Culture Clashes and Bruises

Videoke.

Songs in all midi-synth-shades of bad, or worse, and videos atrociously made in the 80ies in the Netherlands (which have nothing to do with the song in question of course) - this, accompanied by good Green Tea with Gin, some mushrooms (no, not what you think) and happy people makes for suprisingly good entertainment and a fun time.

As an absolute newbie in all things sing-along, I was a bit challenged by the whole affair: Especially since I knew only a tiny fraction of the diverse and interesting ballads from the 70ies, 80ies and 90ies. I saved myself with a bit of Frank Sinatra, and failed miserably at Elvis and Jackson (mainly because the midi was so mangled I had troubles recognizing the songs. But hey, my excuse.. I can´t sing anyway. )

But yeah: Pinoy karaoke is not the public humiliation we all know from Europe or Japan, but rather a variant of Singstar without the playstations - you get a room, and a machine, and you sing all you want for a few hours.. All-you-can-sing, practically.

I personally think the pinoy fascination with this electronic campfire is a hint at an earlier tradition of singing and poetry that must have been impressive indeed... But yeah, I think I did enough heavy history rants in the older posts.

Currently, I´m battered, bruised, destroyed and yet happy: Adrenaline does that to you. I had the time of my life in a padded-stick fighting session behind Matias Eatery (sic!) with Juno (a wonderful stickfighter and griller of diverse edibles, also on sticks). I really enjoyed it, and have taken the beating well enough (as I got a T-Shirt and a stick). But this session has really shown me my limitations: Even though I might have some idea of how to use the stick, and how to step, I´m still a tortoise to Juno´s hare, and when I get around to blocking something, I have allready taken in about 5 strikes to the hand and belly. Yay!

But yeah, speed can and will be trained: There´s nothing more motivating than landing a few yourself.

cheers, the d.
(Yay! I can still type.. a bit.. )

Atrocities in the Name of God: The Spanish in the Phillipines

If you know a bit about the history of South America, you will be able to guess at the policies the Spaniards, or Kastila as they were called here, imposed on the natives. But your guess will be far off.

The peoples subjugated in Mexico and the Andes were somewhat more used to having a centralised ruler, and once the Spanish had taken out the respective monarchies, resistance from the common people (who just had a different royality imposed on them, often using the same administration) was scarce.

The Phillipines, however, were populated by a wide variety of very warlike societies, not at all used to give tribute to anyone, and they fought the Spaniards at every step. The history of the Phillipines is a history of unspeakable atrocities comitted by the frailocracia, the name given to the de facto rule of many religious orders. To give you some idea of the nature of the tributes collected here: besides paying annually a sum of ten reales per household, the natives were also press-ganged to forced labour for forts, construction of churches, shipyards, woodcutting, in adittion to numerous personal services that more often than not where not even paid. Aggravating their situation, the majority of the communal lands, the basis of their former subsistance economy, had been taken over by haciendas or the orders. The tribute to be paid remained the same.
As if that wouldn´t be enough, the crown exacted a forced sale, at ridiculously low prices, of grain, chicken and pigs, even where the populace was already suffering from all the above.

The people died like flies. Smallpox and tuberculosis ravaged the malnourished and overworked, once proud, people of the Phillipines. Many towns burned all their livestock and houses, and fled to the mountains, where resistance against the opressors continued throughout the Spanish occupation. Rebellions arose again and again, in spite of retaliatory policies that consisted of burning a whole village for each Spaniard killed.

After the initial military resistance had been quashed, many adopted a suicidal tactic I have never heard of anywhere else in the world: The inhabitants refused to sow, killed their livestock, and thus, by starving themselves, sought to starve the Spaniards (who they observed to do no work except killing).

Unconquered until today, Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago regularly sent retaliatory strikes against the spanish shipyards, where the expansionism of that utterly mad and criminal regime was quenched again and again.

