Quotes of the Day
I hang out with a small, tight-knit group of expat Filipino artists in New York City. We put together little fiestas for the soul at least once a month, at either someone's monastic studio or cozy, memento-filled apartment. We eat, drink, talk, laugh, smoke, gossip—or as a Manileño might put it, "make chismis"—and, well, we eat some more. Often, the menu consists of favorite Filipino dishes from our past lives. Oxtail, bitter melon, water spinach—our funky, Proustian madeleines—are easily found in the convenient, pan-Asian markets that seem to have sprouted up overnight all over Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan.
Our nostalgia fests sometimes include watching movies, like Mexican melodramas from the 1950s starring Maria Felix. Her glamorous, kitschy weepies remind us of Tagalog films from our parents' bygone era. In a more perverse mood, we might rent Apocalypse Now Redux. The sight of stately coconut trees ablaze with napalm, or Pagsanjan Falls as substitute setting for Marlon Brando's jungle hideaway, irks and fascinates us. Ifugao shamans playing Montagnards hack a real carabao to death in the Vietnam War film's gruesome climax. Maria Felix is not Filipino, but the extravagance of her emotions reminds us of our own drama-queen mothers. Mexico as the Philippines, the Philippines as Vietnam. It is all too funny and sad, but we can't stop watching. We call these gatherings "Filipino therapy." Without them, I would be less happy, less creative and more insane than I already am.
I left the Philippines in 1962, when I was 13 years old. My father had caused a scandal by falling for a young beauty queen. To punish him, my mother took her three children and sailed off to America. It was a bold, defiant move, which later cost her dearly. My older brothers and I had no choice in the matter, no time to prepare for being uprooted so harshly and abruptly. The break, the rupture, the collapse of my family came swiftly and without warning.
It was early evening when we finally boarded that ship and sailed away from Manila and everyone and everything we knew, cherished and loved. My father did not come to the pier to see us off. The night before, we—his stunned, stoic children—had each taken our turns saying goodbye to him in the hushed, air-conditioned privacy of our parents' bedroom. The writer in me wants to imagine that my mother was in some other part of the house, sulking. Or that maybe she was staying in another part of the city, playing hard to get. My father looked ashen and embarrassed, not sure of what to say to me. Sorry I screwed up, little girl? Hurry back, I know I'm going to miss you?
We stayed with an aunt in San Diego for a few weeks and ended up finally settling in San Francisco. The atmosphere in our dreary rental flat burned with silence, resentment and regret. Eventually, my brothers returned to the Philippines and moved back in with our father. My mother saw it as a betrayal of sorts and never quite forgave them. She refused to acknowledge the fact that America had been hard on my brothers—too vast and rude, too bewildering and anonymous. I stayed behind in San Francisco with my unhappy mother. She was the wronged woman, after all. And I, the loyal daughter.
Insistent, cajoling letters kept coming from my cousins and former classmates in Manila. Come back, naman! We all miss you. Don't you miss us? Other letters—more cautious and restrained—were sent by my father. How are you, dear? Hope you are doing well in school. I wrote back—cheerful, chatty letters that never let on how homesick and angry I was, or that my heart was broken.
My way out of loneliness and isolation was to read voraciously, to write poems and stories, to go to movies. Writing became a form of remembering, reading and movie watching a means of escape and understanding. Alone, I sat through pessimistic European "films" that were beyond my adolescent grasp but oddly comforting. The characters were for the most part smart, morose, cynical, looking for something. They carried secrets; they didn't talk much. How could I not see myself in them?
