When Turtles Come Home Read online

  There was a time, I would say, when life was simpler, or at least my understanding of the world and the choices I could make were clearer. It is the colour, the taste, and the smell of this world that I want to pass on and especially the thoughts that germinated within this old worldview. At the same time, I want to situate these experiences in concepts I have only more recently heard or read about in order to create contextual references.

  Why write now and not earlier? I have always loved the melody of words and the cadence of language. Even though I didn’t understand much of poetry, once a piece was explained to me, I would jot down and memorise quotable extracts from it. I’m sure a large part of this love was the influence of a couple of excellent English teachers. “This above all, to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the day the night, thou canst not then be false to any man,” intoned my teacher quoting William Shakespeare. I would repeat this to myself whenever I was tempted to sacrifice what I thought was my basic sense of integrity. I memorised this when I was around ten, and although I wasn’t very sure what it meant at that time, it sounded most mellifluous.

  When I was about thirteen years old, I confided to my father that I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be another Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin and supposedly awakened her fellow Americans to the evils of slavery. I told him that I had written a short story, which had won a prize in our school contest. I now wanted to write about the “exploitation” of the sacadas or migratory workers in the sugar plantations of Negros—I had heard a number of stories about them and how they were being maltreated. But I had confused the sacadas coming from the adjacent island of Panay to work in southern Negros during the planting and harvesting seasons, with the more permanent tenant-labourers who worked for my family and for other hacienderos living in the northern part of the province. My more practical father said I was too inexperienced to write about such serious matters. Why didn’t I concentrate on my homework so I could grow up able to support myself, to be self-reliant? (Going counter-culture, my father was big on self-reliance.) I’m afraid that signaled the end of my dreams of being the first Filipino to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Instead, I obediently followed my father’s advice and concentrated on earning a living so that, indeed, I could be financially independent. This is one decision I have never regretted.

  However, now that I am truly retired and have enough cash stashed under my bed, I am at last writing my long-planned book. Instead of a craft developed over the years, however, I can now only write from my gut. Instead of erudition and expertise, I have only snippets of knowledge picked up here and there—like those accumulated by many an introspective dilettante.

  Thus, more than facts accurately reported, I hope my stories will always reflect the truth—at least as seen through my eyes. Some of the people I write about are long gone, others are still leading active lives. Some facts may not be accurately reported. If so, I stand corrected. In other words, I hope that this book will elucidate some ultimate truth rather than merely factual information, in much the same way that one distinctly remembers the essential truth in events long past, however much the details may change with each recall.

  In Remembrance of Things Past, the much-admired French novelist Marcel Proust writes about how he relished madeleines. I had read somewhere that Proust couldn’t have been inspired by a real madeleine because real madeleines don’t disintegrate when dipped in tea the way they do in Proust’s novel. Like Proust, I too am not necessarily as concerned with factual details as I am with more general truths. Proust’s assertion regarding involuntary memory is certainly true, however. A simple taste or a smell can conjure up half-forgotten images, and transport one back to days long gone.

  The truths I want to write about are how my personal experiences and my responses to them have shaped my current values and attitudes. The book is divided into three parts for a total of seven chapters. Part One shares with the reader stories of my childhood—of my town, family, friends (or lack-of), and of the broadening experiences of travel, expatriation and repatriation, including values I had imbibed whilst living in individualistic Western cultures. They provide background information to the chapters that follow. Part Two is expository, explaining the highly collectivistic culture of the Philippines—the environment in which I must operate. Part Three expounds on my responses as a staunch individualist in an extremely collectivistic environment, and the consequent evolution of my sense of identity as a Filipino, a woman, and a Catholic. The concluding chapter is the most prescriptive. Informed by my studies, as well as the wisdom I have learned through the years, it discusses the broader question that concerns not only myself but us all. Given who and what we are, how do we live a good life? I end the book with a summary of current world affairs and asking where, collectively, we might be going.

  In Chapter 1, The Child is Father of the Man, I explore my family background: my parents, siblings, grandparents, and the comings and goings of a multitude of cousins and aunts and uncles living together in chaotic harmony—or not—under one roof. My large, extended family were socially and politically prominent members of our small community. Nonetheless, feeling burdened by this ceaseless cacophony, I dreamt of escaping its confines. This collectivistic upbringing and my reactions to it have coloured the rest of my life. We are all products of our genes and their archetypal imprints, but as I am very different from my brothers and sisters, I have concluded that the influences of these genes are mediated not only by our experiences, but also by our individual responses to these experiences—indeed by the very choices that we make. My siblings and I were exposed to similar childhood experiences. However, whilst they generally accepted collectivistic traditions, I rebelled. Who is to say which answer was right, but I know that as a result of these responses, my siblings and I now lead completely different lives.

  Chapter 2, Fly Away Home, expands on my years of discontent and wanderings: an odyssey of some thirty odd years—to America, back to the Philippines, then onwards to Germany, the UK, and repeated visits to Canada with the intention of retiring there, before finally deciding to permanently settle back in the Philippines. The hunger for a “home” and the feeling that elsewhere might be better than where I was, turned me in later years into an accidental amphibian—one who could live on land and in the sea, but nowhere completely comfortably.

