So you think the word ‘Filipina’ means maid? Well, think again. For all of you who reached this blog looking for bargain Filipinas –whether Filipina maids or hot Filipina bodies at bargain basement prices — well, this is for you! You should also know that Filipinas/Filipinos are also among the world’s most efficient people — on the energy from eating really small pieces of fish and a cup of rice, we can spew out great thoughts! Ha!
Speaking of fish, here's this personal piece, the next installment of a series that, taken together, make up what I like to call Great Living Filipino Thinkers, In Their Own Words. Today's piece is from Leandro Romero, who lectures on Geography at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His own personal journey to get there is the quintessential tale of the Filipino diaspora-- poignant, bittersweet and riveting. And in his case, written in installments, like this one:
The Oblation is a concrete statue by Filipino artist Guillermo E. Tolentino which serves as the iconic symbol of the University of the Philippines. It depicts a man facing upward with arms outstretched, symbolizing selfless offering of oneself to his country."
Time Travel on the Cheap
"Tuesday night I traveled back in time to 1989 or thereabouts.
The place: Balara behind UP Diliman, near the Narra Residence Hall, then UP's most liberal dorm for men (and coincidentally, the most dilapidated and the cheapest).
The time: between midnight and three a.m.
Activity: eating ginisang sardinas at the all-night counter frequented by jitney and cab drivers and other vampires prowling the city in those unholy hours.
It is a college night like most nights I had back then: interminable, humid and expectant. Like you are waiting for something important to happen, some epiphany to strike you, some Big Truth to slap you in the face with its simplicity and elegance. Meanwhile, the night is surprisingly busy in this corner of the university. Cabbies are just going off duty; still others are just about to take over. There is the stink of vehicle exhaust and cigarette smoke and rotting vegetables and the delicious aroma of street food. Some of the carinderia women have begun to prepare the ingredients for next day's lunches. Kids are selling cigarettes, balut, sampaguita flower leis.
On such nights, you have finished carousing with your friends in one of those infrequent binges where you indulge in your favorite fermented drink and hope other baser instincts follow suit. Or, you have been obliged to stay and babysit some textbooks and notes, write term papers or solve sample problems, and you just need a quick pick-me-up. Or, you just made a connection with some other lonely collegiate soul and you just want to savor the strangeness of the Other, chew on the purity and innocence of it, before morning comes and shines on it the ridiculous light of day.
I assume that this night could have been any of the three, and alternate between options. Obviously, I am sober enough to bring myself this far on public transportation with no major damage to life, limb or property, so it's all good. Whatever awaits me back at the dorm—math or physics or engineering texts—they would wait patiently. There is no hurry, and I am where I need to be at this moment. Meanwhile, the smell of fragrant frying garlic tempts my nostrils and my stomach growls a greeting in return.
The chopped onions and tomatoes follow shortly, and soon I am witness to tomatoes melting in the pan, sizzling and bubbling until you are certain that they have aggregately achieved Tomato Nirvana—that is, being one with the pan, the oil, the onions, the garlic and the Universe. The hot sardines make their grand entrance and are allowed a brief honeymoon with the fulfilled tomatoes. Meanwhile, the flame is switched off, and a raw egg, quiet and content until now, jumps in and joins the fun. The bored cook deftly mixes it in with the other ingredients and in a while, serves it in front of me, hot, with fried rice.
As soon as the sardines cross my lips, I forget that Physics is my Achilles heel, that women (even those in college) are creatures with expectations and demands that have to be dealt with in the morning, or that in a few short hours, it would be time to join the elaborate waltzes and tangos of university life once again. The combination touches off several centers of taste on my tongue and palate, and my brain registers an explosion of flavor. I prolong each mouthful into a slow, sticky sojourn into my own personal paradise.
Minutes later it seems, but really more than a dozen years hence, I look up from my plate and find myself alone in a house in Sparks, Nevada, with no girls or physics texts waiting for me in the morning. Yesterday, I tried it again with some soto ayam (Indonesian spicy chicken-and-vegetable soup) and I was brought back to Jakarta in 1990 (I think). But that is another story for another day."
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