I dreamed incessantly of the house we left behind on Old Santa Mesa Street. It was a mother of a house, full of history. There was a Caltex station nearby, a Stop & Shop supermarket on the corner, little Santa Mesa Church down the street. It was a modest, no-frills church—not grand or imposing like some of the old stone cathedrals in Manila—but small, hot and welcoming. I loved the neighborhood where I grew up, with its dilapidated, rambling houses, shady trees and languid pace. To my child's eyes, our house always seemed bigger and gloomier than any other house in the area, the garden surrounding it a jungle of bougainvillea, santan flowers, fragrant frangipani, or kalachuchi, mango, guava, banana, sampaloc and ancient acacia trees. There were snakes and bullfrogs, bats and lizards. I felt the presence of ghosts and spirits everywhere; I was sure that the kapre, a mythic, cigar-toking giant said to live in the huge sampaloc tree outside my bedroom window, would always protect me. In those incessant dreams of mine, the house stood—a sinister yet inviting apparition—on a tiny, uninhabited island in the middle of a shimmering sea. I kept trying to swim to the island but never got there, no matter how hard or fast I swam. The house and the island kept vanishing into the distant horizon, reappearing again and again like some cruel optical illusion. I often woke from those dreams in tears, furious with myself for being weak.
In 1974 I finally went back to the Philippines and made peace with my father. I was 25, had moved out of my mother's flat and was on my own by then. I don't know why I waited so long to return. Perhaps I was even angrier than my mother and just couldn't bring myself to get on a plane. After my initial cathartic visit, I kept going back—once, twice a year. The Philippines wormed itself into the forefront of my consciousness. I surrendered to my new muse and couldn't write enough about it. This unsettling country was familiar, yet not. Street names had changed. My old school had been torn down and replaced by a four-star hotel. The hotel was torn down after another visit. Old Santa Mesa Street was no longer laid-back or peaceful but dusty, crowded, congested with traffic. There were lavish new megamalls. And more sprawling shantytowns and beggars than I had ever seen in my childhood.
Until the day she died in 1991, my mother spoke vividly of Manila, her absent family and friends as if they were all that mattered, as if we had left just yesterday. She kept in touch with everyone, kept up with the latest political events. The Philippines and its dramas were more real to her than America could ever be. America was nothing but a bus stop, where she waited for my father to come to his senses and apologize for hurting her. Then, and only then, would she return to her beloved country. But my father never did come to his senses, nor did he apologize. My mother, once a talented painter, became indifferent to the world and gave up her art. I moved to New York, started my own family, wrote my first novel. I visited her as often as I could, but the visits grew more difficult and exhausting as my mother grew bitter, withdrawn and frail. It was frightening how she always looked back, how consumed she was by the past and what was lost. I often think that my ambivalent love for the Philippines and the stories I keep writing are in some ways tied to her unrequited life.
Fast Forward to 2001. I'd completed in New York a draft of my novel Dream Jungle—inspired by an obituary and a photograph. A few years earlier, the New York Times had published an article on the death of Manuel ("Manda") Elizalde Jr., a colorful figure from my childhood. Few people may remember or care who Manda Elizalde was, but many remember the "Tasaday," a mysterious tribe he claimed to have discovered in 1971 in the Mindanao rain forest—shy, noble savages untouched and untainted by civilization. To this day, no one is sure if they were a hoax or a genuine band of long-lost primitives.
In the photograph, Elizalde—scruffy, handsome, 30-something—wears a rakish yachtsman's cap on his head and a pensive, wary expression on his bearded face. Half-naked Tasaday children huddle closely beside him. Perhaps they are afraid of the camera. The children are endearing, sweet and glorious in their innocence. One boy wears a grass skirt. The little boy—if one were to believe the legion of hoax theorists buzzing around the Tasaday—could very easily have been a girl who, upon Elizalde's orders, had her hair shorn off and meekly donned her primitive costume. The photograph is manipulative and powerful, straight out of some macho, imperialist fantasy. Graham Greene meets Joseph Conrad meets James Michener meets Rodgers and Hammerstein.