It is such a history that has produced the Phillipines we see today.

It is in the spanish legacy that the modern exploiters of women put themselves.

Such disgraces against humanity as were witnessed by this paradise - A better proof for the absence of any kind of god can´t be provided. Yet, the Pinoys retain the brainwashing that centuries of monks installed in their battered bodies: Miracles happen, the "true" paradise awaits you in the afterlife.

The liars continue to profit.

-d-

Cebu City Status Quo

It´s noisy, it´s dirty, it´s still a lot of fun. I´m hanging out here in the Kukuks Nest (you guessed it, a now dead Austrian founded it) and training each morning from 6 to 10. That´s why the rest of my days are mainly filled with sleeping, eating, reading and generally not being tooo active. 4 hours of stick-swinging Eskrima can do that to you.

So, there are no giant big new fascinating news at the moment, but I decided to write up the status quo as I see it anyway.

It´s apparently traditional that the opposition burns an effigy of the current president at each SONA (State Of the Nation Adress), and Mrs. Arroyo has clearly one of the worst tastes for dresses ever conceived by the human mind. Can you take any dic.. ah, politician seriously who runs around in a pink monstrosity?

In other news: Journalists tend to get killed here. In a variation of a classic drive-by shooting, a political commentator of a national radio station was dispatched expertly by several gunmen, uniformly armed.

But yeah, what the hell. Taking things easy is a very pinoy thing to do, and that´s what everyone is doing around here. My trainer (Alexis Villarente) is a wonderful person, who even arranges food and water in the morning (which has not destroyed my digestion yet, yay!), and I´m looking forward to the next session tomorrow (although my natural tendency is to sleep veeeery long).

Down at the Kukuks Bar, they´ve been playing the same Bob Marley CD (burned, of course) for at least the last year or so (as my swiss colleague affirms). "Stop that train, I wanna get on"..

cheers,
the d.

Cebu City: I´m starting to see a pattern here.

Well, it is quite obvious, isn´t it?

People here earn the equivalent of three dollars a day, and consider themselves lucky to be earning that much. So when the Princes from the Lands across the Sea arrive, more often than not quite old, a bit on the fat side, and sporting a moustache a walrus would envy, many Pinayas consider themselves lucky.

Or, better put, they continue the battle started by Magellan and Lapu-Lapu so long ago with their own set of beautiful weaponry. The three expats I´ve met so far have quite similar stories, two of them kids, and none of them seems too happy about the extended family. Obe of them got attacked with a broken bottle the other day, by the mother of his two children. Another Englishman seemed rather happy, in a I-no-longer-care sort of way.

These scenes begin right at the start, in the plane to the Phillipines, where beautiful young women travel to their motherland with husband attached. Now, perhaps it´s just me, but I have a hard time imagining tales of true love on sandy beaches between men the age of my granddad (mostly quite ugly) and women the age of myself (stunningly beautiful).

Seeing the eyes of these young women, who undoubtedly have to endure the clumsy advances of their legal spouses from time to time, I saw pain, resignation, and a certain stubborn pride.

They´re not the only ones fighting for survival in this paradise lost: The Moros in the southernmost islands have resisted conquerors since the spaniards arrived. The USA, the Japanese, even the independent Manila government never managed to really take control of that territory.

Fighting has a proud tradition here, and Lapu-Lapu, the chief who killed Magellan, was just the beginning: Guerillas fought bravely against the Spanish and the Japanese, and continue to do so even today, although with different enemies, ideologies and goals.

And that´s what I´m here for: to learn the ancient art of Eskrima, the fusion of indigenous swordsmanship with spanish techniques, which, until recently, used to be essential for survival on the streets. The old-style lethal duels known as "Juego Todo" still exist underground, if the rumours are correct, and every Eskrima school has it´s own stories and legacies of their Grandmasters and their mostly violent deaths.

But that´s of course not what I´m looking for.

martially yours,
the d.