Immersion

Over at Plurk there’s been an interesting discussion among my friends on this recently published piece by a Xavier High School student. In the essay, he talks about his experience immersing himself in the life of an SM grocery bagger. I thought I’d put in my two cents on the issue here.

First, let me get this out of the way: the immersion was a positive thing and a useful experience for those who took part in it. And, if you still don’t agree with that, at least accept that it was well intentioned.

The essay is littered with all sorts of descriptions of the life of a temporary SM bagger. The author talks about being scolded by customers, “slicing the chicken for hours and hours,” and learning about the lives of the baggers he and his friends worked with. It’s a very colorful account, and you can almost hear the wonder in his voice and see the shimmer in his eyes when you read his description of the four days he spent in SM Marikina. I guess that tone of seeming naiveté is what’s drawing most of the Internet mockery and disdain.

But for all its descriptions of the “what”s of the story—what he saw, what he felt, what the stories of his ate and kuya baggers were—very seldom did he ever ask why. The question is beginning to be asked in certain passages, such as this:

It wasn’t by choice that these employees were here at SM working as baggers, cashiers and merchandisers. It was out of necessity that they had to apply for these jobs.

But most of the article talked about “what it’s like to be on the other side of the fence” and about how the immersion taught the author to “appreciate [his] blessings,” rather than probe into the deeper narratives that run beneath all these observations.

There is nothing wrong about these musings, of course. These guys are certainly entitled, more so than anyone, to their own observations about their own experiences—observations that they make from their own standpoint and framework. The reflections we read in the essay aren’t naive at all. They are the perfectly valid and rational inferences reached by a young man from his experience. But immersions are supposed to be just that—opportunities for people to immerse themselves in unfamiliar circumstances. They aren’t supposed to be reduced to spectacle, to mere souvenir photographs, truisms, and reflection essays.  

This brings me to what I hope these Xavier High School students, who aren’t much younger than I, will realize when they look back on their experience years from now.

First, I hope they’ll understand more deeply the divide between them and the SM baggers. Even if they stood side by side at the SM checkout counter for one school week, their experiences are still starkly different. They chose to immerse themselves in the lives of grocery staff; the SM staff, as the author already pointed out in his essay, are there out of necessity. They cannot choose not to be there.

From that, I hope a second realization will follow: the divide between the Xavier seniors and the SM staff is not a divide at all. The things that will explain why they were born into wealth are also the same things that will explain why the SM baggers they chatted up had to move to Manila to take her chances. There is no fence whose “other side” they explored for four days. The Xavier kids and the SM baggers are all connected by the thread of history: the history that we share, that shapes us, and that we are poised to shape.

Thankfully for these Xavier seniors, they have full, privileged lives ahead during which there will be many opportunities to have all these realizations and more.

Les Miserables

Katz and I went to see Les Miserables, which everyone has been raving about. I'm not crazy about musicals, but that was some really moving stuff.

It was the first time we used SM Cinema's e-ticketing system. Fun! Also, Dear Popcorn, your days as the staple cinema food are over. Shakey's Mojos Supreme, that bucket full of potato slices, is much \ better.

A few things about Les Mis:

• Anne Hathaway did a terrific job. The hair on my arms stood on end when she sang "I Dreamed A Dream" for the first time. But it was disappointing how little screen time she got, especially after all that hype.
• Holy crap, Borat!
• She will always be Bellatrix LeStrange to me. It doesn't help that her hair doesn't vary very much from film to film.
• Every time Amanda Seyfried was in the shot, I half-expected her to go, "I was cheated by you, and I think you know when..."

Perhaps you've heard about the train wreck of an interview Ricky Lo conducted with Anne Hathaway. Lo was troubled, unprepared, and unprofessional. Thank goodness Anne had enough class to not go berserk on him.

Scars & Stories

I finally have a copy of Scars & Stories, The Fray's latest studio album. Before the purchase, I'd only listened to a few tracks on The Fray's website, and to "The Fighter"a couple of times on Katz's iPod.

I have The Fray's three studio albums in my library, all of which I bought in physical form. This is a distinction unique to The Fray among the artists in my collection. Fall Out Boy has a similar distinction: I bought both of the FOB albums in my library (Infinity on High and Folie à Deux) as well. The Fray, however, is my only complete and bought-on-CD collection. I swore to myself I wouldn't obtain Scars & Stories through any other means. Such is my devotion to them.

Speaking of The Fray, if you follow the band you might have heard that their Manila concert has been moved to November 10 from its original June 21 date. There has also been a change of venue, from SM's spanking new MOA Arena to the Araneta Coliseum. I hear they postponed it because the tickets haven't been selling very well.

On one hand, this doesn't reflect very well on the Philippines' taste in music. Lady Gaga's concert sold out two nights in a row but we can't give the boys from Denver a chance? (Alternatively, I could go the hipster way and say you guys don't know what you're missing out on.)

To be honest, though, I was kind of happy the concert got postponed. See, I only had enough money for two upper box tickets (for myself and Katz). Actually, I only had enough money for two General Admission tickets, but Katz asked me if I really wanted my first concert experience to be from the rafters, and very kindly agreed to chip in the balance so we could afford the upper box seats.

The postponement means we have a good few months more to save up for better seats, hopefully. The news about the weak ticket sales is also exciting, because it leaves the possibility of prices going down as the concert draws nearer!

A couple of years ago, I swore to myself that my first concert experience would be with either The Fray or Coldplay. Seems like my dream will finally come true in five months.

Intramuros

Classes were suspended on Wednesday in commemoration of the birth of Andres Bonifacio, leader of the (to some, unfinished) Philippine Revolution.