I kept reading and rereading the article, remembering with a rush how I had once attempted to interview Elizalde, back in 1974, my year of making peace with my father, the year of my first trip "home." The afternoon of our brief, surreal visit is permanently etched in my imagination. Elizalde was already the despised subject of nasty rumors and had become somewhat of a paranoid recluse on his estate. The only reason he had agreed to see me was because of family connections; I worried that he would cancel at the last minute. But at the appointed hour, his bodyguard-aide showed up and drove me for what seemed an eternity to Elizalde's mansion in a bleak, nouveau-riche Manila suburb called White Plains. I was ushered to a seat on the open-air terrace, where I waited and waited—the blazing tropical sun beating down on my bare head—for the mercurial Elizalde to make his appearance. I felt like I was being taught some sort of lesson. Finally, I spotted Elizalde walking slowly toward me, imperious and nonchalant. I remember that he wore a white shirt and white pants, that he was coiled tight and sweating profusely. Clearly, he didn't want to be there. But perhaps I have it all wrong. Perhaps he was walking briskly, neat and dapper as always, cool and charming and totally coherent. Elizalde sat down and stared off into the distance, restless and distracted. He responded to my rather timid questions about the alleged Tasaday "hoax" with terse one-liners, yet I pressed on in the naive, earnest way of a 25-year-old, trying not to be intimidated by this small, tense man. In the middle of one of our long, heavy silences, a shape suddenly materialized on the parched green lawn. He was a lithe young boy with skin the color of mahogany, clad in a loincloth. A red hibiscus was tucked in his thick, black lion's mane of hair. The boy loped past us—almost dancing—on that sun-baked terrace, ignoring our presence. He warbled in a high-pitched voice as if he were singing or calling out to someone. Then with one last amazing leap, the boy vanished into the big white mansion. Elizalde didn't react. I wonder now if he had staged the performance for my benefit, if he were somehow making fun of me. Did I hallucinate the wild child with the flower in his hair, the eerie song, the entire episode? Was he a Tasaday in captivity, flown all the way to Manila to be part of Elizalde's private and intensely personal world's fair?
I left that day without a story and never saw Manda Elizalde again. The Tasaday people disappeared back into the rain forest, along with the fickle public's curiosity about them. Elizalde's death brought it all back to me, opening up a Pandora's box of rich, intoxicating material. My brain roiled with questions, more complicated and unanswerable than the ones I had attempted to ask Elizalde so many years ago. Why was he drawn to that jungle in the first place? What had he really been searching for and why did I find it so compelling? Proving or disproving the Tasaday myth was not my main concern. Elizalde and his lost tribe of forest dwellers were merely catalysts for my explorations, in Dream Jungle, into the myths of history, cultural identity and the secrets buried within my own mongrel family. Filipino, Spanish, Irish-American, German, Chinese. The women were vain, restless, mixed-blood beauties. The men were also vain, brooding and arrogant, often on the run from someone or something. We were a fatalistic bunch, our own lost tribe, prone to fits of melancholy and wild exuberance. Right at home in the hybrid, fatalistic, anything-is-possible Philippines.
The ghosts were dancing in my head, clamoring to be heard, but something was lacking in my new book. A sense of place, perhaps. I needed to go back, to once again see, hear, smell and feel the Philippines up close for myself. I needed to go to Mindanao, to the southernmost tip of the archipelago, where I had never been. My visits were once happy and frequent. Even during the darkest days of the Marcos regime, being with family and seeing old friends energized and inspired me. But things were different now. "Home" had become fraught with anxiety and sorrow. Too many people in my family were dead—both sets of grandparents, several beloved aunts and uncles, my parents, and most recently, my middle brother. Other family members had been driven out by the wretched economy and the volatile political situation. There were still cousins, a few young nieces and nephews left, but I was a stranger to them. Manila, lush tropical oasis of my childhood, was no longer lush or so welcoming. It was a burial ground.
Being in Manila is like being on a constant coke high or in the grip of a fever. You find yourself exhausted yet stimulated, eager for the next shocking encounter. Street kids run in packs, sniff glue openly, beg for change. A homeless family takes a siesta in the hollow of a giant banyan tree. Broken strips of pavement with weeds sprouting through the cracks run alongside streets—sidewalks are still a rarity. So many people coming and going—you can't afford to lollygag or daydream. There are sudden jolts of beauty amid all this dizzying chaos. A lone girl, possibly insane and quite beautiful (with that gone look in her eyes), walks blithely into traffic. She is barefoot, dressed in a grubby oversized T shirt. She rubs her tummy, blissful. Crazy girl. Loca-loca. I stay rooted to my sliver of concrete, transfixed by the sight of her. Crazy girl sucks on Milo, one of those sugary snack drinks that come in foil with a little straw. The foil is flat. Crazy Girl has sucked it dry, but she's oblivious, sucking on air with a smile on her pretty face. How old is she? 10? 16? 29? As jeepneys, buses and cars careen and swerve around her, Crazy Girl floats high above the traffic and disappears, indifferent and serene.
