Failed Optimist's World Weariness

failedoptimist — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 12:07:36 GMT

I decided to post a dream again, though one significantly less clearly bad.
I have attempted to capture something of the goofy action movie vibe it felt. I suspect that I would be played by will farrell or kevin james in the movie version, though in my dream i was thankfully played by myself. It would be sad to have a celebrity stand-in in your dreams.

If it makes no sense I blame it on lack of sleep rather than admitting my poor writing skills.

In my dream, last night, I was at some sort of conference or reunion with informal surroundings. I know it was a mix of people I know in the waking world and people I don’t. Though in the dream we’re included from real people and some simply figments, I believe we are all scientists in the dream. In early parts I moderate between a conflict that others have, it has a sort of gangster movie feel though the conflict is apparently more personal reckoning than actually criminal caper. There is a moment when I sit at a picnic table and am arguing for resolution and I’m fingering the handle of a revolver in my pocket, ready to bring the violence if the folks at the table go back to being all Hatfield and McCoy.

I remember that at some point I find out from one of the people, that they have access to a bomb and I can’t remember how but I remove a credit card sized list of launch codes from their possession and stick it in my pocket.

Then there was some wandering around, but in whatever sense that the dream had been about that conflict, it changes, feud resolved or reduced to background, unclear.

Then, in the sort of logic that irritates me about dreams. I took a nap.

Upon waking from the nap, I somehow learned that they, black clad enforcers and the powers that be, were searching everywhere for the card key with the launch codes, and the bombs were actually nuclear. This I remember thinking is not what I signed up for when I agreed to moderate a conflict between shotgun wielding scientists. So again in perfect dream logic instead of turning in the key to the sexy investigator lady who looks both alike and nothing like the actress from tv’s judging amy, I stick it even farther into the magical pockets that hide the pistol even when I am being searched by the trained eyes of the fascist-o-henchmen that the investigator has. Though I remember that I was aware of awkwardness, in standard movie comedy trope, she was not and I was passed by. I had a long discussion with the scientists from whom I had gotten the card, who were glad they didn’t have it, as the ramifications for possession or former possession (which they had already denied) was some get your ass dragged to the dark street where the disappeared end up in either Guantanamo bay prison or the famously dingy public bathroom style of ass-rape prison that appears in fictional accounts.

Now, with a massive police action complete with black helicopters all around me I slickly avoid standing in the line of people waiting to be searched and interviewed. How many folk were in the line I could see out the window? Well, far too many people, the line stretched out the door and across that huge picnic field the size of NYC Sheep’s meadow and for the number at the event to begin with, perhaps one hundred at most, this is ridiculous. But because perspective and ratio aren’t the strengths of dream we can ignore the line, which snaked past the window of the house that wasn’t really there until I was in it, sitting at the investigators desk. Yes, the little modernist/contemporary house in a field was apparently where the neo-american Gestapo like to have their office in my dream.

So here I am watching the line snake into another office, past where I sit, and I have one or two friends for company, though they were scientists, and not specifically people I know in real life, and I know that they will catch me, so I am practicing my arguments.

I took the card from someone, and would have turned it in but I was napping. Sounds lame.

I am a patriot and I took the card to protect it from misuse. Sounds extremist.

I didn’t know you were looking for this, until people were already lined up, and I got in line, and have been waiting to turn it in on my turn in line, it is coincidental that I am last. Damn, sounds too hapless.

And so on.

So here I am sitting nervous as nelly (who has to have been nervous because we now call people nervous nellys if they are often cautious or nervous). When- I realize that if I simply lose the card I’m in the clear. That is until, as hated as in real life, I have a moment of conscience. The throwing the thing away means someone else could find the nuclear bomb codes, also what if someone has a legitimate need for them and I’ve lost them. Now I don’t know how likely it is that anyone has “legitimate” need of a nuclear bomb code, but it made sense in the dream. So now I have to figure out how to get rid of the card without throwing it away, and decide it would be best to put it somewhere the sexy investigator will find it. shoving into a pocket of a trooper seems possible but I have doubts about my sleight of hand skills, and pick pocket rolls are historically not my forte.

So I decide shoving it between the bottom of her desk drawer and the desk itself would work perfectly. According to my plan, when she is next using her drawer the card gets pushed out when she opens that drawerand she finds it on the floor, long after we are gone, that makes sense right?

So there I am sitting at this desk attempting to use a slightly sweaty teeshirt I am still wearing to scrub fingerprints and dna off the card, but without a rag or gloves it is somewhat difficult, and occasionally someone comes through the room and I have to hide the card, thus getting it contaminated again. I finally get it scrubbed as clean as the tee shirt will allow, and slip it into the space between drawer and desk…. Only to have the investigator come into the room as if she might get something from the desk.

Now, here after all that slap stick comedy is what annoys me about the dream. After a few words it was clear the need to get into the desk was a transparent ruse, and I was just realizing that the investigator might have been coming into the office because she liked me, and I woke up.

So, I wake up slightly hungover. And I am eyes closed, curled up wondering why I was dreaming about holding nuclear launch codes and thinking romantically about a quasi-fascist enforcer of the neo-conservative order….

So I go to use the bathroom, and realize that 7:00 is actually 6:00 thanks to the clocks rolling into - screw your sleep schedule even more mode. So even ignoring the fact I went to sleep at close to 2:00, I would be waking up too damn early.

I lay there in bed thinking, fuck you subconscious, fine- you wanted to wake me up too early,
ok. But, couldn’t you have given me the sweet sweet resolution???

I mean I’d have settled for her catching me as a traitor, we didn’t have to make out. But no, you screwball subconscious you have to mess with me and wake me moments before clarification.

failedoptimist — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 05:13:02 GMT

Regarding Saint Valentine

Why is this day different from all other days, well not because on this day we remember the plight of our ancestors… or anything important, but because I fucking hate it. I suppose there are reasons, intellectual objections (Socio-historically) and subjectively…. why I hate Valentine’s Day?

It is both a mockery of more serious religious observances, and an example of the manipulative use of religion for non-spiritual purposes… as St. Valentine’s day wasn’t ever important, and hasn’t been a real religious holiday since it was removed from the calendar of saints in 1969, and more than any healthy cultural celebration of romance, it is basically the result of consumerist triumph over common sense - primarily existing because it was promoted in an effort to sell people products. The holiday makes people feel pressure to conform to relationship expectations; it systematically excludes images of romance outside a normatively heterosexually monogamous dyad. I find it to be a day that is designed to instigate brutal self evaluation of my romantic/relationship status… and it does so to sell me things. I am not at all unusual in that it forces self assessment in a depressive way. For several reasons it becomes a moment in which one is forced by the repetition of expectations that anyone will be in a relationship, to ask why (as a single person) I am not in one. Every year, I take a moment to run through the memories of failed days past; I am therefore going against my earlier comment about remembering, in fact for most of those who hate the day, part of what we hate is remembering. The comparing to past days that were good, the thread of continuity it provides to ongoing singleton status, to isolation or failed romances past.

I remember this one time in high school I was getting all ready to ask a girl out before the V day, and I actually managed to ask, to sort of stammer out a request to hang out, and this girl was already going out with my friend.

I think three of the four things that approximate relationships of my life were in the spring, so I managed to avoid having to deal with those V days. The fourth, while still complicated had gone back to ‘friendship’ mode by valentines, so I got to more or less hear about her plans with someone else.

Then there was the january when I was visiting Hampshire, and started fooling around with someone, off and on, and didn’t realize it was a throw away playing around for her, I of course didn’t realize the discrepant expectations until I showed up to give her flowers, and chocolates, and I think I was enough of an asshole to have a small toy as a gift also, and she didn’t look happy, to which was added a few hours later her getting it on with her actual fella’. Somewhere I have a note she left me saying more or less she didn’t blame me for being silly. I tried, but we literally never spoke again after that.

So yay for this date, the anniversary set aside to remember the deaths of several martyrs named valentine, in that most original sense of the holiday I am doing it right to suffer-because at the heart of martyrdom is the willingness to suffer on behalf of that which is more important than the self.

I may hate Valentine’s day, but I’d like to wish everyone else a great one, may the romance be genuine for you, and if this day does find you alone know that you aren’t the only one.

failedoptimist — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 21:37:55 GMT

Greetings to you livejournal, sorry I haven't been around in a long time. I just noticed that I missed you and wanted to check in on how you are doing. I'm glad you are still here.

I would promise to be back often but you know how I hate to lie to websites. Since the only thing going on in my head lately is dissertation stuff that I don't want to write any more about that than I already do I'm not likely to update often. sorry.

I do hope the other people out there are doing well.
G

failedoptimist — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:35:06 GMT

I just woke up in San Francisco, and while Jet lag means I have suddenly lost my late night party schedule, I am glad to be this step closer to home. Who's up for hanging out in the Bay area?

failedoptimist — Mon, 24 May 2010 07:23:46 GMT

Question, perhaps rhetorical, having heard someone discussing it recently I'm revisiting the definitions of Ex-pat - Traveler - Tourist and wondering about it. So what do you think the differrences are, what are the definitions?

My discussing definitions.

I think before this trip that I had assumed a permanent emigre status, living overseas made one an expat, and a tourist was someone i don't like, while a traveler was someone i approved of... but I hadn't personally given it much thought. WHich is odd because I had read a bit and written a little on the definition of the touristic experience, but considered it sort of applicable to all three, at least until the expat had to some extent gone native. But to some extent my perception was based on the presumption that there were two versions of visiting a place, to go and see what one expected, largely based on prepackaged tourism and media, representing the goal of tourists. Sort of traveling to check the required sights off of a list and to be able to take pictures home with you. On the far side was a whole variety of forms of travel lumped together in which the traveler was open to experiences that weren't preconceived. The emblematic traveler for me was the long term backpack traveler from europe who lives on the cheap, stays in hostels and often maintains ties within an international community of other travelers. But in the end I have trouble with these categories and with the idea that the openness of the experience would be the definitional element. I've met long term expats who are as oblivious to the local culture here as any tourist, and I've met a few short term paradigmatic tourists who had a real eye towards local culture. In the midst of this, I wonder about my place, being here to document culture, and spending effort to listen and try to understand, but clearly temporary, and to a great degree dependent on a set of parameters prescribed before my arrival.

Anyway, it made me curious about the ideas, and I wondered what my briliant friends had to say if any of them bother to respond.

Oh, and a Pith Helmet, really?

Today a tour bus full of white (i'd guess european rather than american) tourists disgorged its passengers in front of the mall as I finished a cigarette before going inside. One pair of folks standing around, may or may not have come off the bus, but they in particular stood out. The man in khaki shorts and a tee shirt wore a slightly lighter version of a pith helmet, and the woman white pants, a brightly colored tee shirt and carried a sun hat. What struck me about this is the rediculousness of his hat. it is not to say that on a jungle expedition i wouldn't appreciate the shade and irony of wearing a pith helmet, but to wear one in an urban area, and to express so little outword sign of recognition of the irony stymied me. The pith helmet is a classic and timeless symbol of the colonial intruder. Made famous by the british ruling class in india as well as both asia and africa more generally it's pretty recognizable. I can't quite imagine the mindset of one who would wear it while touristing in a foreign city.

failedoptimist — Thu, 20 May 2010 10:51:44 GMT

There is a choir singing in the mall today, I stopped in to check email and maybe hit the grocery store for shaving cream and room provisions. This mall, is the one I was at before when I was in Manila, as I have returned here. Oddly it seems easier to write again as I feel like little time has passed, India having been a blink of an eye. I’m going to try to add back entries mostly for my own memory, but if people notice them they are welcome to read them also. I had stopped writing in the journal when my brother came to manila about 4 days before we left to Thailand. One Month recap of life:

