Singapore

Swinging Chandeliers

Amazing installation at the National Museum of Singapore: Countours of a rich manoeuvre--by Suzann Victor. Every 15 minutes there's a different pattern.

Philippines Back Log

My knowledge of Ilocano the local dialect is limited to simple statements around eating, pissing and shitting. It's pretty radically different from tagalog, a lot of the words sound like they have completely different origins. A lot of Ilocanos roll their R's and the way some men talk with an upward intonation, their voices on the verge of cracking, sounds like a liverpool accent. I also noticed that they use a vowel that the french use--I forget what it's called but you make the sound by rounding your lips as if to say a long O, but instead saying ee. The Ilocano word for yes is wen, and sometimes when someone says wen in exasperation they use that french vowel. So really most of the time I barely understand what's going on and must infer from the way they look at me (paranoid that they're talking shit right in front of me) or the tone of their statements.

1/5/07
Went to Burgos with Gianing (the younger larger sister of the two helpers) and 2 of her daughters--one of the daughters my father refered to as half-man-half-woman, isn't intersex like I thought, but a tomboy (who I think used to be "sweethearts" with one of my cousins who moved to manila.) A fourth woman came along and I had no idea who she was (she had the same name as my father's purported girlfriend from manila, but later my father would tell me this was another of Gianing's daughters, but then I thought she was calling Gianing'Ate' which means older sister.) So we left my mom at home (eventhough she was shouting when I left that she wanted to come along). We went to Burgos which is by the CHina sea and had a picnic lunch. On our way back we passed the myriad road side stands all selling sea salt in huge rice sacs and vinegar in what looked like vegetable oil jugs. Of course my father picked the stand tended by the young girl in the denim hotpants--to the titillation of Gianing's daughters.

1/6
My dad insisted on driving us to Isabella (June his usual driver wasn't available) to visit my only first-degree cousins on my mother's side: Jojo and Minnie the son and daughter of my mother's late brother, her only sibling. Jojo had a stroke a year ago and he's barely 40. We were about to hit the highway, but my aunt scolded my dad telling him that side of the Island was experiencing heavy rains(Not to mention it's at least an 8 hour drive, because you have to go along the northern shore the mountain road still unpaved). My aunt turned to me and said, see how your dad is? hardheaded. So we went to Laoag instead just to have lunch.

I didn't let my dad drive while he was in the states even though I took him to the DMV to get his license renewed. In Ilocos Norte I was reluctant to drive, especially in Laoag where there didn't seem to be any logic to right-of-way. My dad drove okay, but honked at every jeepney and tricycle that didn't pull over to let him pass--and if they happened to cut him off after picking up a passenger, he would honk long bleeting honks and slow down in front of the offending driver. Don't be an asshole, I said, but he was too incensed and determined to teach them a lesson. If he were a dog he would have been frothing at the mouth.

Philippines backlog cont.

So what did I do for a month in a half in the Philippines?
*I was introduced to single ladies, teachers, nurses, students. At parties (since it was coming on Fiesta time at the end of January)and every possible occasion. One day I went with my father to Laoag thinking we were going to repair the AC in his car. I was pissed to find myself lunching with my father, a niece in her mid-twenties, and 6 of her women friends and classmates in physical therapy. I think only about half of the girls were actually available. After a while I wasn't sure if this was for my benefit or my dad's (although I can't imagine his grand niece pimping out her girlfriends to a man old enough to be their grandfather. On our way back I told my dad if he pulls something like that again I'm leaving (to my horror he repeated what I said to relatives). [Filipinos are obsessed with relationships--on the PI version of Deal or No Deal hosted by the Chris Aquino, the daughter of the former president, the hostess during Q and A delves deep into the contestants' personal lives: Asked of men and women who either look too fay or too tomboyish for their gender: are you gay, and if so do you have a boy/girl friend (one contestant a butch watchperson, replied she had a "special" friend. Of one contestant who had nine children the hostess asked him if they were all by the same woman). Apparently Filipinos didn't inherit american's squeamishness at too much information.--Anyway after 3 weeks or so, probably because everyone was so busy preparing for the town Fiesta, they left me alone, and I couldn't help feeling like a lost cause.
*Otherwise I observed a life of convalescence, I slept in the same downstairs den as my parent's and their helper, so I was privy to my parent's late night screaming fits (which apparently happened frequently because everyone is so godamned blasse about it: my cousin's wife said "they fight Like cats and dogs, I guess that's how they show their love," she said half-jokingly.