Random Signs:
What We Love About ManilaBarbershop: EDGAR SCISSORHANDS.
Tailor's shop: ELIZABETH TAILORING.
Seafood stand: FISH BE WITH YOU.
Fast-food joint: NACHO FAST.
Dance club: CHIX O'CLOCK.
Florist shop: PETAL ATTRACTION.
Aristocrat Restaurant: YOU ARE WELCOME. YOUR GUN IS NOT.
After a couple of days spent decompressing, I head down to Cotabato del Sur, Mindanao, with writer Zack Linmark and actress Ching Valdes-Aran, good friends and fellow U.S. expats who happen to be in Manila to visit family. None of us have been so far south. The airplane trip is mercifully short and uneventful. I stare out the cabin window at the white nothing of vaporous clouds, wondering if I have made some huge mistake. Sure, I've done the logical things: hired a combination interpreter-guide, rented a jeepney, brought the expected gear—camera, tape recorder, waterproof hiking boots. But nothing's been actually planned. Are we really going to attempt to hike up into those dense, jungly, leech-infested mountains inhabited by the Tasaday and find ... what, exactly?
Neal Oshima, a photographer and friend from the States who has lived in Manila since the 1970s, has arranged for Maria Todi Wanan, a Tboli dancer, interpreter and cultural activist, to act as our fixer and guide. The locals stare as we get into the big, bright red jeepney that I have rented. The roads up the mountains are precarious, rutted, winding—sometimes not roads at all. It gets wilder and more beautiful as the jeepney climbs higher into the mountains. People clamber on board. It's as if they knew we were coming and have been patiently waiting. There's a very old, bent woman chewing betel and a family with young children. The dust kicks up, blowing into our eyes and mouths. We do as the locals do—quickly covering our heads with scarves and pieces of cloth. Zack grins at me. This is the other Philippines. Untainted. Non-English speaking. The real Philippines. Which is a nostalgic cliché, romantic bullshit, I know—yet I surrender to its spell. I am suddenly deeply moved and deeply happy. It is late afternoon by the time we reach the Punta Isla resort, a picturesque enclave of rustic cottages overlooking the even more picturesque Lake Sebu. The resort has seen better days. We are its only customers. Maria tells us that very early the next morning we are going to a mountain village called Luhib for "market day." "Everyone will be there," Maria says. "They come down from the mountains. Maybe you'll find what you need to find." And I do.
In Dream Jungle, I describe the moment of encounter between Zamora, my arrogant, conquistador-like protagonist and an invented tribe I call the Himal. "How to explain that moment when Zamora Lopez de Legazpi first laid eyes on them? Zamora's gaze was steadfast and shameless. O they were beautiful, powerful, strange! Their fierce, wary eyes scrutinized him in return ..." The character feels as if he has walked into a dream—maybe even someone else's. I feel the same way.
Belayem, who was part of the original Tasaday "discovered" by Elizalde, is soft spoken and generous with me. With patience and grace, he answers the same old tired questions that he's been asked since he walked out of that rain forest 30 years ago. Dafal, not a Tasaday but the man who first brought the tribe to Elizalde's attention, is sickly, toothless and must be near 90; he is much fiercer and outspoken than the gentle Belayem. "Everything is real," Dafal insists in his thin, creaky voice. Everything is true. I took Manda Elizalde into that forest. I do not lie! Are my ghosts appeased? Hardly. But that isn't really the point. It is enough that I have ventured into the unknown, experienced my simple yet intense encounter in the market, worlds away from the chaos, distractions and noise of Manila and New York.