  Chapter 3, entitled Power & Patronage, delineates what I think are the Filipino modal personality traits.2 Even as I use the word “modal”, no actual scientific analysis has been done. As such, my descriptions are necessarily stereotypical. Stereotypes are often frowned upon, but they provide us with an important mechanism by which we can make sense out of complex impressions. This shorthand, however, does not only contain inaccuracies but also carries an important caveat, and that is, not to judge individual members of a group based on stereotypical notions of group characteristics. We are all unique in our individuality.

  Moreover, by Filipino “modal personality” I do not mean to describe characteristics particular only to Filipinos, for other populations may exhibit the same traits to a lesser or greater degree. Thus, when I talk of corruption in the Philippines, I don’t mean all Philippine bureaucracies are corrupt, or that corruption exists only in the Philippines.

  Needless to say, there are numerous traits common among Filipinos which I exclude in my discussions e.g., time orientation, pragmatism, and amor propio (a form of personal pride which discourages them from asking questions). Instead, I limit myself to one generic value orientation—Philippine collectivism—and expound on how it gives rise to attendant behavioural patterns prevalent among Filipinos, such as the nature of power in their hierarchical society, the relationships between the powerful and the powerless, and their perceptions of their expectations from, and obligations towards, each other.

  Chapter 4, Philippine Business & Politics, discusses the practical applications of the notion of collectivism in two areas of a
ctivity paramount in the Filipino psyche—business and politics. The chapter includes issues on difficulties of installing bureaucratic procedures necessary in the expansion of family firms, family squabbles over inheritance (especially among the asset-rich) and, finally, the issue of corruption.

  In the remaining chapters, I write about the major concerns that I have grappled with for the longest time. Underscored by the dissonance between my temperament and values on the one hand, and the norms of Philippine society on the other, I have evolved a new personal integration influenced by my years of wandering—a personal philosophy, so to speak, which I have developed in order to resolve this dilemma.

  Chapter 5, Who Am I? raises the question of whether or not I am truly a Filipino. What makes a Filipino? The place of your ancestors where you were born and raised? A sense of identification with your kababayans or fellow countrymen because of shared heritage and traditions? A developed love of your country above all others—nationalism—that 19th century invention that to my mind caused much of the world’s problems then and continues to do so now?

  Because of my own unique circumstances, and even though I was brought up with the same heritage and traditions shared by most Filipinos, I didn’t acquire the same values and attitudes. Thus, nationality is simply not an important part of my sense of identity. Instead, I pick and choose. I admire the Filipino sense of humour, the English sense of fairness, the German love for order, and the American can-do spirit. Perhaps I really am like a turtle: I carry my home on my back. I identify with one cultural element here, another cultural element there, with a kind of eclecticism unbounded by the limits of geography. I wonder how many other people are turtles like me.

  Finally, I talk about my identity as a woman, confessing that my gender identity was late in coming, along with the awareness of the limited opportunities that society has imposed on me as a woman. In spite of the “Me Too” movement, true gender equality will probably be an evolutionary process, but I also recognise the great strides made by women in my lifetime.

  Chapter 6: Where is Heaven? details my spiritual journey from innocence to a life full of questioning, and my subsequent efforts to regain this lost innocence. However, it was not until I decided that there was nothing wrong with questioning, nor even with rejecting some of the Catholic Church’s teachings, that I found some answers to my spiritual quest. It is this journey—this process of searching for spiritual rootedness—which I want to share with those who may have similar difficulties.

  In Chapter 7, Happiness Is Not Just a Feeling, I posit that happiness is more than simply a transitory feeling of elation. It is an underlying and enduring state of mind and thus beyond sensory experiences. I borrow from the writings of the “positive psychologists” including the books of Martin Seligman. I point to the teachings of the Dalai Lama, aimed at losing one’s ego. And I refer to the teachings of various Christian religions on how to lead a good life.

  I have just come back from a long trek to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain where I bought a fridge magnet. It roughly translates as, “The Goal is in the Process”. With a walking stick, a pair of thick socks in comfortable walking shoes, and a knapsack with a shell indicating that I was a pilgrim, I first bussed, then walked some 175 kilometres from the border of France to land’s end in northwestern Spain. Sometimes, I was with other pilgrims, other times I was alone. My walking stick would make a sound on the path with each step I made, and it was this sense of rhythm with my stick’s thump, thump, which made me relatively oblivious to the distance that I had trudged. In the cool air of September and the silence of the forests, I had a taste of what peace must be like. Could this perhaps be happiness, that happiness is peace, not only peace felt by the senses, but the peace of the spirit? I felt, then, listening to the tweets of the birds, that true happiness is not ecstasy, nor even joy, but peace.

  Part One

  Personal Setting

  One

  The Child Is

  Father Of The Man

  … So was it when my life began;

  So is it now I am a man;

  So be it when I shall grow old,

  Or let me die!