Older brother Keir arrived, showed him around Manila for a day, went to see his in-laws in a town a couple hours away called Los Banos, where we toured the university at which his in-laws teach/taught (one of the two is retired) and had some good food. It was nice to hang out with Keir actually. We had another day in Manila before flying out to Thailand, and then Bangkok, and its chaos and newness.
We arrived there a day before Easter, and only a few days after the redshirts began protesting. Met my friend Raynn at the airport, and then there were three. The city was fascinating, it has a sense of itself in a way Manila doesn’t in my mind. Got a foot massage, saw some girly bars, awed by temples, way too hot, ate thai food and was amused by Keir’s not eating thai food. Waved to protestors, from the subway, from the street, from the cabs. Kao San Road to the north was cool when we visited it for an evening. Keir Flew home, went with Raynn down to Pattaya for our last day, saw their redlight and realized how subtle/under-whelming Manila is by comparison. Depressed by the walk back to the hotel along the beach and the parade of young girls and old women who couldn’t work the clubs due to age.
Flew out to Chennai, met Raynn at the hotel when she finished her layover in Sri Lankan airport. Had first of many Dosa (Dosai)- thin crepe with filling. Spent two days touristing, Mylapore, Dravidian temple, St Thomas Church, Handy-crafts. Popped down for two days to Mammalapuram (spelling is probably way off) where the beach temple and where we could be slightly less confused and overwhelmed by the city. Temples were neat, and swimming in a pool and relaxing after sort of being running around before that was nice. Back to Chennai and new hotel, still didn’t like the hotel, wandered the city, switched hotel. Tried to do a bit of work, Raynn wilted by the heat, wandered the city a bit. Switched hotels again, I am now wilted by the heat. Tried to do some work, and met up with some folks met through Couch Surfing website. Nice night, high point of Chennai perhaps. Plan to go out with them that weekend. Meet Philip (from Couchsurfing) and he helps me set up a phone, and suggests a guest house. We switch hotels again, but to a place that is comfortable. Wander the city a little more, and Raynn only has a couple days left. Both tired, I try to do a little work but mostly read her Christopher Moore book ‘lamb’, enjoy it immensely, but we spend much of the next couple days hiding in the room from the heat. We visit the monument to a poet and wander the city again for a day before Raynn leaves, and see Avatar in 3D which I enjoyed more than expected since I had seen it once already, though without 3D.
Raynn departs and I begin forcing myself to do a little more work in between hiding in the room away from the heat. The guest house attendant, Om Prakesh, is nice but thinks I am sick or something because I don’t eat enough and don’t go out enough. I explain I am okay, and go that day to visit the Apollo Hospital even though I haven’t got an interview scheduled. Hospital is less immaculate than advertised, and doesn’t live up to the perfection of appearance they have cultivated at Bumrungrad in Thailand. Visit a few other healthcare sites, but find little interest in having me hang around. Meet several incidental healthcare seekers, and an ex-pat, but no definitionally accurate medical tourists. Someone says really for that I should be at the fancier hospital in Delhi. I feel foolish. I have brief interviews with a couple of random folks to feel more productive, but spend longer in my room. I realize I have only a few days left and haven’t been in touch with contacts a friend gave me. Find myself crippled by embarrassment and shyness about contacting them… and will continue to regret not having done so.
Go online to double check flight details to leave Chennai the night before I go, find I have misremembered and written down wrong the info. Flight is 12 hours earlier 8pm rather than 8am the next morning and I freak out for a few minutes trying to pack until I realize I couldn’t make it to the airport on time. Buy new ticket, cheaper on the last night than the one I had before but am annoyed over lack of money.
Fly back into Philippines via Singapore airport, and realize the Budget terminal is not representative while spending a 12 hour layover wandering around in the airport. Sadly, in order to pick up my bag I have to leave secutiry area and spend rest of night in Budget terminal after all. Of note, meet Doug a nice Australian Sex tourist who recommends places to go in Angeles city since I am flying into Clark Airport. Spend some time talking to him about his experiences traveling in and out of the Philippines over the last thirty years. We talk about the difference in character between Thailand and the Philippines, and I am given again the line about the nice servile people of the Philippines. This seems a reoccurring theme.
Clark airport, get a hotel in Angeles rather than by the airport in Subic, but away from the red light. Wander around a little near hotel and then get a tricycle to the redlight where I bar-hop. I have some beers and have a nice chat with a waitress/hostess/GRO (Guest Relations Officer) at one bar about the econpmic situation in Luzon and the reasons girls work in the bars. She is very much in the ‘lesser of two evils’ camp about the prostitution because it brings money in broadly and is better than abject poverty or the isolation and early marriage in the provinces. She says people don’t come to Subic/Angeles for medicine and I end up sleeping and drinking the next day. Find “Coyote Ugly” bar and amuse the folks who work there and the manager by talking about the original, that they had assumed to be fictional. I mean to take a photo to show Rigel and forget. Spend a lovely evening cuddling with a sweet bar girl named Elaine at another bar before crashing out late at my hotel. End up spending my last day in Angeles hung over and tired before taking a shuttle bus down to Manila Airport to head to see Bacalod, in Negros.
My friend Stephanie from highschool is a few days from returning to NYC after living with her family in Bacalod for about four years and I had meant to go down and visit before going to India. We spend a day wandering around Bacalod and catching up, then spend a day with a couple of her friends at the beach and then all having dinner with her family. The next day we head to the airport and fly back to Manila. Go shopping at the Mall of Asia for her to get a book for the plane, and consider seeing Iron Man II. Steph is tired, so we head back and I have some drinks until about 1 at the Slouch Hat Inn where I am staying again while she sleeps upstairs. I go to sleep, and may have spoiled my reputation of innocence among the staff (to their amusment) by being upstairs sleeping in the same room as a girl. I see Steph into a cab a little before 3 a.m. and crash late into the morning. I go out check email and get some lunch and then spend a quiet evening in my room catching up on tv and trying to psych myself up for work after a few days of actually relaxing.
That was yesterday, I found out I am in trouble with school stuff and hope to resolve it today, when I finish writing this.

So here I am back in Manila, with no clue what I am doing, more notes on Sex tourism then Medical tourism, and a real desire to be home no matter how much I like some things about being here. About a month before my flight to San Francisco and I will be back in NYC a few days after that.

failedoptimist — Thu, 20 May 2010 10:46:22 GMT

Because I haven't posted lately... A quiz meme thing...

Taken From CorneredAngel
Like it's 2003
If you comment I have to:

1. Respond with something random about you.

2. Tell you which color you remind me of.

3. Tell you my first memory of you.

4. Tell you what animal you remind me of.

5. Ask you something I've always wondered about you.

6. Tell you my favorite thing about you.

7. Tell you my least favorite thing about you.

(*** TOTALLY OPTIONAL *** 8. Challenge you to post this on your journal.)

failedoptimist — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 05:41:21 GMT

By the way I think this is awesome, but I am a nerd.
http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Arts/2010/0409/Role-playing-games-pull-reluctant-school-kids-into-a-supportive-crowd

failedoptimist — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 05:40:25 GMT

So I haven't posted in a while, but to update, finished first stretch in Manila, Elder Brother came, wandered around, had good time. Went to Los Banos, spent time with Brother's In-laws, good folks. Surprised by Elder Brother's ability to eat Philippine food. Fly to Bangkok, find it a nice enough place, Wish I had spent a little longer seeing the backpacker hippies on Kao San Road. Raynn Flew in and joined us there, nice to spend time with a friend I don't see much. One day in Pattaya south of Bangkok, will characterize as nice beach and what a deviant dreams a low budget easy sex version of the las vegas strip is.

Fly through Singapore to get to Chennai, Travel goes smoothly but learn that at least in the Singapore Airport Indians are unable to stand in lines neatly. Arrive Chennai, very hot, very tiring. Hotel in Edgmore shithole, Raynn arrives, hotel still shithole. Spend a day seeing nice temple of Peacocks in Mylapore, seeing Cathedral of St. Thomas, seeing worlds second longest beach, and eating cheap and tasty Dosa. Don't think I like Chennai. Stressed and wish to be in NYC. Tired. one more day in Chennai and then Retreat to Mahalaballpuram south of the city to get away, beach temple is pretty, resort is more comfortable than shitty hotel in Chennai. Will move to a better hotel in Chennai, and need to start work somewhen in here. One more night down here at resort then make myself go back to Chennai. I don't know whay but I am having an even harder time there than when first in Manila.

Because drdelirium was right that I would respond, but wrong about boredom, I just love silly quizy memes.
"Threes meme "

A. Three names I go by:

1. Gareth
2. G
3. And for old times sake: "G Love And Special Sauce", but that is a long while since gone.

B. Three places I have lived:

1. New York City, U.S.A.
2. El Districto Federal- Mexico City, Mexico
3. Recently Ermita, Manila, Philippines

C. Three places I have worked

1. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
2. Fordham University
3. Medipix Productions

D. Three things I love to watch on TV:
(Hard to pick, I like a lot of shows, but love very few.)
1. How I met your mother (Makes me laugh)
2. Dexter (never fails to be entertaining psycho-melodrama)
3. Survivor man (cause he ain't faking and i can pretend to learn stuff)

E. Three places I have been:

1. Paris, France
2. Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine
3. The Bad Lands, South Dakota, United States

F. Three people that email me regularly:
(What does regularly mean?)
1. Brothers, Keir and Stephan
2. My department mailing list, and department secretary
3. My roommates, Jon & Aalok

G. Three things I love to eat

1. Kaiser Roll, warmed, butter, Pepper,2x broken yolk fried egg, two slices american cheese,
2-3 strips bacon, wrapped in aluminum foil long enough for the cheese to melt.
2. Cherries, Fresh Ripe Cherries
3. Cheese (such as- Sharp Cheddar, Stilton, Maytag Blue, Camembert, Mimolet vieux, etc..)

H. Three people I think will respond:

1. Destiny sometimes does memes
2. Samantha also sometimes does them
3. can't think of a third

I. Three things I am looking forward to:

1. Home
2. Holding my phd
3. a good night kiss

J. Three places you would love to go:

1. Maybe Australia, but otherwise I am ready to be back in the US... I am not an adventurer
2. Crossing NYC off the list as too obvious, maybe Chicago
3. and I have friends in Austin and Denver I havent seen in forever... so there.

failedoptimist — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 09:14:10 GMT

So, every so often I feel the need here to talk academese here and have an intellectual discussion. Lacking the opportunity, I am posting the following rant about healthcare here, ignore if you prefer:

So I read this article today, on the idea of a right to healthcare in which they basically say you can't have a right to something that is provided by another individual because demand may outstrip the return to them for production. Thus they say the right to healthcare would mean a right to use of an MRI machine, unless the manufacturers would receive enough benefit from their own right to healthcare to balance their profession as a manufacturer of MRI machines this is not an acceptable concept of a right. I Can't stand this argument.

(article link: http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/The-Daily-Reckoning/2010/0324/Free-health-care-Right-or-privilege )

The basic idea inherent in almost all discussions of basic rights as I see it is misunderstood here. It is not the 'right to equal access' but actually a right defined as 'equitable and reasonable provision under law' such as the right to own property (one of the articles examples). If one supports the right to own property one doesn't say everyone should have equal property, but rather that the laws and structural limitations to ownership need to be equitable. That is, anyone who has the money has the right to own it assuming it is for sale. This means that many folks don't get to own a home, but that they can't be denied ownership if they save up money. By extension it means that a discriminatory practice by sellers and mortgage brokers of housing is an unfair and illegal practice, because they interfere with the right to own property.

That isn't the same as something like the universal declaration of human rights claim that all people have a right to clean water or something. The universal rights, are an ethical statment, not a statement of policy. They are statements of moral commitment. To mix the two kinds up when talking about the current health care bill is to say two different things. I would in fact be willing to make a universal ethical stance for healthcare rights. but that isn't what the law is about. The discussion of a right to healthcare in the bill refers much more to the provision of equitable service and legal protection. It is a statement about government responsibility to oversee the provision of care by the population. Thus the law moves towards protection of a marginalized group from discrimination in that if you can afford healthcare premiums you should have the health insurance, for example, despite preexisting conditions. The fact that this may lower profit margins for insurance companies (a possible outcome that has yet to be proven) doesn't mitigate the fact that as service providers they have a responsibility to provide equitable service according to this law. I think that the idea the article puts forward that the potential deferment of highest profit in favor of equitable provision of care is a dangerous one. The shift from to managed care in this country happened in order to broaden access to care and lower costs, in both these things the shift failed. The current system of provision puts all decision making power into the hands of for profit companies, which sadly have some legal protections, but at the same time have legal responsibilities. This is especially true in regard to the fact that they accept public support in terms of direct finding, tax incentives, and infrastructure use. I may think that hospitals and health insurance should be nationalized and shifted to a non-profit model, but that isn't the issue. The issue is that like banks or any other business, they have failed to practice under the guidance of laws to protect individuals from discriminatory practices and the goal of this law is to improve the clarity of expectations of equitable practice.

Anyway, rant over.

failedoptimist — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 07:08:25 GMT

TUESDAY (March 22)-

I’ve decided that the days I have nothing to say, I will add a little bit of speculation, in fact I might even describe it as foolish speculation. So for yesterday here are two thoughts with little connection to my work.

Thought 1- Why no knives?

