reporter daughter. The cook also had his share, believing in the American dream, as if having a son abroad gives him a different place in the society. Moreover, we see that they admire the works of modernity but they still forcibly cling unto their traditions. Like the Judge and Lola, they begin hating their own race for their backwardness but this kind of behavior is still backward, and is set to be able to push their country farther back.

The novel seems to have been a portrayal of the Indian race as a struggling race, struggling from the backward ways of the old and the oppression that they get from the new setup. India is a race who had taste of different flavors of oppression and humiliation. In America, Biju landed in what the writer spoke of the “the Gandhi café, [where] the lights were kept low, the better to hide the stains. It was a long journey from here to the fusion trend, the goat cheese and basil samosa, the mango margarita. This was the real thing, generic Indian, and it could be ordered complete, one stop on the subway line or even on the phone: gilt and red chairs, plastic roses on the table with synthetic dewdrops.” Indeed, the Indian can be found almost anywhere in the world, tainted, stained with pain.

i refuse slumber

I want to live for another thousand years (from 'Aku' 1943)

I want to live for another thousand years

Though bullets should pierce my skin
I shall strike and march forth

Wounds and poison shall I take aflee
Aflee
'Til the pain and pang should disappear

And I should care even less

I want to live for another thousand years
(from 'Aku' 1943)

Chairil Anwar