Singapore

My favorite restaurant in the Arab quarter, didn't right down the nAME, CAN'T TELL IF IT'S VIEWABLE IN THE PHOTO, BUT IT'S RIGHT OFF vICTORIA ON jALAN pISANG--ACROSS THE STREET FROM bLUE HEAVEN, A GAY BATH HOUSE, IN THE SHADOW OF THE MAIN MOSQUE A BLOCK AWAY. The dinner pictured a steal at 3.50 SIngapore dollars or roughly $2.25: a lime cordial, spicy beef, some kind of spicy vegetables, a relish of fish paste with chili sauce, like bagoong with chili paste, all prepared according to Islamic dietary law.

Singapore

Singapore

Singapore

Singapore Chinatown

Picture 006,
originally uploaded by jgluz71.

I'm fairly certain that this same exact subject appears in a folio by that German photographer or someone else with the same schtick: big architecture dwarfing little people. All scenes have been photographed, all vistas have been captured. Destroy the world for posterity.

Singapore Chinatown

Picture 005,
originally uploaded by jgluz71.

Singapore

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originally uploaded by jgluz71.

I met face to face with Daniel Craig at a 7-11 in Chinatown

Singapore: Gateway buildings

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originally uploaded by jgluz71.

Designed by I.M. Pei. I wonder if the cubicles are all diamond shaped, and if everyone is imperially thin.

Singapore: Raw Gym

Picture 002,
originally uploaded by jgluz71.

Stumbled on this men's gym and spa, while walking through Chinatown looking for an art gallery. It's at the end of a cul de sac on top of a hill by Ann Siang park. The sign says it's 24 hours and on Monday of Chinese New Year they have a special call out to 21 y.o. chinese boys. They also have special nights for men of Indian descent.

Singapore

Picture 001,
originally uploaded by jgluz71.

Park View Square, Cheesy gothic art deco looking tower straight out of Gotham.

Manila backlog I

1/2/07 Arrived in Manila at 4 in the morning. Dad bought 3 bag's worth of duty-free. He somehow managed to lose the baggage claim sticker for our 3 tremendous balakbayan boxes and his luggage. Luckily at the Laoag airport they weren't such sticklers for such details. Also luckily someone was there to pick us up, since we didn't call ahead of time to confirm we were arriving (Why didn't you call my aunt and uncle ask me, but how do you get a call through on new year's eve?). On the drive to the house my aunt again tells me I need to get married so I have someone to take care of me when I'm old, and also to have kids to prove that I am macho (she says squaring her shoulders in a show of machismo).

When I see my mom, it's kind of a shock to see how old she has gotten, (she can't really walk much, and when she does she's always afraid of falling, even when she uses her walker) After a few days though, after the initial shock of seeing her, I realize that she hasn't really aged that much since she's been here and could pass for someone ten years younger if not for her mobility and communication problems.

1/3/07 My dad is a little less of a pain now, mainly because I don't have to drive him everywhere anymore and see to his needs in the middle of the night, and because most of his needs are met, he's much more agreeable than he was when he was in the states. the next day we take a trip to Vigan (the capital of Ilocos Sur, known for their longoniza and old spanish architecture). As soon as my dad declares his wish to go to Vigan, he calls up a driver, and gets the helpers to ready changes of clothes for him and my mom, and we're off right after breakfast. After lunch in Vigan an impromptu picnic in the car with food bought at some foodstalls, we head over to the ocean. At first I think it's to buy the catch of the day, which we do, all bloody and gleaming in styrofoam coolers, but then my dad goes to the last possible barangay before you hit the beach to buy some fighting cocks. He rides his motorized wheelchair out to see the cocks, and all the children in the village all gather around to gawk at his big exposed belly and his fancy machinery (it looks like a scene out of a spielberg movie. While my dad sizes up the cocks, I sit by the beach where my parent's helpers are taking a smoke break. They tell me that this is what they do most every day: take of on a whim to go wherever whenever, spending money till there's none left. On the way home with the chickens cooped up in cardboard boxes my mother keep muttering "they're all gonna die, matay, matay" which is apparently what happened to the last fighting cocks he bought, all four dead before they even had a chance to spar.