Despite being in a geographic region that predominantly uses chopsticks the common eating utensils and style are different here. The primary method here is to use of fork in left hand, largely as manipulator of food, but also often standing in where I would use a knife, and a spoon in the dominant hand that is primarily for eating. I wasn’t surprised initially, I had been told about this way of eating by a Pilipino friend in NY at some point, I forget the context. It was before I was considering working here. But here, especially while reading in the archive about colonial process here, I started thinking about it. Why no knives? I see knives sold for kitchen use, and as weapons at the self defense vendor in the mall, and once in a while I’ve seen places offer steak knives with steaks, but in general it wasn’t until I’d been here a while before I wondered why. I took a brief look at the archives for references, and found none. It doesn’t seem worth adding to my interview questions, but I am considering emailing a historian at the university to just ask if he thinks of an answer. I suppose it isn’t important but at the same time I keep noticing it. This is compounded by the fact that things like fried chicken and larger cut pieces of food that are very common here would to my mind be easier to eat with a knife involved. Now, that said, everyone here seems to wield the spoon and fork deftly and can dismember a chicken leg far more quickly than I can, but it still leaves me curious, and speculative scenarios appear in my mind. Given the long colonial efforts to westernize, followed by the development of a general cultural ideolization of the US and west, why still no knives. Could there have been a ban on knives under the Spanish? In that case I should be able to find out easily enough, is it parallel in some ways to the general sense I have read of in some asian countries about it being impolite/inappropriate to use a knife at the table? The locals I ask don’t seem to think so, they respond as if it is generally habitual without special consideration. Anyway, it is interesting to me in part because so much of the culture is similar to my home experience.

Thought 2- Why so many shotguns?

One of the first things I noticed about the area I am in is the real frequency of seeing armed guards, shotgun in hand, bored look on their face. The guards patrol the mall, escort some vehicles, and stand vigilant in front of all banks and some other stores (or as close to vigilant as heat and boredom allow). But this is not giving the image. I walk down a block near my hostel and pass three banks, a larger than usual money changer and a hotel that all have shotgun bearing guards out front. This is within a space of perhaps 100-120 meters. This made me initially think the neighborhood I am in was unusual, but as I have moved around the city it appears fairly regular. Most banks have additional guards inside, and even small hostels and hotels will generally have at least one armed guard at night if not during the day.
I want to first remark that I understand the dominant narrative explaining this. It goes thus- There are terrorists in the north, terrorists in the south, and criminals in all parts of the country, so guards are present and armed. This initially made sense, but I looked up some newspaper archives and there really aren’t many attacks in Manila by terrorists, and I can’t say that my sense from the paper is that there are that many big robberies here than in NYC. I don’t know, perhaps it is just a different security culture, as there was in Israel. I was impressed there (like here) by the ubiquity of bag searches and pat-downs, but there the dominant narrative of ever present terror threat seemed honest, especially given the frequent if not daily bombings. Here on the other hand, they seem infrequent enough that I have a hard time understanding the level of response. The feel here is more laid back than Jerusalem, and not as jumpy scared as proximate days of 9-11 in NYC. In general, talking to people there is a sort of general resignation to threat of crime, and no immediacy to worry about terrorism. Anyhow, perhaps I am just asking the wrong people or something. But it keeps striking me as unusual.

In general my day was just boring quiet yesterday, after a long day with work and then up late drinking I didn’t feel particularly well, and spent the day in my room and around the hostel. I watched TV, and finished up some notes, and threw the day away. But some days are like that.

failedoptimist — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 05:50:22 GMT

Finishing up Monday-

After a bit of a rest and a shower I sat at the bar downstairs, soon after I arrived a proselytizing American from Huston, an African American with a gold grill of a smile started trying to convert the regulars who were at the bar. His eschatological discussion did not go over well with the generally atheistic, practical and down right uninterested in religion attitude prominent in the expats that hang out here. Because of my comparatively accepting stance and my willingness to “say it, say what’s on the dollar bill” he considered me an ally. His point was that the source of economic and political problems here in the Philippines stemmed from their lack of religion… or I should say proper religion, since he acknowledged the widespread presence of weak Catholicism. He used the money as an example drawing out a note that read “faith in the people and in god”. This he compared to the US bill, which reads “in god we trust”, apparently clear evidence to him of a near heretical pride and failure to place faith first. This of course explained the difference in value of the two bills, and by extension the failures and corruptions of the Philippine people. His observation was challenged by the rest of us, but in the end what ended the discussion was the owner of the slouch hat,

Bob, coming over and quieting him down. Admonished with the statement “we let you talk about whatever you want, but two things we don’t want here, politics and religion”, which instigated a polite argument that he was just trying to help us. Bob politely said it bothered some people, and the matter was ended. After this the man from Huston, continued talking to me about religion in hushed conspiratorial tones, “testifying” to his revelation and having been saved. He wanted me to know of the recent miracle, his girlfriend here in the Philippines (he lives here about half the year) was pregnant and was expecting a girl according to the doctors, He prayed, as he does three times a day, and god said to him that he was in store for rich rewards, and upon arriving in the Philippines this trip for the birth of his child, he learned that the child was in fact a son. This he said was great rewards, and a miracle of god, to turn something less into something more. I don’t quite know why I am remarking on this, except to say that it was somewhat embarrassing to me that the loud drunk inarticulate evangelist was American. Though I can only imagine that many of the world’s loud drunk inarticulate evangelists are American, I also was surprised by his overt racism, sexism and anti-catholic sentiments. Though at least in the last, being anti-catholic he had an explanation. Explaining the failing of Catholicism he said it comes from their failure to read the bible, they don’t know the word, nor do they look for signs from god in their life, rather they accept what a priest says. This he said was the central failing of the philippinos, in a moment of lucidity he managed to provide a short and incomplete version of the arguments around the importance of the protestant work ethic, and the declaiming of the ability to serve two masters between papal caholicism and civil government. Now this is not to say I agree with either, but it was interesting to hear these ideas from someone as so overtly a justification for bias.

After the American evangelist left to get a plane homeward bound, the Australian Bill, who I had spoken to briefly before sidled over towards me, he remembered talking to me and we initially chatted about the crazy American. Following this we discussed a little about my project, he having remembered that I was writing a book, and I mistakenly corrected him, thus leading to a long discussion of the meaning of political participation, the uselessness of expectation that good intentions are effective on their own and his decision he liked me…. Three beers later we were discussing the finer points of corruption in the Philippines, which he likened more to an efficient informal economy than a problem, he would talk about how slow and stupid beurocracy was in the UK (he is Scottish) and then give an example of bribing someone here. The comparison was interesting in part because he so earnestly believed that in the end it had double benefits providing improved salary to underpaid state workers. This he pointed out was the sort of market logic that got you drinks quickly at a bar with no one calling it corruption in the developed world. The conversation was fun if slightly sad when Bill started feeling nostalgic and talking about family passed away and the difficulty of a meaningful life. But we got back on track when he asked about my political affilitations, leading down a long and winding path, as he evaluated whether I was one of those people who doesn’t care about things. In the end he decided I was idealistic but acceptable. In the end before he wandered outside he mentioned he had secretly been part of an international group that was in part responsible for political assassination, all to make the world a better place. It was entertaining but in the end sad as I couldn’t quite believe this wracked old man. Faded naval tattoos suggested his stories about military service could be real, but in the end he clapped me on the back and wandered out to go home. He lives here, so I’ll see him again.

failedoptimist — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:43:33 GMT

Thursday-

Had a beer or two with an American who is temporarily staying here at the bar, passing through Manila. He is a vet, and a retired police chief of a fairly small town in South Carolina. Now he works part time as a security contractor (mercenary?) and has worked in Afghanistan and Iraq recently. He was a bit drunk early in the afternoon, but seemed nice enough. He had been married to a Filipina for almost two years after being friends with her for a while after they met in the middle east. It was actually really nice, sort of sweet in a way, he looked at me and talked about having been relaxed by her. He talked about having been the sort of guy who didn’t feel for people, didn’t like people for all sorts of years while he was a cop and a soldier. Now the new him, could have a nice conversation with someone like me, a jew, and a yankee…. He talked about having been diagnosed with gulf war syndrome- Persian gulf syndrome, and the fact that it is similar to how he has heard about malaria, lingering, chronic, and debilitating off and on.

I did some work and watched some TV for the rest of the afternoon, went and had dinner out, mediocre Chinese food. Then went back to the hostel and got a drink.

Friday-

Another day in my room, tired a bit hung over, and I just didn’t feel like going out.

Saturday-

After waking up and trying to do some work for the first half of the day, I ended up going out and grabbing a quick bite in the evening, and coming back to hang out at the hostel bar. I arrived back to the bar and found Ronny the seattle based retired merchant seaman plastered, I was told he had said he drank an entire bottle of scotch. We had a very slurred on his part conversation about politics and the American healthcare crisis. I started chatting with an Australian and Bunny the Ladyboy for a little while, before the security contractor guy came back in, he was very drunk also. Apparently the night before and earlier in the day he had been in there angry and drunk because he had learned that his wife had cheated on him. Ronny and I chatted with him for a little while, before Ronny stumbled out to a cab. The contractor security drunk guy was being understandably upset about his wife cheating. She apparently told him because she was pregnant by another man. He bothered the staff because he would raise his voice and occasionally slam a hand on the bar. Not so bad, mostly he was tolerably well behaved. He kept sort of being a little condescending to bunny, and he announced loudly because Bunny was flirting with me that he had known all along I was gay. The night was pleasant but in the end I felt a little tired and went to bed a touch early. Oh and by the way, Pizza Hut tastes exactly the same in Manila as in the US, blessing of standardized mediocrity.

Sunday-

Watched TV and rewrote my interview questions.. Grabbed mediocre Chinese again because I was indecisive. Considered going out, but grabbed a quick drink downstairs and came back up to get to bed early. Will be up early in the morning for an interview.

Monday-

A convenient ride up the LRT brought me to the edge of Santa Cruz where the Dept of Health (DoT) compound is. First, I like the fact they call it a compound rather than a campus. Second, the buildings have numbers, but they are referred to by the names of diseases. For example the Tuberculosis building houses the finance office. These names date from when the place was a hospital complex and each was a treatment research unit for tropical and communicable disease. Building 16, where the Office of Special Concerns resides, shares a wall with the large catholic church in the compound. Formerly it was part of the church, then a Leper ward (quarantined hospital spaces are awesome), and therefore the building is the Leper building. Oddly, this doesn’t bother anyone, but the person I met said no one wants to tell the administrators and secretary of health, that their building used to be an insane asylum. I thought it was funny because of the implication that they are crazy, but the Doc who was walking with me explained it is as much because there remains a huge stigma about psychiatry and mental illness in the Philippines. I asked about this, among other things if it discouraged people from training in psychiatry , he said there was a program and residency at the medical school in psychiatry but it is small, and that in order to receive psychological care one generally has to quietly ask from a trusted physician because Shrinks and Psychologists don’t advertise here. I joked that I had seen ads for urologists with references to erections in public places, and he confirmed that that is mild by comparison to mental illness. Well there you go, I wanted to find things that are locally specific medical culture and there is a nice example. I asked one of the waitresses downstairs about the stigma toward mental healthcare, and she looked at me as if I was weird for asking. For the record I asked in a way which she understood, but she seemed to suggest it just wasn’t an issue here. Anyone interested in a project?

So When I actually got there I found out that Dr.C is a really nice guy, younger than me despite being both a physician and now a very successful administrator. I got there and he asked if I had had breakfast, I said no, but I didn’t need anything. When he reiterated his offer I said just water. We talked for the whole morning, and then at about 12:5 I was wrapping up and he asked if I would be interested in getting lunch.. after initially demurring I agreed and we had a nice lunch at the DoH commissary, very cheap, and tasty. He was very proudly showing me all the food, and I didn’t have the heart at first to explain that I’d been eating Philippine food for over two weeks and was perfectly capable of recognizing eggplant and stuff. It turned out as we chatted over lunch that he hadn’t had breakfast because he was running late getting out of the house, and had been starving all morning. His desire to offer me breakfast, it turns out, was also a desire to be able to eat without being rude.

I’ve already written out about four pages about the contents of the interview, so I won’t cover it now. But I will mention one or two things. First, I never want to be an administrator, and if his experiencis anything to go by e (though very successful at it) I’d really rather never be in government at the middle level. The constant negotiation of everything makes it fascinating for my research but horrendous to actually do. He had mentioned a problem with the image of the Philippines, and I felt vindicated because it is the first time someone has mentioned it without my prompting. He commented that the city of Cebu (arguably the most successful tourism site in the Philippines) carefully advertises with a marketing plan based on comparing to Bali, Singapore, and other “pacific island nations” with careful invisibility of the rest of the Philippines. He also mentioned the difficulty in developing the industry here because of a “lower profile” and lack of a national “image”, lacking a “shared plan” or an integrated profile for the elements and players in the national health system and tourism system as they try to build. At lunch we were talking about Philippine history, and I made a comment that American history classes don’t really teach about the Philippines. He was surprised until I explained I had done a good deal of independent research as part of my dissertation. This lead to me explaining that American highschools basically don’t teach much in Asian history, but particularly American colonialism gets minimized and so what little gets mentioned of the Philippines tends to be mentioned around the Spanish American war, with nary a mention of the Philippine war. This seemed counter intuitive to him, since the American presence is still such a live piece of history here.

