Land of reconciled contradictions: a note on loving
the Philippines

Published January 11th, 2008 in Traveling by Hugo Schwyzer

Since I was a child, I’ve been fortunate to do a fair amount of traveling. One thing I’ve noticed is that certain places resonate with me much more than others. Most folks notice the same thing. Sometimes, even when one has no particular familial connection to a place, one feels at home; other times, that sensation of belonging is conspicuously absent.

I’m a Californian to my core. Wherever I go in the States or abroad, I am always reminded that my truest earthly home is on the gently rolling slopes of the California coastal range. But certain places touch me: Vienna, my father’s birthplace, always feels intensely familiar and welcoming. Austria enchants me and exasperates me and envelops me with smells and sensations that my soul knows. That makes sense, as it is the land of many of my ancestors. I also feel quite comfortably at home in England.

And yet there are other places to which I have little or no personal (or geneaological) connection, but which still manage to move me profoundly. Wales is one such place. As far as the Celtic fringe is concerned, I like Ireland and I like Scotland, but don’t feel “at home” in either; though I have virtually no Welsh ancestry, the first time I set foot in places like Carmarthen and Aberystwyth and Dolgellau, I felt a curious rush of excitement which I could not explain. I felt that same feeling in Stellenbosch, South Africa, but nowhere else outside the USA.

I felt this same feeling of happy familarity in the Philippines this past week. The only other places in East Asia that we’ve been are Thailand, Hong Kong, and Macao; though I enjoyed those visits, I felt no immediate sentimental attachment to any of those. But from the time we stepped off the plane at Aquino International early Monday morning until we left Thursday evening, I felt enveloped by warmth. It sounds hackneyed, probably because it is, and yet I have no other words with which to describe the sensation.

My first wife was half-Filipina, and over the years, I’ve had many colleagues and friends who trace their ancestry back to this Asian archipelago. Many of my students are of Philippine ancestry as well; two of the largest communities in the Filipino diaspora are found, not surprisingly, in Los Angeles and San Francisco. It’s not an entirely unfamiliar culture. But familiarity with people doesn’t translate to familiarity with the land; I enjoy visiting Mexico (heck, I was conceived in Mexico City), but never have felt “at home” in our great neighbor to the South. I felt at home in the Philippines, at least in what very little I saw of it.

Metro Manila is huge, divided (like Los Angeles) into a great many smaller cities and communities. Our hosts (we wanted to stay with our new friends rather than in some impersonal hotel) live out in Ayala Alabang, a leafy and attractive suburb. It was a forty-five minute drive each way from their home to the place where I was to give my lectures, which was in a large meeting room atop a high-rise apartment building in Makati (the financial heart of Manila).

I don’t step on scales very often (for my own sanity), but my pants tell me I must have gained at least a pound a day during our short visit to the Philippines. Our hosts had been forewarned about our diet; indeed, that had been our primary concern about staying with a Filipino family. It’s easy to be vegan at home; tough on the road — and tougher still as house guests in places where the very idea of an animal-free diet is bizarre. But our hosts worked very hard to take traditional Filipino dishes and render them vegan — or nearly so. (Some small amounts of egg and dairy were, I confess, consumed this week). I ate loads of “suman” the little sticky rice delicacies wrapped in banana leaves. (See me noshing here.) My wife fell in love with champorado, a bitter-sweet chocolate breakfast porridge that can easily be made vegan-style. And of course, we ate loads of pancit — and one giant bowl of halo halo. A finicky eater as a child, I’ll eat anything vegetarian now. (For those of you who know, halo halo doesn’t require as much dairy as it might seem, though I’m afraid I accidentally consumed a small portion of gelatin.) In any event, we insisted on having as much “authentic” food as possible.

Next to the opportunity to meet so many wonderful folks in the Kabbalah Philippines community, the highlight of our trip was a tour of Intramuros, the old central area of Manila. The tour focused on San Augustin church, the one UNESCO World Heritage site in the capital; it was led by Carlos Celdran.

I’ve had a day or two to think about it, and I’ll say this now: Carlos is the best tour guide I’ve ever had. I’ve been going on tours since I was a child. I’ve been guided around museums, cathedrals, monasteries, vineyards, castles, mountains and jungles on five of the world’s continents, from Bogota to Bangkok, Denver to Dubai, Caernarfon to Cape Town. And no tour guide has ever taught me so much — and reduced me to weeping so easily — as did Carlos Celdran.

Carlos is more performance artist than tour guide. We spent two and a half hours with him yesterday morning (Manila time), and in rapid-fire fashion, he took us through nearly five centuries of Philippine history — from the arrival of Magellan to the most recent coup attempt. Carlos is deeply in love with his country and his city, and passionately subversive of the orthodox accounts of its history. With wit, song, and charm he covered a staggering number of topics: the architecture of the San Augustin sanctuary; the curious status of the Philippines as a province of Mexico; the layers of pretense and artifice constructed by Filipino elites; the role of the Catholic church, particularly the Dominicans, in creating a virtual theocracy apart from the Spanish crown; the assimilationist heroics of Jose Rizal; the years of American hegemony; the devastation wreaked by both the USA and Japan during the Second World War. His description of the 1945 American carpet-bombing campaign moved me to tears; I was not the only one weeping in the crypt of San Augustin.

We were in the Philippines for perhaps 88 hours; the two and a half we spent with Carlos were a blessing. I came away provoked, stimulated, and immensely appreciative not only of his considerable gifts as a guide but for the uniqueness of this extraordinary nation. Filipino culture is derived from so many different influences: Polynesian, Malay, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Mexican, American — all delightfully mixed together like a heaping sweet bowl of halo-halo.

Perhaps that’s part of what makes the Philippines so receptive to the fusion of Kabbalah and Christianity; reconciling apparent contradictions and creating vibrant syntheses is part of the Filipino psyche. Perhaps that’s why I — evangelical Christian, pro-feminist progressive Republican that I am — felt so at home.

We’re already planning our next trip back to the Philippines: Corregidor and Boracay will be on the list, as well as a lot more time to explore Manila.

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Tags: Philippines Experience, Travel, Culture

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