Friday, June 27, 2008

Missing Something

Watching The Sweet Life of Lucy and reading her column in Philippine Star make me realize how much I miss my growing up years in Negros. Lucy is disarmingly probinsiyana and makes no bones to hide it in either medium. In The Sweet Life, she constantly says words in the dialect and Wilma reacts and mimics her, eliciting a chuckle from Lucy in the process. Listening to Lucy makes me realize how so many words in Ilonggo are similar to those in her dialect. I believe she's from Ormoc.

Years back, we were in Wendy's and they were offering this salad buffet. I think I may have recounted this in a previous post but I'm repeating it here. In the next table to ours, someone commented upon seeing the mountainful of salad atop a companion's place, "daw sungak-sungak ka ba." I hadn't heard the expression in years and it so amused me. Yesterday, a victim of Typhoon Frank said "ang mga pamuluyo" and while I knew what that meant, I couldn't translate it for my Tagalog husband.

Having lived more than half of my life in Manila has caused me to lose touch with many words in the Ilonggo dialect, especially "deep" words which I never ever encountered to begin with. Hearing Ilonggo spoken by strangers always draws a smile from me, a nudge to my husband in the mall or my son, after which I say, "Ilonggo, or nose-nose" just so I won't be too obvious.

That I haven't lost my Ilonggo accent though it's been 34 years since I've lived in Manila is perhaps a testimony to how much I love the province where I came from.

Funny that this post was provoked by a comment to my previous blog about my ninang dress, an expletive which only an ILonggo can utter without thought, without provocation. Just part of the system, not mine, never mine. So I deleted the aberration.

The Revised Design of My Ninang Gown



Can you see it? This was faxed to me. It looks okay on paper. I hope it looks even better executed. Will post a picture as soon as I get it.

Here is a picture of the gown



I'm still not enamored. wahhhhhhh!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Bothersome Occurrences, ok CRIMES

A few days ago, a cousin called to tell me that in a waiting shed in one university campus, three girls were robbed of their laptops one night at knife-point. The alleged holdupper even raised his shirt to reveal a gun tucked under his pants. Wondering why the girls were with their laptops in the waiting shed? Wonder no more.

The three girls are dormers of a campus dorm. Thing is the Internet signal in their dorm is weak if it is available at all. So they wandered off outside to find a signal and found it under the waiting shed, only to be divested of their laptops.

***************

Yesterday as my son sat in front of his laptop, he muttered, "nanakawan si xxxx. Binasag ang bintana ng kanyang kotse sa Esteban Abada kung saan siya nag park para makabili sa National (in Katipunan)." Guess what were taken? A calculator and an Accounting book.

I find that very cruel: to break the window of a car to get a calculator which costs less than P500 and a book costing less than a P1000? who might have use for either or both? Another student? A professional thief won't get much from such an intrusion and would know better. Or did the thief think he'd find a laptop? Darn, darn, darn...

Monday, June 23, 2008

Is Mercury in Retrograde? Or a series of mishaps/irritants/conundrums

I don't know where to start but I have to start somewhere. Yes, yes, I know this is trivial compared to the ordeal Ces et al. endured in Sulu. And it's really trivial compared to what the victims of the sinking of The Princess ferry went through. Still these are my current irritants, so I have to vent.

Last Friday, I was due to see my ninang gown. But I wasn't able to go so I called Saturday morning and was told it would be ready by 2 pm. Imagine, had I gone Friday as scheduled, I'd have gone for naught.

So Saturday pm, I went to the shop that made my dress at around 3 pm. Wow, from the doorway I saw my gown and it wasn't at all pretty. I couldn't help but tell my husband, "Ang pangit. HIndi maganda." I didn't bother to convince myself that it looked all right because it didn't. Sure, I'm partly to blame because I have a shapeless body, blimp-like. But the gown was just so blah. I should have taken its picture.

When the design was presented to me two weeks earlier, it looked good. But executed, wow, it was yucky. V-neckline. FIne. Wrap-around sort of, fine. Pleats on one side of the skirt, fine. Sleeves - two layers pwede na. But flowers of the same cloth as the gown, lots of them -yuck. And the flowers' petals were flying everywhere. Think of butterfly wings flapping on Jolina's head way back when she was aping Punky Brewster. Not just one butterfly, but a farm-ful. But in my gown's case, a bush-ful. The gown looked like a negligee's robe. The cloth to begin with was light, not chiffon-transparent or translucent, but light nonetheless.

The shop owner wasn't around but the girl who attended to me was solicitous enough (practice makes perfect?). She suggested removing the flowers. I said yes please. I was worried doing that would make the holes where they were sewn evident, she assured me they wouldn't be. What next? She suggested putting beads. I said ok.