Dr C insisted on walking me all the way back into the LRT train station, he seemed to think the city is dangerous, or perhaps used it as an excuse to get out of the office a little longer. I finally saw what people had said about the train here being super crowded. I waited almost half an hour as three trains came through so full no one could get on. Then one came and we all packed on shoulder to shoulder. There was a horrifying moment a few stops later as the train door closed on the crowd in an attempt to separate a small child from his leg. The crowd flagged the conductor and no real harm was done, but the screaming child shared his horror with us for a length of time. I also for the first time saw real use of the ‘women’s section’ where crowds of ladies waited and in the crush of people I can only imagine that it is needed given the close quarters.

I got back to the hostel around 2, sat and wrote for the last few hours, and now I am going to go down have dinner, and then sit and have a few drinks.

So life goes.

failedoptimist — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:13:33 GMT

THURSDAY/FRIDAY/SATURDAY 18-20 March

The last two days, thursday and Friday, well I could come up with something that sounds vaguely interesting. I did some work thursday, and had a drink at the bar, then tried hanging around with an Aussie Expat named Mic, who was heading out with his baby-mama/girlfriend Michelle and a friend of theirs, a middle aged widow named helen, to get dinner. He was already a little drunk, and the whole thing was a little boring, followed along with them to LA Cafe because Helen hadn't been there before, and while i had a nice enough chat with one girl who pushed ahead of the crowd to get toward the new guy at the bar, she was clearly uninterested in talking once I said I was going to dinner with them and not bringing a girl home.

We moved to a bar/restaurant with a decent live band and what appeared to be a very funny MC (but sadly I didn't get the jokes in Tagalog), then walked back to the hotel. I had a drink or two more, and considered going out again, but in the end was tired, and had skipped buzzed to dehydrated, so took a bottle of water and turned in.

Woke up tired and spent the day watching TV and fiddling with work on the computer on friday, didn't leave the hotel. Can't decide if i am mad at myself for not being more exciting this trip. The first week I was all over the place, and now... Anyhow, I feel okay today after taking the day off yesterday. Have been watching reruns of The Wire, which are on first broadcast here, and it is such a good show... I wonder how much it translates to non-americans. ANyhow... life.

Saturday, actually got up and out to the mall, sitting and doing work most of the day. I don't know what I'll do tonight, but I'll bet that it is sit at one of the three bars around here and drink and talk to whoever sits next to me.

In the mean time, I have a few academic chores I have put off and so here i am. Hope all are well this weekend.

failedoptimist — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:56:52 GMT

First I mistyped the name of the fantastic Philippine fast food place Jollibee. I had Written it as JollyBee. I also want to specifically mention that if you want to taste a little of what life is like for me, but you are in NYC, my friend Rob points out that there is now a Jollibee in Woodside Queens. I recommend the "yum" burger or the chicken, but everyone else seems to love the spaghetti. Here, it is a big enough national chain, that there are imitations. Respect to the Jollibee, I ate there again last night and enjoyed it.

Second, Delirium had asked me to clarify why I had chosen the Philippines as a field site. I may have talked about this before but I thought it might be interesting to respond here as i am reflecting on the answer now.

Why did I choose to study Manila, Philippines?

So I would say that this question is divided into three parts, the first is academic reasons, and then my own idiosyncratic reasons. I will mention them in that order.

Academic-

Short answer
It offers a good balance of access and novelty, while also being a good comparative case.

Long Answer-

In 2005, The president of The Philippines said that the country couldn’t be as good as Singapore in healthcare, and couldn’t necessarily develop medical tourism as much as India, but that they could try. I decided that it was such a ridiculous way to frame a piece of political discourse, that I would look into it. IN some ways medical tourism in the Philippines is miniscule, but it has had a bunch of moments that are interesting. As China shut a stem cell therapy clinic, and the other was over capacity, a research center in Cebu, Philippines, tried opening one. Though I have found out little about its success. It is a popular place for Japanese, Australian and continental Europeans to come for sex, beaches, and dental work… but not nearly as popular as other sites for American tourists these days. And though everyone trusts a Filipina Nurse educated in the Philippines to work abroad, the healthcare here seems to be suspect though it employs the same system of education.

Whenever you work on a project you want to find something upon which enough data/material is available to frame the work and suggest there will be interest in the project when complete, but you want something original. There is a fairly limited recent body of literature on most aspects of the philippines in the social sciences. What there is published in the US centers on rural agricultural communities, and traditional lifestyles, or on migration/diaspora of Philippine nationals outside the country. So that I can list half a dozen articles from the last five years about Filipinas in Japan, US, etc. but Could not find one good ethnographic project on people within the urban parts of the philippines. Part of this is my lack of knowledge about where to look for work, but part of this is a genuine downturn in research there since the sixties. I would venture to guess that this is in part because the anthro community has been increasingly sensitive to colonial histories in focus on field sites. But also it is because in general the Philippines don’t seem to have an international prominence that would draw attention the way india china and faster growing economies are drawing study. But despite this limited body of work there are people talking about the Philippines to be in academic conversation with, and for example a well developed body of work on Filipina Nurses abroad can be directly connected to discussions of current healthcare internally that I am trying to connect to growth or lack of growth of medical tourism here.

English Language speaking, relatively Americanized culture, and developed local transit system make Manila a remarkably easy place for me to do my work in some ways. Not entirely like the US, the dominant political system and educational system are familiar, and old enough to be somewhat documented in the literature, offering a point of longitudinal comparison. So while the literature is thin it offers something to compare the current conditions to.

Then there is the comparative aspect. Lots of people are working on india, lots of people are working on health/healthcare in india, and a few people are already working on medical tourism in india. India has an English language education system in many places, and many similarities of colonial history to the Philippines, and shares some more recent development history including expansion of foreign direct investment, growing concern over departure of trained medical personell to the US, and coastal tourism industries. The two represent a good comparison, made better because they both have American style public/private healthcare provision, and similar legal and professional connections between education/research and medical practice/hospitals. This is particularly important because of the emphasis so far paid to the development recently of the private hospital system in India as central to its success in Medical tourism. The National Initiative launched between 2004-2005 in India took off fairly quickly, in part because the private hospital system expanded dramatically, but in turn this was made possible by the proper advertising and perception of the medical care provided. It was, arguably a perfect storm of growth in the medical tourism industry.

While Thailand in some ways cornered the sex-change travel market, India looked around and cornered the more lucrative primary care surgeries like cardiac and orthopedic surgeries, that are high price in the US, but not marginal practices. On the contrary to all this, a 2005 national initiative in the Philippines, which when announced specifically modeled itself on the Indian version was less effective. Basically it stimulated very little growth in the private hospital system, and very little expansion of medical tourism. Despite this, there is a great deal of incidental medical treatment provided to foreign tourists, and some dental tourism from Australia and other regional sites. The fact of the limited success despite many similarities of context with India, offers an avenue to look at what may be characteristic of healthcare contexts in the two countries.

I also find it interesting to look at the Philippines because it has a long history specific to healthcare, having been the primary field laboratory in much of the early development of public health, and tropical medicine for the 1890s-1940s. This combined with their success at producing a marketable commodity in their nurses, while having a relatively poor international perception associated with medicine here makes it interesting to me.

Idiosyncratic Reasons of mine-

I like the idea of rooting for the underdog, and in some ways the Philippines are the second class citizen at the back of the bus of asia. They aren’t the worst, nor the best, but they don’t get much credit or recognition. Singapore, and even Jakarta have higher regional positions and prominence in some ways. Hongkong or Thailand have cultural relevancy in the US. The Philippines is often sort of seen as a place where there used to be a big army/airforce base…. Which there still are but less so. In being asked to think about a career trajectory, I decided it would just be a good field site because it offers a place with big enough problems to maybe offer some good advice, but also a place with few enough problems to not appear on the TV news as much. I mean the thai political situation is dramatic though the anti-royalists and stuff don’t shoot at each other that much, but it is headline news. The Philippines, hosts one of the few remaining large scale communist insurrections left in the world (my friend Jon Lange mentioned this to me a while ago, and I’ve been reading about it) while also being an attractive microcosm version of all the Muslim-Christian conflict in Africa, including village to village militia fighting and terrorism. Yes that is sort of scary, but it is a set of issues that allow research here to offer perspective on other places, while working somewhere people haven’t been paying attention to.

As I mentioned it is similar enough to the US that the differences are comprehensible but manageable, and the common speaking of English makes me much happier. It didn’t hurt that I have my Sister-in-laws family here who form a nice back up to solitude, and it is a place with a strong exchange rate for my limited salary/savings.

failedoptimist — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:20:00 GMT

MONDAY (15th Mar)

Managed to do a little work this morning, and unfortunately watched a fair bit of television during the day. I went out to the mall and checked email, but over all not a very productive day. I was thinking of spending the evening back over at the southern cross, play pool and flirt with April again since I can expect she’ll be there and familiarity makes her more comfortable for me than other bar girls. In the end I spent the evening in the Slouch hat though, met a british guy named Paul who was finishing up his trip to the Philippines, and spent the evening chatting with him and the Lady-boy named Bunny who hangs out here at the hostel. Bunny has been on her own since she was about 14 and is self educated in English, Japanese, French and fairly articulate. She has lived as a singer/bargirl in Malaysia and Japan, and both were good experiences for her. She is part of the higher class of bar girl, who move from long term relationship to long term, and one night stands are for fun or a little extra money. She says she still sometimes works as a singer. Paul asks her if she is going to continue getting surgery for the sex change, and she says she is happy with now that she has her breasts. Why not finish the change he says? And she responds that the health effects worry her, the drugs, the surgery itself, she is remarkably articulate about the possibility and her understanding of the risks. She had been to Thailand for the Boob job and had considered going back for the genital reconstruction. Paul keeps commenting on how nice her ass is, and I think she has a particular fun time flirting with straight guys. Paul is a builder, a carpenter with an ex-wife in London and a long term girl friend down south in the Philippines. Paul has been over here almost twenty visits, he comes and his money goes farther here. We discussed the Philippines, and he and Bunny both commented that for a catholic country people here are wonderfully non-judgmental about things. They outlaw homosexuality, but turn a blind eye to homosexuality that involves foreigners or largely to lady-boys in general. Despite the law against prostitution, I’ve spoken to a number of bar girls and none has ever had a problem with the police, though a few commented about the necessity to stay in certain areas. I don’t know why, but I find that few here have the same sense of hypocrisy that I do. I have mentioned somewhere my dislike of the discussion of prostitution using the word “girlfriend” and that is a good example, bar girls will ask if you have a girlfriend, and then people call the girls their girlfriends…. About half the time this is a longer term arrangement about security, comfort and money, but the other half of the time this is short term prostitution. At some of the bars it is more veiled, and at some of them the place is fairly clearly a brothel.
The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful in terms of things to report, I chatted with them late, though at one point I went out and grabbed some steamed buns at 7-11 for dinner. The guy there has begun to recognize me from all my trips there to get cigarettes, I should ask his name at some point.

TUESDAY-

Too many beers the previous night with Paul and Bunny, or something, left my stomache unhappy. I spent the first half of the day hopping back in and out of the toilet. At two I met My sister in Law’s uncle Rey again, and his son Rehginald. They had come in to do an errand and to meet me so that Rey could introduce me to the dean of public health at University of manila medical school. They accompanied me to meet the Dean, and to get a chance to catch up with her. I got to do a brief unstructured interview, and she provided me a number of contacts who she would contact ahead of me. I suddenly have about five folks to get in touch with and schedule interviews including a doctor, a professor/ NGO organizer, and a doctor at the Dept of Health who has an interest in Medical tourism. The whole time I was worried about putting her out, but she actually seemed interested, if basically without much to say about medical tourism. I am not sure that either she or Rey actually understand what I do with qualitative research. They kept trying to suggest the place for me to get data was from the Dept of Health, but I explained that part of my work is to get impressions of changes in practice from doctors. I may go back and try to get some background research out of a second nterview with the Dean, but it would be largely context.

After the interview, I hang out while they all chat and catch up. I am amazed by how much I understand sometimes, despite their limited use of English words the mannerism and tone was obvious. Rehginald is out of work, freelancing as a reporter and photographer, but the two of them were trying to convince him to go back to school. He had done part of a masters in communications before working as a reporter full time, I could immediately empathize with his position. I said that I had had that conversation before I went back to school, they all looked at me, and I explained that the tone was familiar. I could go with them and recommend that school was more fun than work, but Rehg said that he was only interested in continuing to work as a photographer. Not interested in school. I smiled, and the conversation shifted to other topics. But it stands out as a good example of my pleasure over the frequent understanding that people manage despite language barriers.