  The Child is father of the Man …

  William Wordsworth

  In the twilight of the years, I think back with fondness about my earliest memories, as though the events I recall happened only yesterday. It’s surprising how time now seems compressed and how I can more sharply draw the shape and contours my life has taken. I remember clearly my town, family, school, and the snippets of stories that went with them.

  Victorias, Negros Occidental Province

  I was born and grew up in a provincial town called Victorias in central Philippines, a settlement that first started in the 1850s as a small community attached to the adjacent town called Sarabia. Then, with the expansion of the sugar industry in Negros, its flat topography and fertile soil brought heavy migrations from around the province and beyond, so that Victorias came into its own towards the end of the 19th century. Currently, it has a population of about 90,000, spread over a total land area of some 134 square kilometres. Still mostly planted with sugarcane, it has more than 150 individual haciendas or sugar plantations.

  Even as Victorias expanded, becoming a minor city in 2001, its design has not changed much. Like most Philippine towns, it is built around a plaza complex. The church called Our Lady of Victory is found next to the square, where are also located the municipal hall, the public market, the publicly-funded primary school, and the health care centre. This plaza complex follows the pattern of town planning brought in by the Spaniards when they first settled in the country, based on the series of ordinances issued by King Philip II in 1573 for use in all Spanish colonial settlements. When the Americans came at the end of the 19th century, they simply built around this concept. The town square would later achieve some fame when it was voted the most beautiful plaza in the whole province of Negros Occidental. Aside from the main buildings, it has a beautiful garden displaying the busts of a couple of its prominent citizens.

  It is said that, when still only a hamlet by the banks of Malogo River, the town was intermittently attacked by the Moros —Muslims coming from the southern island of Mindanao where most of them resided. They were said to have made their living through piracy, and to have spread terror amongst the defenceless inhabitants of small settlements such as ours. On the day of one particularly fierce attack and as everyone ran for their lives, lo and behold, there came a beautiful lady to their rescue. She was resplendent in her long flowing white gown and, treading on water with a machete in hand, she slew every Moro in the raiding party. The townspeople were so grateful that they named the town after her, Our Lady of Victory, “Victorias” for short.3

  The site of this miracle off the banks of the Malogo River is now called Daan Banwa or Old Town. The last time I visited Victorias, Daan Banwa consisted of small, tightly packed thatch-roofed houses. When you passed its narrow streets, you would see its residents, especially small children, running around. As the river would flood from time to time during the rainy season, I heard tales about how some people would get swept up by flood waters and carried away by the swollen river. This happened to a trusted employee of my parents.

  The locals would blame the increasing severity of the floods on illegal loggers who had denuded the hillside forests. Yet, ever fatalistic in a place where land is scarce, they simply resettled on the banks of the river as the floodwaters subsided. Bahala na, come what may.

  The house where I grew up was not too far from Daan Banwa, at just about the place where the main street, Real Street, started. Connected to the house was my mother’s movie theatre. In fact, my parents’ bedroom could be accessed through a small side door, which opened to a place near the projector room at the back of the theatre. This was where my mother obtained her spending money—ready cash she could use as she wished. The cinema screened mainly old, double-fe
ature American films that I watched after school and all day during weekends. We children were allowed to go there in our pyjamas, eventually to be cajoled into bed by our yaya, the housemaid who took care of us. That was how I first learned to speak English—American English, that is—and to speak it with an American accent. I would dress up in my mother’s high-heeled shoes, wear her “fancy” clothes, and, facing the mirror, would imitate the actors’ looks, gestures, voices, and accents.

  Another cinema, this one owned by my aunt, was on the other side of the street. It showed Tagalog films. I would cross over and watch some of the films there as well, but by the time I was in my teens, they no longer interested me. I preferred Hollywood, so I remained at my mother’s movie theatre.

  On one side of our house was a hairdresser, right beside it was a mortician, and after that a photographer’s studio. I used to be sent to the studio to have a photo taken whenever there was some formal occasion. The background was a blown-up shot of a Western-style gazebo beside a romantic wooded garden, much as one would see in films. Following the photographer’s instructions, I would pose, seated or standing, and it would look as though I were in this beautiful moonlit setting.

  I had long straight black hair, although my mother claimed I had a bit of an espunghawo (naturally wavy hair), which was considered especially desirable. However, it was not wavy enough to avoid getting permanents every so often. My hair would get wound up in curlers with cords attached to an outsized helmet, which in turn had a thick, black wire plugged into an electric socket. I used to think Tuding, the beautician, literally cooked my hair. It was hot and uncomfortable and I hated it, but I supposed that was the price for beauty. More pleasurable was going to Tuding’s when we had an event in the Plaza, perhaps a dance number during the town fiesta. Like most children, I loved getting made up, and especially wearing lipstick—some of the rare occasions when I could look like a doll with red cheeks and red lips. Then, to make sure my hairstyle stayed in place, Tuding would put a hairnet on it, or create little waves by applying clips and pins until it stayed put. But I had a thick, coarse mane, so it was always a struggle, and Tuding would complain that my hair was fighting back, presumably because I had some espunghawo.