On the way home to Solsona at dusk

Solsona

jgl 020,
originally uploaded by jgluz71.

This is dusk heading back into Solsona. Solsona is just due east of Laoag, the capital of Ilocos Norte province, Philippines. Solsona is where my dad was born and most of his family still resides, his brother in law, his youngest sister's husband the mayor of the town for the last decade I believe. To get to Solsona you follow the national highwway North of Manila, and when you detour to Solsona at San Nicholas you end up at the foot hills of the mountains, where the paved highway turns into dirt road. In these mountains are where the New People's Army use to camp out, now it seems they've headed south to join the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). I thought I could describe Solsona as Hobbiton, idylic, rustic, removed, provincial [the town is up for the National Greenest town award (Not sure if they award these to each class of municipality, but it's an auspicious designation regardless)], but I'd might as well build Nipa huts and paint watercolors of the men and women casting nets or doing some inexplicable thing with unrefined rice. Suffice to say it a small (municipality class 4 don\t know what this means), quiet, mostly agrarian, some of it very beautiful. Solsona is where both my parents have lived since 2004, their quality of life being much better here than what it would be in the States: oweing to all the relatives in close proximity, some just houses away, and the almighty dollar compared to the Philippine Piso.

Solsona

jgl 001,
originally uploaded by jgluz71.

This is my dad in the room where he and my mother now live in the ground floor of my Aunt's house, a former mayor and town doctor of Solsona, her husband the current mayor. The room they reside in was first built as a clinic for my Aunt's private practice, I remember being 12 and playing chess (was never very good at it) with my father's father (I beat him only once eventhough he was old and my faculties just bripening)in the waiting room. At some point the room was turned into a bar/recreation room, and now as my aunt says it's a home for the old. In the photo, the 2 women on the right are the sisters that take turns giving 24 hour care for my parents (The woman outside the sliding door, Gianing,is a big and powerful woman, she can carry my mother in and out of cars, several meters if my mother's too tired to walk and there's no wheelchair available, her elder sister, Vering (these are their nicknames not sure what the real names are possibly Valeria and Gianine) smokes huge handrolled cigaretted:tobacco rolled in tobacco): laundry, bathing, cooking, cleaning, foot massaging. I'm ashamed to tell you how much my father pays them--apparently the deal started as payment for just a daily bath, but the sisters felt sorry for my parents and stuck around at night. Don't know if they're earning a decent living working for my parents, there are probably other benefits I don't realize like my dad buys more food than he or my mother could possibly eat, so most likely their families benefit as well. I will send the helpers something nice from the states out of guilt and grattitude: maybe earings or a carton of menthols.

Solsona

jgl 002,
originally uploaded by jgluz71.

This is my mother in a good mood. When this photo was taken, my father and I just returned from the states. Upon first seeing my mother I was shocked to see how old she'd turned, but then later realized she hadn't really changed much in the years she's been here. I can never tell how she's really doing, because she always says she's dying, but then the next minute she's laughing because the help just made a joke at my father's expense (most likely something about a gun with no bullets). She had a stroke maybe 4 or 5 years ago now, the residual effects being coughing every time she drinks and eats as if she's choking and difficulty with names (this is not to say she doesn't recognize anyone, but sometimes she calls them by the wrong name, e.g., since her stroke she refers to me or my brother as Sammy, the name of her long dead younger borther, her only other sibling. If you ask her to correct herself, then with some effort she gives you the right name, but nights when she would wake me up to help her to get out of bed to be changed or to use the bathroom, she would be calling for Sammy.