I feel good that I actually did something more productive then reading, which I could have done at home, but I am a little intimidated by going out and hitting folks up for interviews. I’ll call tomorrow. I head back to the hostel after with a second young coconut pie thanks to Rey. Hung out with another Aussie, Kevin, who shared with me a lot of stories about his travels, he has three kids, one grandkid, and had been married twice before in Australia, though his kids are with a third woman who he dated for ten years before she decided to try autonomy. He has been to the Philippines a number of times, and has a long term girlfriend here. They are starting to think about getting married. He had brought his two sons to the philappenes and was proud of their having had a good time, the girls he said were mad over them, both tall handsome and athletic, it was something special to him that both had ended up meeting girls who weren’t bar girls and started relationships. The younger had even remained in contact with his friend, an office worker. He gave me a bunch of tips if I wanted to get down to Angeles city, and told me a story about seeing a friend there. Maybe 25 years ago, on an early trip to the

Philippines, he had brought a friend with him who hadn’t been to asia before. A fellow Aussie, Doug, had loved the place, and a few days ago, fifteen years after last seeing Doug. Kevin had been standing at a bar in Angeles when a man came over and bumped into him. Kevin, about to get annoyed looked at the man’s face and realized it was his old friend Doug. Kevin asked him what he was up to, and it turns out he has a long term girlfriend and lives here managing the bar that Kevin had walked into. Kevin suggested I go down and say hi, if I want to see angeles city. I like the small world feel of the story, and have some sympathy for all these Aussies, who come here looking for the simplicity of the interactions here.

Bob wanders in and mentions that he has met a pair of sisters at the butterfly bar, who for 3000 pesos will work together for the night. A little bit of incest for only about 65 dollars American. I look at him sort of surprised, but he interprets this as appreciation of the value for price. Bob and Kevin go on talking about womanizing here, and they return to the subject of the sillyness of my having not been down to Angeles city, where the debauchery makes the redlight here in Manila look chaste. I agree to go down and spend a few days, though as the discussion continues I find the picture of angeles a little much for my slightly prudish mind. Scotty joins the discussion, and they all agree that Angeles is fantastic, such competition between the girls that if you want a handjob in the bar you can get one without paying sometimes, sex acts are basically advertising for further sex acts.

I went out to get some dinner at about 8 and went to a chain place called ChowKing, that I see everywhere and haven’t tried yet. The food was okay, and I considered stopping at another bar on the way back, but decided to have a rest in my room first, intending to go back downstairs to the hostel bar. In the end I started watching a tv show and fell asleep by ten.

WEDENSDAY-

I slept through the night well enough and figure I needed it, but my intestinal distress continues and I have spent the first half of the day resting in my room and frequenting the toilet again. A couple cups of coffee and water lead me to sitting in my room watching the movie FanBoys which I had been curious about when it came out.The movie had been mentioned to me because it was about geeks, and supposed to be entertaining. It is really a fairly boring road trip/buddy movie, with some geek humor that sadly centers on an exaggerated antagonism between star wars and star trek fans. While I didn’t dislike it, I am not sure I would have bothered watching it if I wasn’t feeling a little under the weather. I spent the afternoon into evening hanging around with the older Australians who I have been hanging here with since I moved into the slouch hat, through a combination of planning and luck, they are all leaving today and I will miss them. But it was nice to get a final go at sitting around shooting the shit with them. Scotty, Les, Bob, Kenny, and the other one I never knew the name of are all regulars, so there is a chance I’ll bump into them again in may or on the next trip, but it won’t be as much fun hanging around the hostel bar without them. Certainly my breakfasts spent chatting with them while they were already drinking will be missed. Scotty is a pensioner and goes back for some paper work and to see folks there, Les is returning from a vacation back to life as a prison guard, Bob is a traffic Warden but thinking about switching jobs, and I forget what Ken does, but he spends time there with his kids.

They took off for the airport by 7 and I sat and considered what to do for the evening. I spent a little time finishing up some interview notes, and then went and grabbed a burger for dinner. Following dinner, I decided to go play a game of pool, and ended up there for a while. Played about five games, and the guys clearly took it easy on me. Alba, the Bahrainian guy, bith Edie and Gurny who are locals, and Roy the Aussie Expat who was kind enough to keep lending me his cue stick. I managed through bald luck and prior lakity to win one game, after taking it easy on me the rest of the game, I managed to have a four ball streak including two absurdly lucky shots. We were all particularly amused when the second lucky shot happened. I had made a lucky shot, and a nice clean shot, and then went for a long shot at the full length of the table. I hit the angle wrong, and the ball came hurtling back to my end. Discouraged I had walked over and sat down before the others laughing drew my attention. The ball, having been struck hard enough to return to the end upon which it had begun, was rolling infinitesimally slowly toward the pocket I had originally intended it to go in. now, all present could tell that I had absolutely no part in making the shot but it went in and lined up next to the eight for a short straight shot. My only win at the Southern Cross, out of maybe 15 games played there in the last week. But all were in good spirits, and it is friendly enough that I think they were all genuinely pleased, even Edie who was losing to an inferior player. I also saw April again, the bar girl who likes me, she gave me a back rub again, and for the third time introduced me to another friend of hers, this time named Bambi (winking, not her real name), looking about thirty she is 38 year old, and a long term bar girl, supporting a daughter. Like many of the girls I have talked to, she passes the time in the bars by singing along to music, and seemed to genuinely like music. She had an encyclopedic knowledge of lyrics, and managed to identify song, artist and year for music by celine dion, air supply, Julio iglesia, and others. It was rather impressive. She was funny about April, who has gotten more clingy and cuddly each time she sees me, and Bambi pointed out that young girls act that way. She didn’t quite seem to disapprove but once again there was friendly tension between the girls, and I can never tell if it is because they are competing, or something else. I tipped her for the backrub, and went back to the hotel where I had a nightcap with the staff, Elsa the eldest of the waitresses and I had a long conversation about politics. She lives in Makati, a city within Metropolitan Manila, and what I would think of as a neighborhood. But she corrects me, that the cities here are not as integrated as I was thinking of them. I had considered them integrated as the bouroughs were in NYC. I looked up some details about the Baranguay (district) system, and below are a few thoughts. Because each City/Baranguay maintains primary political autonomy they may keep separate taxes. So though some money is shared between cities within Manila, the largest parts of the municipal budgets are dependent on the local taxes. Thus a neighborhood like Santa Cruz, that is primarily local residency, and doesn’t have as many large businesses (though it does have some) received no support from business development in Makati (where Elsa lives) that is the most modern, and a center for international businesses housed in shiny glass office towers. Makati, as a result has supplementary city health insurance, improved police presence, school subsidies, all provided by the mayoral office from locally collected taxes. Though technically part of a unified service provision plan across the city, the separation of budgets, originally intended to minimize the possibility of corruption now stabilizes inequality in some weird ways.
All for now.

failedoptimist — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:58:58 GMT

SUNDAY (MAR 15) —

Yesterday morning was the big boxing match, previously I had been warned that everywhere would show it, and everywhere would be crowded. I slept in a little, despite the preliminary fights starting early morning here, and got downstairs at about 11am to find every seat full in the usually sleepy little bar. Extra chairs were around some tables, and all eyes were on the bout going on. I stepped out, and went out on the unusually quiet street, which seemed to lack even the beggars that would seemingly have nowhere else to be. Got some lunch, Jollybee, a local fast food chain provided a cheap place to eat that was pleasantly not packed with boxing fans. And I went back into the hostel to catch part of the match after checking that both other Aussie bars nearby were equally packed.

I have neither the expertise of sporting language, nor the inclination to describe the fights, but I will say that the reaction to the waving of the Philippine flag and the entry of Manny Pacquio onto the floor of the arena created an overwhelming excitement, and faces began to crowd the windows from the street to see the fight. I have been impressed by the constant activity of the service workers here, moving around, inquiring, cleaning ashtrays practically in between every drag off a cigarette. But today, as the fight got more active, the staff were stopped in their tracks. I cannot say I’ve ever been much of a boxing fan, and for the last few years I’ve had a standard line. “I saw the one night of boxing I need.. I watched the night Tyson bit Holyfields ear off, and the full undercard that night, which included about four fights, all of them apparently exceptional according to those I watched with. After watching Tyson spit out a chunk of ear live on TV, why watch boxing again.” This has in effect been true, the last time I saw boxing before this had been an absurdly long and bloody title fight earlier in Tyson’s carreer watched with friends around the end of highschool. But watching a tiny, smiling five foot girl, who had stated her lack of interest in boxing, practically jumping up and down for Manny was awesome. Not because of the boxing, which was in fact very good, but for the atmosphere in the bar. The least victory by Manny, and the place erupted in cheering. The least stumble or misstep from Clotty lead to laughter.

At one point, Manny teased his opponent about his excessively defensive stance by boxing both hands against the mans ears, and the noise was deadfening as the room appreciated the joke.

There is a line in ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ by Orwell, where he says that the night of drinking occasioned by the downtrodden, and the particular breech of the everyday drudgery allows survival. That those moments make life not livable, as food does, but worth living.

After the fight I decided to head over and watch/play some pool, and said hi to a couple of expats I’d met before, as well as a bar girl who goes by “April” who’s hit on me there before. She is nice, though her English isn’t as good as some, she plays pool and is more casual in her interactions with me, not as suggestive. The first time I had come in she had come over and given me a long back/shoulder rub, and two of the other girls watching teased me as I lost game after game of pool. I moved to the bar when others wanted to play pool, and the place was getting more crowded.

Very soon,April came over and started chatting with me, and rubbing my back again, which is nice, except for my own neurosis making it slightly uncomfortable. I was going to head out, but she and a friend of hers named Marie sat down and we started chatting.
About life in the Philippines, about their lives, about my studies. April it turns out has considered traveling abroad but her friends experiences with the “agencies” that bring girls to Dubai, Malaysia and other countries hasn’t been good, and she worries. She’s a long term bar girl, has had long term boyfriends who took care of her for stretches, and hasn’t many other prospects. She had the equivalent of a year of highschool education, and I thought it was sweet that she was proudly self taught in English, having spoken very little when she moved at a young age to Manila. She visits her family in the Visayas regularly, a mother and a navy man step father who married her mother when she was less than a year old, her father having died. She grew up with the idea of women supported their relationship to good men, but most of her stories are about bad relationships. An American who left her without much, and without saying goodbye, and an Arab who beat her up a bit and ended their affair by threatening to call the police and frame her for stealing his watch.

Among these stories I was particularly amused when she paused as a side note to say that her friend who had gone to Dubai to work, and had been screwed over by the agency, had also told her that nearly her best time there had been a short few day stay in jail. By comparison to the life she lived, an air conditioned, clean jail that provided good food was apparently slightly better than tolerable.

Marie on the other hand, is an occasional bar girl. She had two years of highschool, and a daughter by an ex husband. She has worked as a singer for while when she was younger, and has stints of six months to a year at a half dozen offices and call centers. It is interesting to me that it was apparently not an issue that she emphasized her not being a bar girl in front of April. April in turn didn’t seem to mind the implication, though she has the practiced control of her affect of someone used to dealing with people. I have a hard time reading some sorts of behavior, and over the course of the conversation April became much more flirtatious and touchy-feely. I couldn’t decide if it was for fun, to try to secure the night, or because I was sharing attention between them. The two both found an amused satisfaction in playing with my hair, its curlyness has been commented upon by several folks since I got here, and I almost wish I still had long hair for its increased noteworthiness. They also commented on my being handsome, which I denied. But they confirmed that to a Filipina, I was. I was still young, and healthy, and not a drunk, and though they didn’t say it I was white. Marie told me at one point that she liked the fact I had kissable lips, which made me blush to their amusment.

They talked about their perceptions of professors, of school, and the dramatic status that these things allow in Philippine society. That they couldn’t imagine a Philippine Professor in a bar, nor dressed in a tee shirt, nor chatting with them. These things, they implied, were below such a hallowed rank. Professors they said were important, like doctors. Neither really knew what sociology, or social science was and I explained it was sort of between journalism and policy work, it was study of something to help understand the world. This seemed interesting, and when I made a comment about studying healthcare they both expressed the opinion that healthcare was no good in the Philippines, not enough, and not cheap. This, like science, they said was an example of where the US was more advanced. I complained and said that the difference wasn’t so simple. That there was fine science done in the Philippines, and good medicine, the problem was that there was less money, and less money didn’t make it less advanced. They thought for a moment, and said that it was true, but neither could quite articulate what they meant, while still thinking there was a greater difference then simply available money.