Oh another thing. while I'd have preferred a skirt and blouse, they made it a gown with a cut in the waist. Like I said I have a blimp for a body so I couldn't imagine myself in it. I asked if they could make the top a blouse but then it would be too short, they said. Then the gay tailor(?) came out with a sketch. The bottom portion of the blouse would consist of two layers like the sleeves. The sleeves were bell-like, the blouse would have a graduated hem. I'm not sure I'm describing what the design looked like well enough. Oh well. They also suggested putting beads on the sleeves, the hem and the waist - on one side. I asked for a collar. As I thought of the design when I got home I wasn't sure I'd like how it turned out. Texted the shop owner and she said she'd redesign it so I'd like it. I hope she does. Two things I asked for: simple but elegant. Will keep you posted.

This experience mirrors what my niece who's getting married told me when I suggested she have a wedding gown made. She said "no way". She'd rather buy off the rack. She had two horror stories to tell and one stood out: a friend of hers didn't like the gown made by a known designer so she ended up wearing something else on her wedding day. In the event that my gown doesn't turn out to my liking, I just might skip the wedding. It's no joke to look frumpy on such a special occasion.

Travail No. 2: Last week, got my water bill. It was higher than the previous month's. So I told the maids to slow down on consumption. For one, though I had told them several times not to use the water hose anymore, one time I caught one of them hosing the dog's you know what with it. So imagine what a waste of water that is. The faucet is some distance from the dog so while the maid walks to the faucet to turn it off, some water is wasted. Anyway, one day last week, when I returned from shopping, they gave me the news. They tested the toilets and found out that even when no one was using any, the water meter was "moving". So they experimented and determined the culprit. the yellow bathroom. Promptly, I called the maintenance man of where my husband works and he checked the system. He adjusted it, no change. He suggested the control be closed when not in use and said possibly, the problem was with the water pipes underneath. The maids were flummoxed. they insisted the problem was with the water closet in the yellow toilet.

So I called an architect friend who sent his plumber. The plumber recommended changing the toilet fittings of the 3 toilets because they were all run down. He was an old man so I thought he knew everything. I bought the necessary stuff and he came to replace the old ones. Thing is, when he was done, problem persisted. Worse, where before the meter didn't move if the controls were closed, now it moved even if the controls were closed. Hayyyyyyyyyyy. what do do? I don't know. I asked him he said, maybe the pipes underneath. Back to square 1.

Pipes underneath - bakbak/major undertaking. Tiles would have to be removed and replaced. New pipes put in, no longer underground but they'd have to be concealed by some tiles. darn, darn, darn.

I'll have the project estimated for cost but no guarantee there that I'll have it done. Unless I win the lotto or a windfall from who knows where drops on my lap?

Thursday, June 12, 2008

A New "Old" Friend


For years now, I've been seeing this man in church and have noticed him for two reasons. He walks with some difficulty (and I can empathize/sympathize) and he looks like a friend of my father's when he was active in Rotary. He lives along the street where the parish church is.

It has been some time, too, when I have been wanting to condole with him because I read of his son's alleged suicide aboard a coast guard or Navy boat, just when he was supposed to have noted an anomaly somewhere and was about to report it or something. The details are now sketchy in my mind but I remember how I felt when I saw an image of the alleged suicide on TV. It couldn't have been one. The position of the gun on the floor while the man was on the bed, dead, seemed improbable.

It wasn't immediately then that I realized this old man was the father of the ill-fated soldier. I only knew for sure that it was he when I read an article on the Spirit Questors or saw a feature on them (so long ago, I can't recall which), trying to get in touch with the spirit of the son. Mention was made of our area.

Anyway, this a.m., after mass, (it's the feast day of my patron saint, St. Anthony of Padua), I decided to stop by a tianggue (appreciate that as the Ilonggo kind rather than the Greenhills kind) where I hqe noticed a table selling pineapples at P15, 20 and P25 each on our way to church. I decided to get one for my husband because I had P50 with me. I still had enough for Inquirer after getting the pineapple, I thought.

As I was parked on the side of the road, I noticed the "old" man standing nearby looking at the people buying. He had also just come from church. Impatient that my maid was taking so long, I thought of asking him "Are you Mr. X?" He said "yes" and I immediately asked if he were the brother of my father's friend. He said "yes" again. Then he said, "Those pineapples are sweet. They're from my farm." Oops, my IQ wasn't working. All along, it hadn't occurred to me that the tianggue was just in front of a wall of his property. I thought his property was but the nice house with portholes (so reminiscent of his son's assignment, no?). And then I asked where his farm was, expecting he'd say Laguna or somewhere far. He said it was in Antipolo.

We talked some more and he told me he was in Bacolod for six years where he was with an insurance company. He thus also knew another friend of my father's, a friend who had been my sister's boss. Small world. I guess that was what prompted him to say, "Someday, I'll invite you to my farm." I found that suggestion so sweet of him, never mind if it will never come to pass. The mere thought so touched me. He also introduced his wife to me but she didn't join our conversation. She merely smiled.