Singapore Sling

Dear friends, I write you from the moneyed island of Singapore. I decided on Singapore as an initial destination over Bangkok, worried that a month and a half of living passively in the Philippines with my family had left my wits slightly addled and atrophied. So Singapore seemed like a good compromise (My aunt had been advising me to go to Singapore instead of Bangkok, because it's clean and they speak English there). I finally got off my ass and bought a ticket to get here by Chinese New year, the new moon on February 18, having found out that it's the Year of the Pig, which is my cycle, a very fitting time for generous upheavel and new experiences. I flew the day after Valentine's Day--and honestly it would have not been so bad staying with my family for 2 months like I originally claimed (What the hell are you going to do for 2 months!). As much as I complain about my parents (I'll be posting the entries on what all happened in the Philippines later), I realized how much I missed them as soon as I said goodbye and boarded that plain out of Laoag and had to wait around the Manila airport for 2 hours not a familiar face in sight--oh lonely lonely world.

So I arrived in Singapore at dusk, flying in you could see all the rectilinear developments, buildings like the ones that that German guy photograps can't remember his name--the mute hysteria of the Grid. The airport runway was immaculate, the medians manicured like bowling greens. All the signage in the airport effortlessly corraled me through customs, the money exchange, and directly to the metro. The ez link cards, you just tap on the turnstyle regardless of orientation. The trains are all virgin New York subways, scentless and spotless. If it weren't so clean I could have easily imagined I was on my way to some far stop in Queens, the riders being mostly Indian and Chinese. I climbed out of Bugis station where there were a lot of budget hotels and guest houses, it was already dark. I had planned to try the New 7th Story Hotel, but didn't realize I was on the wrong street having got out of the wrong exit and misoriented my idea of Singapore by 90 degrees. I was blocks away when I finally realized and consulted my guide book. I crossed the street to head back to the station, passed an indian man who muttered something to me about american dollar. I quickened my pace, determined to reorient myself. There were sidewalk tents set up for vendors, and I think it was one of the tethering wires that I tripped over. efore I knew what was happening, the extra 9 kilos on my back made me hit the pavement with a loud crack (I'm guessing since my cheekbone wasn't fractured, it was the sound of my teeth slamming closed, my swollen lip proof), landing on my right cheekbone and biting my upper lip. I quickly got up and looked to see that no one had noticed, that side of the street being mostly empty. I continued my way to the station and then things got kind of fuzzy. I remember feeling my lip and cheek swell, but I dabbed a napkin and there didn't seem to be too much blood. As far as I can tell I never blacked out or got nauseous, but the details are like trying to remember a dream. I vaguely remember passing restaurants and offices and getting paranoid that I fucked up my head and thought I'm going to turn into a street person, this is how it happens. At some point I was trying to remember things and couldn't remember if my parents were still alive, couldn't remember that I had just left them in the Philippines. One of my last thoughts, shit I think I'm in trouble. Somehow though I managed to find my way to the Raffles Hospital, a huge private hospital a block from Bugis station--I can't remember though how I managed to steer my way there, must have been on auto pilot. The person at the front desk immediately asked me if I needed a policeman (I thought is my face that battered) but I suddenly recalled falling and told him there was no crime. As I waited in the examination room for a doctor my head slowly rebooted and remembered that I had been in the Philippines since January. So they did a CT scan and found no hemmorhaging, no sign of a concussion, and the cuts on my face just superficial abrasions (looks like I tried to scratch my eye out with a small-tined fork. So my first night in Singapore was in a 4-bed room in the Raffles Hospital (a venerable private hospital, I assume linked to the four-star Raffles Hotel. Civic safety and orderliness being job one in this country and leave it to me to find a way to fall and break my face barely an hour into my stay. Oh well, the service and food at the hospital were excellent and prices are high this weekend in most place anyway because of Chinese New Year. As I write this I still have a slight headache--on the wrong side of my head--I'm still swollen and earlier this morning had trouble reading a map and calculating my hotel fee, I had trouble convincing myself that 8 x 7 is indeed 56. Anyway I want to take this episode as pre-disastering measures, leaving the rest of my journeys as safe and calm as lavendar, and not as some lunar new year portent of more headaches. I'm sure and the good doctors are sure that I'm okay, but you'll tell me, won't you if you discern any change in my personality.