Just another example of a phenomena I joked about before coming. When asked by a friend in NYC about my choice of the Philippines as a site, I asked what could be more interesting than a nation with an inferiority complex. A quizzical look by my friend, was followed by little clarification. But I would venture to say I still find it true, while there is a certain amount of pride, there is also a frequently appearing sense of inferiority. The girls both commented on how nice, and servile (my word), Filipinas are. They compared women here to Chinese, and part of what they describe was a sort of outgoingness, but also a sort of willingness to serve. They asked how I would compare the girls here to other places, and I said I didn’t think all the girls were alike. They acquiesced that was true, but wanted my impression, and I said I though there was a culture here that made it more acceptable for women to talk to men, and that this made them more comfortable talking. Clearly wanting me to say Filipinas were prettier, they grudgingly accepted the answer and both said they were good talkers. I had gotten each girl a drink, and in the end turned down a joking (maybe) proposal of coming back to my room, and a more earnest proposal that we all liked music and should move around the corner to the G Spot (G Point) where a live band, and dancing could be had. I said it was a pleasure to meet Marie, and gave April a few dollars worth of peso for the back rub. I wasn’t sure after the fact if I should have paid, or had not been expected to, since it made for an awkward moment, and clearly led to a moment of explanation between the girls. I know that it is part of her flirt, but I feel bad about the fact that she spent a couple hours hanging out, and if she was expecting to make money taking me home, I wasn’t providing it. I hoped I didn’t offend, and I headed back over to sleep.

failedoptimist — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:07:24 GMT

FRIDAY NIGHT—

I finished up the evening on Friday night talking and drinking with the expat guys at the Slouch hat, among other things we discussed the current political situation, and the amazing popularity of Manny Pacquio, the boxer and national superstar here, he has a bout coming up Sunday morning and is expected once again to do what no one else can, provide a bit of national pride at the global level. Manny, sometimes called Pac-Man, is something unusual in that he is also famous in the US. Apparently being a seven time world champion boxer, in six weight classes, and holding a nearly undefeated record manages to overcome the anonymity of the Filipino and makes him a celebrity. Not quite Mike Tyson or Mohammed Ali, Manny resides in a grey area of fame between obscurity and specificity. By this I mean that even some people, like me, who don’t watch boxing will know who he is, but he hasn’t transcended into being a household name. But at the same time here, and among boxing fans he is a superstar. This popularity is translating him into a new role, as he runs for Philippine Congress here. It doesn’t sound to me like he will necessarily win, but it makes an interesting parallel to the questionable political reincarnation of Estrada in the current election, still flowing on his movie star status to overcome his place in Philippine history as the only impeached and imprisoned president.

SATURDAY—

The early part of the day was spent working on my conference abstract before I got frustrated. Somehow, I feel absolutely unable to write an abstract on medical tourism that doesn’t reiterate what I have been presenting the last two years, I would love to make claims about field work, but have no sense of where it is leading…. On the other hand I have a nice idea, unrelated to my work, about perception of national identity, and the conception of self in relationship to external influence in the Philippines that has little to do with my work.

I have commented here in the journal with a few of the moments where this theme of the Philippines as a place that is without its own culture, but have been catching these comments far more, and I think in some ways it would make an interesting discussion for a conference paper. Also, everyone I meet could be an interlocutor, as opposed to waiting around trying to find doctors/nurses etc… who have the time to talk.

Similarly I wish that I felt I could legitimately work on the sex tourism, expat community here, it is weird and interesting, and by happening into a bar, I’ve gotten to know a dozen talkative guys I’d be able to chat with.

How does an ethnography of the Australian Expat community in Manila sound? Power and Marginality/ Gender/Sex and it maintains some parts of the original. I could keep the focus on neoliberalism, travel and transnationalism, but get rid of the pesky technical knowledge community. I bet I could even focus on doctors here. I’ve found that some of the guys have even asked me questions about medical care, my having identified myself as a semi-knowledgable amateur as part of the discussions of medical tourism.

For example, freaked out slightly earlier in the week, scotty came back from a doctors appointment and flagged me down. “You know about Cortisone?” I looked at him, and said “Umm.. sort of, what sort of steroids were you interested in?” Looking at the near toothless aged cowboy/Drover… “Doc gave me injections of hydro-Cortisone in both legs today… know shit-all about it.” I discussed my perception that it seemed reasonable in some cases, and that it had a semi-habit forming thing because you can acclimate to the dosage, as well as it not always treating the cause but minimizing the symptoms. He reminded me he has a form of peripheral artery disease that is painful in his legs, and I said that if the tightened arteries were inflamed/swollen then Hydrocortisone might make sense, but he should look into getting as low a dose as he could, rather than continuing what sounded like a huge injected dose two to three times a week… but I also reminded him I wasn’t a doctor. He shrugged and we talked a bit about his perception of Philippino “Docs” being sort of quick and dirty, and prone to over charging. This lead into a discussion among he and another expat sitting with him, talking about the stupidity of America not having a national health service like England and Australia. I explained Medicare and Medicaid and that it would apply to guys their age. They and another, slightly younger, Australian all confirmed that while they got intermittent care while staying in the Philippines, their primary doctor who they trusted was the Australian national service doc they saw on trips home. In effect they saw home as the place for diagnosis, and Manila as an acceptable place for treatment of a known illness if you happened to be there. When asked about taking specific trips for care, i.e. medical tourism, they explained they thought it wouldn’t be popular in Australia because of the economy of the national health service.

Over the course of this discussion, they got drunker, and as always conversation turned back to the subject of girls, sports and the stupidity of whoever was mentioned…. I wandered away to play a game of pool across the road at the southern cross, and eventually made a fairly early night of it.

Once again I was struck by the fact that everyone is so genuinely surprised that I don’t have a “girlfriend”, a phrase which can alternately mean that I haven’t been seen in the company of multiple or single girls, presumably for sex. When I say I am ‘old fashioned’ there is sometimes a sort of curiosity, but still a fairly clear sense that this just means I’m looking for one girl to sleep with while I am here, rather than many.

I also started to work on an abstract for the European STS association meetings which are taking place in the US this coming fall, but I don’t think I’ll have them done by the deadline for the panel I’d be asking to join.

ADDENDUM TO SATURDAY NIGHT:

I almost forgot to add that when I got back to the bar I spent a while drinking with two navy guys, both long term navy, both with families in Hawaii, they were really nice, if very loud and drunk. We were joined part way through by an expat american I'd met briefly before, another career navy man, and I was allowed to join despite failing to be a sailor. I have learned that the "goat locker" is where the chiefs sleep, a special zone reserved for those ranks of non-coms. And I wish I could remember the loudly yelled, oath of the Chief, which the internet provides "A Chief Petty Officer shall not drink. However, if he should drink he shall not get drunk. If he should get drunk, he shall not stagger. And if he should stagger, he shall not fall. And if he should fall, he will fall in such a manner as to cover up his rank so that passerbyers will think he is an officer". One of the two had come in with a girl, and after they had sex she politly sat there waiting, he having paid for the night. While he alternated between a) ignoring her to talk to us, b) making incredibly lude self aggrandizing comments about his having fucked her, and asking her to confirm them, and c) offering her sexual services to us. None of us took him up on it, though I am not sure she would have been willing had anyone taken him up on his offensivly offered generosity. She and I got a laugh by making "oh, they are drunk faces at each other" and at the end of the night she said I was nice and gave me her phone number... We went out for a drink or two, very expensive at a place I had meant to come in and check out. THE HOBBIT HOUSE, staffed by midgets/little people, is a bar restaurant with live music, and a vaguely Tolkien theme. I am told it was redone to be this incarnation around the time the Lord of the rings movies came out, and staring at the freaks is an obligatory sight of dubious ethics for tourists in Malate.

That is all for now.

failedoptimist — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:08:43 GMT

Every time I talk to people here, I ask where/what they think someone visiting Manila/the Philippines as a whole should do or see.... I do this wherever I travel, and in general I find the listing of things to do/see to be a fairly standard response. When I was in Israel on the guided tour, there were things people would activly encourage me to see despite the schedule, in Paris and London it was a conflict between the guidebook official list, and people's personal eccentric suggestions. Here. In Manila. I have yet to have someone answer enthusiastically, if it wasn't an older white guy recommending a girly bar. In general the response is a pause, maybe mention of the intramuros, or the cathedral, but in general noone seems to think there are sights to visit. I wonder about the tourism system here that hasn't managed to publicize a list of sights to see. Japanese tourists come to shop, so I am told. Other tourists come for sex, I have yet to meet anyone who has heard of medical tourists, except for one person who knew about travel From Tokyo to Singapore, and wasn't surprised to hear they came here also. What does it say that noone initially thinks of this city as a place worth sightseeing in? Is it related to my previously commented upon sense from the literature, and people's comments here that this is a place without a culture of its own?

Tuesday-

Tuesday was the day that I ended up finally making the trip up to Quezon city. After a quick examination of the routes of the LRT and MRT (the rail/subway system here), I headed out to the check email and have lunch before heading northward. I Had the single worst meal I can remember, which means less given my preference for only remembering good stuff. But the Italian place, advertising all over ermita and Malate ‘Don Enricos’ offers a cheap buffet and I had been feeling like pizza or something not as adventurous. My usual rule of ‘an empty place is to be avoided’ was set aside, because I thought pasta and pizza, especially when in abundance, don’t have to be very good to be edible. The service was polite, and the place had blasting air conditioning (appreciated on a day crowning past 90 degrees ) but the ambiance was like a bad mall restaurant, and the buffet turned out to be several small bowls of chopped veggies and an acrid pseudo ceaser salad dressing, three varieties of overcooked and cold pasta, and four varieties of sauce that can at best be described as fortunately being bland enough that the bad flavor wasn’t too strong. The alfredo and white sauce, both presented with colorful but flavorless chunks of vegetable matter in them had a taste and texture I can most readily compare to paste. At the same time the marinara was vaguely reminiscent of tomato paste with chopped peppers thrown in…. in all the ‘hawaii’ sauce, a red sauce with pinapple added proved most palatable, if not desirable. Despite the AC the garlic bread had been humidified to rubberyness, and the pizza (though hot and cooked to order) was a masterpiece best left for someone whom has never eaten real pizza. A cardboard nearly unlevened crust was smothered in the same marinara and chunks of what could loosely be called bland sausage then dusted with flavorless cheese that quickly chilled in the AC to a dull and chewy mass, voiding the effort to create slices that had taken place in the kitchen.

Following this meal I took the long way on the LRT, riding on all three lines through two of the large stations that situate exchange points. The other option is riding the longer but more direct route on just two lines. I noticed that there are waiting areas just for women, but in all cases could see little (if any effort) to keep men out, and noticed that mostly people waited patiently despite the crowds. The trains are a relatively well kept, and for the city garbage free, elevated train system. I’ll be curious to look into the history of it, but it is largely an adjunct to the local jeep/jeepney system of private transport which seems to be how most people move around. On the train, with ubiquitous subway style advertising above the windows and straps for the straphangers, I Watched the city go by from a new angle, above. I hadn’t really seen before but the city seems crowned by rooftop shanty villages(to a greater and lesser degree, as the concentration gets tighter in the downtown/central city, and less in the outlying areas like Malate or Quezon, where there is space in between buildings. But especially as I passed into the Recto station downtown, and the elevated walkway between the two stations that connect there, the walking bridge had a feeling of voyeurism. On level with the hand made shacks, seeing peoples laundry hanging, and a man changing or replacing corrugated aluminum roofing. In a shaded corner a man slept sitting up, and below children running amid the hustle and bustle of street vendors on the sidewalks. I had not realized how different the area in which I stay was until I was there, and took a brief walk around before the heat and crowd got the better of me. On the last leg of the train ride, from Cubao north to Quezon avenue, I was crowded into a gaggle of uniformed highschool or college kids. I have a hard time telling the difference due to the uniforms worn by many of the colleges, combined with my general inaptitude to tell ages. They giggled and played with cell phones, and a pair surreptitiously held hands, the others not noticing or not commenting. At each of the larger stations, Recto, Cubao, Quezon, the station itself opened on one side into a mall, continuing to enforce my tendency to think that malls are oddly central here. I had a cabby who didn’t know where I meant to go on a trip back to the hostel, who vaguely knew Mabini Street and Pedro Gil, but had been to Robinson mall.