Where better to spend it than Intramuros (more popularly associated with the reformist Rizal), right? I'm such a historical dick.

The imposing clock tower of the Manila City Hall—and the ugly gray of SM Manila in the background.

Bunch of cannons.

Manong Guard getting his daily tabloid news fix. They still use the guard tower thingies as guardhouses.

Calesa convoy. If I remember correctly, a ride on one of these (including a guided tour) cost me and my family around P2,000 last year.

Just behind the outer walls, garbage.

Imagine the guardia civil and their lovers HHWW-ing along these walkways.

Fartsy strikes a pose. (That's the Lyceum of the Philippines University tower in the background.)

Those are dormitories! Right within Intramuros! How charming. "Parang wala sa Pilipinas," commented Katz.

Chilling.

If you look closely, you'll see that street signs in Intramuros were placed on the walls of buildings and not on freestanding posts.

Chinese-language newspapers still enjoy wide circulation in the Philippines. Even the owners of the big hardware stores in my hometown read them at their desks, next to their abacuses. Copies of the previous day's issue are used to wrap small purchases like nails and screws.

Not all of Intramuros is colonially quaint. Some alleys, such as this, are simply unremarkable.

And then there's the vulgar (or the stark raving mad, we can't be sure). "Putol ari ang sinomang umihi," announces the poster. That's Filipino for "Try to piss on this GI sheet wall and I'll hack your penis off." Right next to the sign is a poster announcing the activities for a Marian celebration of some sort.

"Sige pa, aso! Umihi ka pa!" If you aren't intimidated by threats of genital mutilation, then maybe name-calling will tame you.

I was surprised to find that there are neighborhoods like this one even within the walls of old Manila. I'll bet you none of the tours pass through this part of town.

Katz was aghast at the sight, which surprised me because she grew up in the Metro. "If the squatters leave then Intramuros will look really pretty," she quipped.

Yeah, but this way it stays faithful to the truth.

After quite some walking, we found ourselves on cobblestone streets instead of paved roads. How romantic.

Katz thought we should look for urban art.

Punks doing ollies and grinds in the soft light of dusk in what used to be the center of power of the colonized Islands. I hope the irony isn't lost on them, because it's really nice.

Ancient artifacts! One of the few remnants of the pre-bilog na hugis itlog (egg-shaped circle) era of Philippine history.

Me pointing out to Katz that over yonder is reclaimed land.

Katz got tired of walking. Actually she wasn't particularly excited about the idea of taking a walk in Intramuros for Bonifacio Day. ("Pupunta pa ba tayo? Tinatamad ako, hehe," said she when we met up at SM Manila). But I think she could tell that I really wanted to go, so she very politely agreed to stick to the original plan.

We'd been partly ambling around, partly trying to get to Fort Santiago with a little help from Google Maps. But when we got to the ballot boxes, we decided to go up the nearby wall and check out the view. A few minutes later I started back down the steps and asked her, "Aren't we going to see Fort Santiago?"

"Anong gagawin dun?" she asked, which was my cue to raise the white flag, so I said okay. We headed for the gate through which we had entered, on the side of the district facing the City Hall. The sun had begun to set by then.

Soon after we decided to head back it started to rain—a drizzle at first, then a quick but frantic downpour of enormous raindrops, until everything receded and a cool post-precipitation breeze swept in. Katz and I had to walk through puddles of water on cobblestone streets, amidst the voices of children and the chatter of people in a neighborhood just awoken from the hour of siesta, with light that was growing weaker and shadows that were growing longer.

It could have been any point in the history of the Walled City, and I would not have been any less happy.

Pedring damage

Kuya JC and I took a walk around the Academic Oval at around 1130pm Tuesday, just hours after the worst of Pedring. The campus is hella devastated, although thankfully not as much as Roxas Boulevard, the Mall of Asia and Sofitel.

Tons of fallen branches. I woke up Tuesday morning to see lashing winds outside my window; a text from the Chancellor had spread around saying that classes were suspended—until 1pm, which is really a WTF move, considering that, oh, I don't know, there's a nasty storm ripping apart roofs and uprooting trees outside.

Thankfully, an hour after that announcement was made, it was superseded by a whole-day suspension. The following day there wasn't any rain anymore, and classes were once again suspended until 1pm to give everyone time to recover before we went back to studying and fighting for greater state subsidy.

Trees in front of UP-Ayala Technohub, now growing sideways thanks to Pedring.

Professional training for our security forces

At Timezone in SM Mall of Asia. In fairness, may Powercard talaga si Mr. Security Guard.

Here's what I have to say about Harry Potter 7.2 in iMax.

• First iMax movie! Why didn't anyone warn me about the size of that screen? 
• When it was revealed that Voldemort does not use Head and Shoulders (SPOILER!!!), I started grabbing at his flakes on screen. Fun fun fun.

Try though I did, I couldn't help but not pay so much attention to Harry Potter 7.2's nuances. (In Film class we were taught to always look very closely at a film, examine every scene critically, look for things that may play a part in the diagesis.) It is, after all, a commercial film, for which reason I think it's safe to assume that it did not bother with deep meanings and focused on narrative instead. Besides, it's a movie based on a novel—David Yates could have only done so much.

I loved the Snape biography sequence! Last month I was a bit spoiled by the following post, which I saw posted quite a lot on Facebook:

The sad fact ladies, is that there is someone who loves you as much as Severus loved Lily. But just like Lily, you usually choose your James.

Oh, please. It sounds dramatic, I know, even tear-jerking. Whoever wrote this must have liked someone who didn't like him back. But really, who is anyone to say he's Snape and not James? What a selfish thing this is to say. #ThePoliticsOfHarryPotterRomance

Dinner was Burger King by the bay. Life's fantastic.