I return to Manila in an odd state of elation. it's time to visit the old house. Zack, Ching and I take a taxi to Old Santa Mesa. The once wide, spacious street is teeming—not one inch free of bodies, dogs, jeepneys, buses, cars, trucks, taxis. My God, there's the Caltex station. And the church—still a modest, unassuming place of worship but newly painted. "There it is!" I point excitedly, 4461 Old Santa Mesa Street. A high wall surrounds it now—you can't see in. A security guard mans the gate. "Let's go in," my friends urge me. I hesitate, scared by what we might find. Zack tells the security guard that I've come all the way from the States just to see the house where I grew up. The guard looks unimpressed but shrugs and waves us in. Our taxi driver is a wizened old man, amused and entertained by my drama. He puffs on a cigarette and keeps the engine running as I warily step out and look around. Of course, nothing is as I remember it. The original house has been torn down and replaced by some sort of Lutheran school or institution. The fragrant kalachuchi tree is the only thing I recognize, gnarled and, to my astonishment, still flowering. Maybe it isn't even the same tree. The overgrown jungle that had once been my garden has been razed and flattened. There's an ugly patch of concrete where the grass used to grow—some kind of basketball court? I'm not sure. People inside the bungalow-type buildings that are now on the property—classrooms, perhaps—glance out the windows and smile at me. I smile back, exhausted by everything, eager to get back to New York and finish my novel.
Paloma, the elder of my two daughters, one day took note of the colorful and cluttered interior of our Manhattan apartment and wisely observed, "Ma, we live in a crazy people's museum." The walls are busy, hung with my mother's paintings, my collection of Madonnas, santos and crucifixes. The shelves are cluttered with books, photos and mementos from my childhood and travels in the Philippines. Everywhere she turned, Paloma was confronted by altars for the dead, by images of family buried in a distant land called the Philippines.
In one of the many photographs I found in my mother's trunk after she died, my youthful mother smiles gaily at the camera. She holds a cigarette in one hand, looking very much the wannabe movie star in her slinky, beaded evening gown. It is a hand-tinted photograph from a more carefree time in postwar Manila; my mother looks confident and beautiful. In another photograph I cherish, my father gazes at the camera with a bemused expression. My head rests on his shoulder, and my eyes are closed. I have had too much to drink, and I am pretending to be asleep. It is my despedida party—Paloma and I are flying back to New York in the morning. She is four years old at the time and hangs on to my arm with a mischievous smirk. I look happy in the photograph. We all do. Happy, yet we are actually a little sad. My father appears fit but is slowly dying of cancer. It is 1988—the last time I will see him alive. He dies in Manila two years later. By then, I am pregnant with Esther, my other daughter, and unable to travel. I was not there, either, when my mother died, alone in a hospital in San Francisco. Nor was I there when my middle brother died, from complications brought on by a stroke, on his way to a provincial hospital on the outskirts of Manila.
During Filipino therapy, it often boils down to a language game. My expat friends and I shout out words and phrases in Tagalog, Ilocano, Visayan or whatever other regional dialect we might have grown up speaking. We curse. To speak the language with such loud abandon is a joyful exercise in remembering. We laugh at the absurdity of sitting around in some Manhattan apartment shouting "Walanghiya!" or "Kaliwa, kanan!" for no reason at all. "No shame." "Left, right." We feel no shame. The words may sound like playful nonsense to most people but are bittersweet music to our ears.
I still dream about the old house from time to time, but it is no longer a solitary house on a desolate island. I find myself—present-day Jessica—wandering inside the house and marveling that the rooms are no longer the haunted rooms of my childhood but something more mundane and ordinary. The narrow, claustrophobic kitchen in my New York apartment, or maybe the post office I'd visited earlier that day. But some ghosts will never be laid to rest, and my memory is still jogged by the most unexpected things. The perfume of rotting flowers. The taste of salt. Plaintive Cuban love songs, wistful cha-chas, silvery kundimans played on a guitar. It never fails. That ruin of a house once again looms large before me. The ghosts stir. I begin to write.
- Jessica Hagedorn
- Spirits from a childhood in Manila still haunt Jessica Hagedorn. They also inspire her