Quezon city has slightly wider streets, and a mix of slightly taller buildings on avenues with single separate houses on the side streets, I had commented before that it’s reputation had lead me to think of it as Queens in NYC, and I still think that appropriate. I caught a cab to a hotel, and when I asked the local cabby what was around there, he said the mall, I mentioned the university and he gestured and said it was a ways in that direction, and when I asked about fun things to do, night life, he said some restaurants. the hotel my brother was thinking of staying at was right on a central landmark in Quezon City, the elliptical road, centering on a monument, this forms the hub of about a half dozen larger avenues in the area, and offers one of the few mentioned landmarks of the city that I have noticed.

The hotel was nice enough, clean and well located for the area, with a nice starbucks downstairs giving it a much more American feel given my recent experiences with conference hotels and the ubiquity of the in-lobby starbucks. I think I may be strange but, despite the inconveniences, and not solely because of price, I would rather stay at the dive hostel I am in. Roal, the concierge who showed me a sample room, and walked me around the small hotel (pool here…. Wi-fi free in all rooms…. Safe…) also said that the fun thing to do around there was a few restaurants, when I asked about sightseeing, and tourist stuff, he mentioned the intramuros and I quickly decided that sightseeing in Quezon wasn’t a big draw.

I asked the concierge about the neighborhood, and he reassured me it was safe, though I had asked about what to see while I walked around. I wandered around for an hour, chatted with some teenage boys on the street who thought it was funny and odd that an American was strolling around the street. They actually laughed when I said I was “sighseeing” gesturing down the street on which stood a pair of restaurants, an empty lot, shantys, a stray dog and the three bored teens. Asking where I was going , I pointed ahead down boromeo (?maybe) street and said “that way” with a shrug, and they waved smiling and laughing. Down the way I was behind a bus load of tourists who were en-masse transferring back to their hotel from their restaurant before presumably going somewhere else by bus. I didn’t understand a word of their conversation, but they looked bored, and their guide was quietly herding them without any notes about the environs. Over all I think that I’d find it comfortable to spend time living thereif I was staying a long time, but, am unable to conceive of something other than a trip to the university there that would bring me that far north within the city again.

I decided that having walked the better part of a mile away from the circle road, and away from the station, I’d just catch a cab back down to my hostel, I had asked the staff at the hotel how much a cab would be and they estimated close to 500 pesos, or just over ten dollars US. I figured it would be worth it. I hailed a cab, driven by marco, who was 25, three kids and a prior experience bankrupting a small business that had left him driving the cab, and avoiding the hotels. We discussed religion brieftly, because I expressed an interest in seeing the church where the black nazareen, an icon with considerable miracles on its record rested. He was surprised, saying he thought all Americans were protestant. I explained that I was loosely Christian, but didn’t have a denomination, and I was interested. He said that was good and explained in his broken English that it was good for a person to be open minded. Much of the trip was filled with his story, and his brief comments about driving a cab. “My brother police officer, good job, steady…. He married too.” “Driving here very slow in traffic… best to use many small streets.” And this he did, zigging and sagging through back streets in a consistent southwesterly direction, until we reemerged onto Rizal avenue to cross the river, and then in familiar territory for me we were passing by the intramuros and the casinos came into sight. “those Pagcor [the casino company] are bad places… you should avoid…. “

I asked him about what being a taxi driver was liked and he mentioned that the drivers were territorial, the local cabbies didn’t like it when guys from other neighborhoods picked up fares. After a brief discussion of this, in which he wasn’t comfortable with my calling it ‘territorial’ he said it was about respect. At first I didn’t understand the distinction, and can’t remember his exact words, but the gist turned out to be that it wasn’t a threatening about territory, but rather a justified sense of dishonesty between cabbies, that there were only so many rides, and you were in effect stealing. A self imposed appropriate action, rather than a threat of punishment, at least as he said it.

Earlier, referring to my neighborhood, I said that I like to flirt with the girls but I don’t take them home, and he had complimented me, but said he didn’t like to flirt… flirting he said “makes for too much fun” implying that it leads to you taking the girls home with you. While stopped at a rare traffic light besides the casino nearest my hostel, he turned to me and said “there no flirting” in a way I didn’t quite understand, upon asking he said with a smile that it was the sort of place that costs money. Still in the dark as to his meaning I let the question drop, and pointed to where he should pull over to drop me off. Reminding me that he used to drive tour vans, he tried to get me to hire him as a tour driver if I was going to need one, but I decided that I’d rather not. He was disapointed that I wouldn’t give him my number, and that his mention of a friend who was a beautiful actress, that she occasionally dated nice Americans like me, and would I like to be introduced, had led to a no, I paid and tipped a little bit. He smiled again, and I said the tip was because he had been a good talker.

That night a long conversation between myself and several of the long term residents revolved around the variable character of the Australians as opposed to others, and the particular trial of dealing with Filipina gals that arise from it. I should also preface this by saying, as a new Yorker, they all compare me to Seinfeld. I think that it may be a subtle Australian conceit for their perception of me as Jewish, but since they stereotype themselves horribly I can’t fault them. As for their comment it focused on the conception of their being a particularly honest approaching blunt people, and that they are fond of innuendo and humor based on doubled meaning. This is certainly true of these guys, though I wouldn’t generalize it to the populace as a whole. The trouble it turns out is that because the local girls have good but not great English skills, and a different sense of humor, the communication gap that forms makes for difficulty. Two examples, an old Aussie man referring to his local girlfriend as having a nose bleed, and it keeping them from being intimate, lead to a good round of laughs, but explaining that he had mentioned it to her, she was horrified. That he would equate the two things seemed inappropriate, and the humor lost, while the candor of admitting to others that you weren’t having sex due to her period seemed to be a joke at her expense. The guys all felt like this was silly, since they certainly understood that sometimes women have periods, and all but one had kids and a previous marriage to attest that they knew all women had periods. The problem as they saw it, was that they really felt they were laughing at a clever turn of phrase rather than the reality of the situation it connected to. At the same time some turns of phrase do work, the same woman had been mad about the comment, but forgave him when he made her laugh later on. Despite her hurt feelings, a trip away from manila to the beach was planned and when the plans were mentioned, he told her he wouldn’t be having sex with her then because his period was coming on. She looked at him and started to say he couldn’t have a period, realized it was a joke. The both of them smiling now he said it was okay if she wanted to be mad because he didn’t feel like having sex on the trip now that he had a nose bleed, proceeded to rub his nose and crotch at the same time, and the absurdity got a serious laugh out of the two.
This may have been a pointless note but it struck me. I’ve found that since I have been here I’ve avoided sarcasm and innuendo, in part because the one or two times I used them, I was also taken seriously. I can’t quite place the connection between the tendency to be taken literally and the general openness of the cabbies, bar staff and bar girls that I’ve spoken to who all seem very comfortable talking about anything. The story about the nose bleed, confused me at the time, because open discussion of sex, periods, peeing in the street, prostitution, and anything else besides religion seems to be so thoroughly entrenched in this social milieu.

WED-

After breakfast at the hostel, I stopped in again at the archive/library again, still not impressed, but a little reading there seemed productive enough for the day, before I would walk to the conference hotel where I would meet my Sister-in-law’s uncle Professor Reynaldo ‘Rey’ De La Cruz. At about 3 I walked across Rizal park, and looked around the conference hotel where he was in session. Fancy, marble floors, and a nice open layout made it a pleasant place to sit and cool down for a few minutes before I moved into the conference space. The National Research Council of the Philippines (NRC) was modeled after the united states National Academy of Science, induction is by invitation beyond associate level, and to be an associate you must have published scientific work and hold a position in the sciences or technology research. I greeted the conference registration staff and explained I who I was there to see, and in an ‘it’s a small country’ feel it turned out that two of the folks at the desk were acquainted with Rey. He is a forestry and soil scientist, semi-retired, who works on fungal and rhizomatic biotic components of healthy soil and agriculture. This in turn reminded me I had never read the dissertation of a student I briefly overlapped with in grad school who worked on rhizome science in japan. I will have to get a copy and take a look. I got a chance to walk into the poster presentations and take a look, later to find out that Rey was on the panel of judges who graded these. The general tendency was toward agricultural biotechnology, and education, an emphasis that I later commented on, to find that these were two of the strongest funding streams and considered of primary national importance. I was excited to see one which was in part titled “the hermeneutics of Bath houses” and then went on to be a rather straight forward discussion of the current state of public health efforts to do AIDS education among the homosexual community that centers upon them. It was really more of an applied public health project, but I will get in touch with the guy who wrote it. My initial excitement about possibly having found a postmodernist in the land of practical positivist research was set aside, but at least it was an interesting sounding attempt to include a culturalist element, and perhaps offers a suggestion of someone who wouldn’t look at me confused when I talk about my research.

Rey came out to meet me after the banquet started wrapping up, and I went in and met his wife Lori, we chatted while they finished watching the awards, and I loitered while they said goodbye to longtime friends. They were sorry, both the people they wanted to introduce me to, and applied anthropologist, and the doctor/researcher who I have been emailing, weren’t there to be introduced to me.

While discussing the extent of my wandering it was mentioned that I hadn’t been to the “MALL OF ASIA” largest mall in asia, and about third or fourth largest in the world. They needed to complete an errand while in Manila and we went over to the mall. It is huge, and while I didn’t see the ice skating rink, I did see the carousel, streets, and massive scale of the whole place. We stopped at a book store where they successfully found the book they were looking for, and I picked up the first book by the national Hero Rizal, to take a look at. Then, on Rey’s suggestion, we went to KFC, where I learned they offer a relatively good mushroom soup, and otherwise are as expected. During dinner, I spoke a little about my project, and once again found the general interest and sense of surprise that there was something called ‘medical tourism’ but was gratified to learn more about them. Rey’s current work is in Agro-biotech, though he didn’t give me details. His wife, is in forestry.

They dropped me off back at the hostel with a young coconut pie, the local delicacy of Los Banos, which was very pleasant and remains in part in the fridge in my hotel room for continued snacking. It is like a lightly sweetened coconut custard pie with young coconut flesh layered in, rather than shredded dry coconut and coconut milk.

I should probably take notes on our conversation because I got a lot out of talking to Uncle Rey, but will leave it as two comments. The first is that my sense that very applied science rules seemed to be in line with what he said about funding. And while I am still confused about politics here, he seems to think that Estrada (the corrupt actor politician) isn’t a serious contender for another term in the presidency. I also find it interesting that this is the third time that I have heard the story of the downfall of the Marcos regime as being the fault of Imelda, this explanation of spousal ills as the problem came up because Rey said that the current president GM Arroyo, wasn’t bad but her husband was so corrupting as to ruin her leadership… just like the Marcos problem but gender switched. I’d heard the explanation that the good parts of the regime were due to husband and bad due to wife about the Marcoses from the guide at the historical museum and from the cabby I drove with to santa cruz. I don’t quite understand it. I keep having a problem with the way the story is told, it is too apologetic or something, but it is interesting.

Upon return to the hostel, I got into a long talk with one of the Australians who I hadn’t talked to much before, Bob, and an American Ron/ronny who I mentioned before but may have called by the wrong name. Ron is the merchant seaman from Seattle. We discussed the failing of American healthcare, and the national health service in Australia, and then discussed the perception the Australian had as opposed to us that there was something special about the US character, the American dream ideology, which Ron and I both describe as a powerful lie. We chatted about Australia some more and he convinced me that it was silly to have not gone to a couple of the local places sort of aligned with the slouch hat in, namely the other Australian spots in the blocks around it.. the southern cross pub and inn, the swag man bar/restaurant/inn, both of which seem nice and are within a block or so. He also introduced me the the staff at the small bar immediately adjacent to the slouch hat, saying that I should remember I can always come there if I want a change of pace and it is only feet away. I drank a fair bit, and then headed to bed.

THURSDAY-

A quiet day, watched tv, read a little at the archive/library and continue to find it not useful. stayed in, was a little hung over in the morning, and feeling sort of low. Nothing really to report about the day.

FRIDAY (march 12)-

Discussion of the stereotype of Australians part two, continued over coffee. I also got some good intelligence about how to do a day trip down to Angeles city if I want to, stay at the American Hotel, which bars to go to, where to get the shuttle bus… I don’t know that I really want to make the trip, but it is good to know how. It rained this morning, into the early afternoon, and I took it easy before going out to lunch at the girly bar the G spot which is actually the “G Point” on most of the signs. They transform for the afternoons into a bargain buffet restaurant, which was actually fairly good. I particularly enjoyed their “sweedish meatballs” which were nothing like the Swedish Meatballs I have had before, a Philippino dish of taro leaf stewed in coconut milk, and the ratatouille, which was entirely uninfluenced by the French dish of the same name beyond both containing zucchini/squash…. But at least I’ve finally found a vegetables that were worth eating.