Eventually he left us but the maid was not yet done buying one pineapple. She was haggling that it be sold her for P10 because another customer she said got 2 for P20. I told her to just pay P15 and be done with it. To begin with P15 for a pineapple isn't much. In fact way back when my son was 3 or 4 years old, 15 years ago, that same table sold pineapples for P10, so considering the inflation and the intervening years, a P5 difference isn't something to "sweat" about, right?

So there. Fancy how age has made me less shy to strike up conversations with people. Weeks back, also in church, a man approached my husband and me asking where we lived because he'd see us and we him in the many churches in the area. Turned out he's the brother of a friend of my sisters. He's into koi breeding. When i showed interest in it, he asked if we had a pond. He gives rejects out, you see. Much as I'd have wanted one koi (aka goldfish in my unenlightened youth), I couldn't lie to a new-found friend.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

The Filipino Language

Way back in the early seventies. when we were in high school, we had this teacher in Filipino who took us aback. She had a cool way of pronouncing and spelling Filipino words. To this day, I'll never forget what she told us "high school" is in Filipino. I myself thought she'd say "mataas na paaralan." Instead she said and wrote, "haiskul."

That to my mind marked a transition of sorts for the Filipino language. A transition that has remained unabated, again, to my mind, because I don't profess to being a linguist, not even to minimal proficiency in what is and should actually be my mother tongue.

Whenever I hear mass in Filipino (tagalog), I would usually translate the words I hear in English, and the translation doesn't come easy if it comes at all. So I tend to be unable to follow what the priest is saying. Lucky for me if the gospel or readings are familiar because then I'd get what it is about. But if they're not, wow, I'm lost. A few Sundays ago the first line of a reading went "ang mabuting trigo". Offhand, trigo for me is short for Trigonometry, hardly an apt translation in something Bible-related. So what does trigo translate to? Trinity? From context clues I could still gather nothing. Oh well. I could have looked at the dictionary when I got home but then the rest of the text of that reading had been lost.

Back then I had thought of blogging about the issue but it slipped my mind. then yesterday I met two people connected to the publishing world and they asked me if I knew anyone who could edit textbooks written in Filipino.

I asked two friends and right off, they said, "not Filipino", a stark confirmation of what the two people I met yesterday lamented: finding editors of Filipino works is not easy. Strange isn't it? But why is this so?

We tried to brainstorm why and more or less agreed that the ever changing rules of the language may be responsible. For instance, back when I was in school, you'd conjugate patay and say, "nakakamatay". But now, the signs of MMDA read, "Bawal tumawid dito. Nakamamatay." When I first read this, I balked. Where did that come from, I wondered aloud. Then my son who's 34 years younger than I answered, "Mama, that's correct". I wondered, "since when?" WHen did they change the rules and who did? In the first place, who's been making the rules?

Another reason: our dictionaries, of which there are quite a few. There's the series of Leo English, a Redemptorist priest, therefore American-- yes, an American wrote a Filipino English dictionary and vice versa. then there's the so-called Vicassan, a rather thick and heavy volume, There's also UP's dictionary in burgundy which mixes tagalog and english words and alphabetizes them interspersed; that is it doesn't separate Tagalog entries from English ones.

So far, I have seen one Tagalog-Tagalog dictionary which is useful if the teacher asks for a definition of a tagalog word in tagalog, rather than its translation in English. But this is a small and thin volume, so it doesn't help if your teacher is up there in terms of proficiency.

So what do we do? I don't know. I am as much at a loss for answers to this issue. What has caused it in the first place? Are other countries/languages in the world similarly situated? is the Filipino language so young and are these but mere growing up pains?

Someone, please do something.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Chivalry is not dead

Among the old, that is. This morning, heard mass with my husband. The mass had just begun when in came this frail old lady who had a cane. Helping her along was a houseboy who brought her to the door and slung her bag across her shoulder. Then he simply left her to fend for herself.

As she grabbed the door knob, I became nervous. It was apparent she had poor balance but the boy had just left her there, making me wonder: was that what she had ordered him? Or is he anti-Catholic? Uncaring? what? Because, again, he left her there.

Taking one quivering step at a time, holding a cane in one quivering hand at the end of one quivering arm, she made her way to the last pew in church, no not to settle there but to hold on to it for balance. Then she ever so slowly, all the while seemingly about to fall, wended her way forward.

After she took a few steps, an old man, who looked like a foreigner or mestizo at the very least, crossed the center aisle to reach her and led her gently, her hand on his arm, to the front row. He smiled as he did. So there, chivalry isn't dead, but it is only among the old that it seems to live on.

For how many young men this days bother to give their seat to a lady in a crowded church? How many?

Has the world become such that the motto of everyone is "survival of the fittest", or maybe "to each his own." Sad. Sometimes, I tell my son or husband to help when I see someone in need. Sometimes they hesitate. Shy daw sila. Oh well...