Folllowing lunch I went for a walk, and despite having received directions to the post office, still manage to fail to find it. I’ll look again on my way back to the hostel. I want to observe that I have noticed that no place sells antacids here, having looked around for them, whereas every corner store and candy shop in NYC has them. I’m doing okay without, but am wondering if their absence is indicative of something else, whether the lack of need, or a different method of treatment.

I’ve been hanging at the starbucks at the mall, typing up these entries about the last couple days, and watching folks come and go, while reading about the world online. I’m not sure about the plans for the night, but likely I will go back to the hostel or revisit one of the other Aussie spots that Bob brought me to the other night.
In the mean time, I’ve finally started an idea for the anthropology meetings abstract and am going to work on it a bit more this afternoon. I think that I’ll just be pitching them on straight up discursive work, rather than continuing to fight with myself on how much to lie about my expectations for ethnographic work between now and then.

failedoptimist — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:42:32 GMT

ENTRY 6

Monday Evening-

After being online yesterday, I arrived back at the hostel and spent some time writing letters, trying to work on the abstract idea for the anthro meetings in the bar. I spent a while chatting with two young New Zealanders who are in town for the first time. They actually live in Tokyo and are coming through Manila on their way to the beaches in the south, but wanted to stop by Manila and check it out, in part because they were interested in being sort of ‘incidental sex tourists’, rather than plan the trip around sex they just added a side jaunt because they weren’t sure if the south would have the same level of red-light. I’d love to hear about their perception of the difference, but they don’t plan to come back through Manila. They, like most people, seem to be uninterested in excavating any sort of specific culture from Manila. I call them incidental sex tourist because they considered it a side effect of their plan to come to the beach, despite having chosen Philippine beaches clearly because it allowed them the potential for cheap paid sex. The knowledge that the Philippines offered sex and the beach was all they needed to know.

The kiwis described it as being a place you didn’t have to know about. They sounded at one point like the tour guide at the museum who was describing the perception and actuality of the culture-less Philippines. This he said what was most unique wasn’t that they were hybrid, but that through imposition and inclination the people of the philipines were totally the product of hybridity. That this proudly a culture of adaptation and appropriation. He compared the
Filipino, and the nation, to a dish called something like halo halo, I don’t know what the word was, a bowl filled with a variety of tasty stuff. To this tour guide, a paid interpreter of culture, the philipine culture was that they could be a better bowl than others. The contents of the bowl all appear to be borrowed from other cultures. Similarly when the tour guide at the national historical institute was talking he several times allowed a traditional culture to appear by mentioning a willingness, rather than a positive culture it was a culture in negative space. The pre-spanish tradition of governance by familial and group representation was comparable to modern democracy given by America, but it was not democracy, it was rather a potential energy of democracy. Similarly, the dramatic and theatrical performative ritual tradition that preceded the Spanish became satirical political theater of protest under them, having never before been theater, it was a shadow or space for theater to develop.

I don’t plan to change topics, but I’ll be keeping this idea in mind. In part because it is the bizarro reflection of American discourse of “the melting pot” of the country that accepts all. How different would current arguments in the US be about the “Christian nation” and the failing of “American values” if there was a real sense of the nation as being flexible and without independent character. Here on the other hand it seems to me that the ambiguity arising from the tendency is part of the problem. I asked a number of people about Estrada, the presidential candidate who is an impeached ex-president. Across the board, the responses always allowed that it wasn’t perfect, but there remains immense pride in his position as one of the most prominent actors, and people still love him despite corruption.

I went out to dinner, and had a thouroughly mediocre pan-asian buffet which is not worth describing except to say that it seemed largely populated by non-philippines asian tourists. I got a comment from someone that the Japanese tourists all like to eat buffet, but don’t know how accurate that is. I also walked into a different sort of girly-bar, in this new variety all the girls, dressed in similar (but not uniform) stretch white dresses sit lined up along a wall waiting for men to come in, select, and sit down to drink. I decided to retreat, because it was clear that just having a beer would be out of place, and felt entirely unwilling to go up and select a girl.

After wandering around for a while and sticking my head in a few more bars for peeks, I ended up back at the hostel bar at about 9 and had a drink with the bar staff. I have noticed a pattern of my behavior of having a very real sense, at least in this area that there is no evening-night life besides the prostitution and will endeavor to expand my area of operations to see what else is out there. I want to be out past nine pm and not feel like I’m just out to avoid feeling lame for going to bed early.

In the end I did go to bed early-ish, but watched much of the Oscars on repeat. I was surprised to see that ‘the hurt locker’ seemed to sweep, and didn’t like the new format. In particular the tribute to horror music seemed particularly idiotic as an effort to pander to wider audiences. On the contrary, I really liked the tribute to John Hughes, it was fairly well done schmaltz, but I think they did it with enough serious respect that I liked seeing it.

failedoptimist — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:51:54 GMT

Just another note before I get off the computer. Because I am my mothers son, I have to talk about food. Growing up, and traveling as an adult, my mother who eats little bits like a bird unlike the rest of the husky family, was a food voyeur about travel. Tell her where you went, tell her you had a good time, and then you were quizzed for as long as you could stand it, quizzed about everything you ate.

So today for lunch I hit one of the "canteens" sort of cafeteria style places, with steam tables of a variety of foods... they are common in the areas I have been, and it was my first time at this style of place. I walked up and started looking and was steered (clearly the American is scared of the weird stuff) to try the beef stew.... Amid fried, stewed and baked fish of various sorts, several other curry/stews of unknown objects. Batter fried slabs of spam (luncheon meet) and an unidentifiable fritter of some sort. I elected to take their advice and got the beef stew and also got a vegetable stewed thing composed of hunks of okra, green bean, pumpkin/squash, scrap pork and chicken skins, all in a milky bland broth. These came with rice, a small bowl of soup complimentary and a tiny bowl of canned fruit salad. All were edible, but my opinion continues to be that restaurants in Manila don't seem to offer much that is vegetarian or even very interesting in the way of vegetable foods. the soup turned out to be a mild chicken noodle thickened slightly with starch, all for about 2 dollars.

I think I'm going to snack on the way home, I'm looking for a street vendor selling the fried sugared bananas on a stick I have seen several times.

failedoptimist — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:37:56 GMT

ENTRY 5 (Changing from the Day format),

Finishing Day 4

Finished up the other day hanging around with folks in the bar at the Slouch hat, the two Germans were having a loud conversation and I joined them and Scotty in hanging out there. Apparently I am unable to focus on work really well yet, I don’t know, I thought being here would sort of magically allow focus. That it would give me a new lens, and unfortunately it isn’t magic. I took an early night and went to bed. Still having problems sleeping, but not as bad.

Friday ? - DAY 5

So the weekend has begun, and after a nice big breakfast at the hostel bar, I went to go back to the Library/archive to work, and was sad to find (as I should have expected) government buildings aren’t open on the weekend. I went and checked email, grabbed some lunch. I stopped and had a bun from a shop, sweet roast pork in a steamed bun, no better than I’d get in a Chinatown back home, and in fact no better than the one I had the first night from 7-11, which caries a variety of fast food that is parallel but different from the hotdogs and burritos in the US. They even have slurpees. So when I go to the mall to use the internet, I was trying to decide what to eat as supplement. In the end, I oddly decided to step into McDonalds. I expected the little differences, like the availability of a different sauce, but was amused to find that it is mostly a chicken place here, and clearly the most popular dishes were the fried chicken. This lead to observation number two, here some (but not all) McDs have gravy waiters, who walk around with a thermal carafe and offer you more gravy. I may have to go back and try it, fried chicken served next to paper wrapped wads of rice, once unwrapped, rice and chicken get smothered in gravy. Despite the place being packed to the rafters, almost no sandwiches were apparent, and those few I could see didn’t look like burgers, but rather like chicken. Despite my earlier note about the class difference, that Mcdonalds seemed a little more upscale here, so far I would venture to say they share with the US a preponderance of people with kids. Both of the McDs in the mall, and the two on the street near the hotel are often crowded with groups of kids.

After checking email, I had no urge to do much, tried writing a bit on the abstracts I need to do, and still have little inspiration. I was walking out of the mall when I noticed that there was a showing of Alice in Wonderland playing in a few minutes and decided to go in and catch it since it was still hot out, and I didn’t want to be productive. I don’t have many comments about the movie experience. No subtitles, no weird ads, I could have been in any mall in the US with a family of Tagalog speakers behind me occasionally commenting to each other. I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by the movie, having not really liked the last several Tim Burton Movies. This one was fun enough despite a silly pseudo feminist ending.

Walked back to the hotel, and grabbed an ice cream cone from a convenience store. Immediately engulfed by crowd on begger children who claimed I owed them an icecream. I shook off the pack, but one formidable young fellow just kept at me and in the end, I decided I’d rather just give up the cone than have him follow me any farther. I gave him an exasperated look and handed him the cone, he looked gleeful, said thank you, and went to show it off to the crowd of children who failed yelling something in Tagalog which had the tone of “look you guys, I’m better than you, that sucker gave me the icecream” all the while presumably having melted chocolate dripping on his hand.

Friday night was back at the hostel bar chatting with Scotty, the old man I originally met there, and then Donny, a new jersey born, seattle based retiree I mentioned before as the only one of the crowd who seemed not to be about sleeping with young girls. Still claiming fidelity to his wife, who it turns out is in Manila with him, we talked about his nearly fifty years in the Merchant Marine, and he talked about loving Hong Kong. I had asked what his favorite place, of all his ports was, and he said something interesting, that there were things about other placed he liked best, but over all Hong Kong was his favorite because it was the most successful at being a hybrid place. It mixed Chinese and British, wealth and poverty, port and economic power, etc with a greater degree of harmony, where most places fail to some degree. It makes me wish to see the place. We also talked a bit about politics, and it was interesting hearing this working class older guy be more radical then I am in some ways, we ended up the conversation with him declaring “the American dream is dead” if it had ever in fact been true, and that the idea was just keeping the rich in power, at the same time as he said the only way things would change would be revolution. Sitting with a sixty five year old merchant marine in the middle of his annual half year as an expat, while the guy declared the need for a popular uprising to take power back from the rich and powerful was a real pleasure.
Scotty, Donny, and I talked a bit about current Philippine politics (the country is in the full swing of campaigning for president and senate) but none of us knew much, though we were generally in agreement that there was something strange about the general acceptance of boxing and movie star celebrity as credentials for major national office. We tried to get the bar staff who are Filipinas to join in, but they all expressed a general distaste for politics. Scotty reminded me I had planned to go check out the girly bar with the “most tail” the place was “wall to wall pussy” and I figured I’d go out get some dinner and check it out.

I walked down to the block of kebab shops that is the center of the little middle eastern food area that forms a sort of landmark for me between malate and ermita. There I picked a busier place and ordered a mix kebab grill plate, for 5$ I got a really tasty plate of a steak, chicken, and Kofta sausage kebabs with a little salad and a fresh pita toasted on the grill. It was I am surprised to say the best food I have had since I have been here. Though I haven’t been eating that much. I was disgusted to find out that the sauce I assumed was a yogurt based tzaziki of some sort was actually a low grade mayonnaise with some flavorless green leaf flecks in it. This sauce was quickly set aside for a nice hot sauce and the seasoning of the meat itself.

The Los Angeles Café, named after Angeles city here in the Philippines, not the city in the US, is the most well rated Girly-bar (at least as far as I can tell). I should mention that I had heard via the internet that Angeles city was the center of sex tourism for the Philippines, and have a hard time imaginging it given the reassurance of everyone I have asked that it is a whole scale of magnitude more than is found here in Manila. The LA CAFE itself is not as big as the Amazonia, which was huge but so crowded that the time I walked in the door I simply walked out again without having altered speed. Neither is the LA Café, as obviously a whore house as some of the others, but was extrmemly busy with couples coming out and girls going in at 9 pm on a Friday night. As a note, my favorite names of girly bars in the are are “Hussys”, “the G Spot” which I will go to during the day for what I hear is a very good buffet lunch, and the “Red Garter “ which amuses me because when I was about 12 I owned an early 80’s porno about a strip club and the title bar was of course the red garter.

To paint a picture, in general the girly-bars share ringed perimeter, ringed rather simply by the following: dirty street with selection of cabs and pedicabs waiting to hopefully take folks away, a few men who were passing or aiming for the place now stopped deciding whether or not to enter, and a couple of girls acting as barkers trying to get all passersby to enter. The girls will repeat rather explicit comments about girls and sex, and open the door for men who seem mixed between single and groups of only occasionally white foreigners. A few feet beyond this triple wall, there will usually be a fixer guy trying to take you to a money changer or sell you Viagra/cialis. A few feet beyond will be a fixer trying to get you to come to a genuine whore house. Of the clubs I mentioned, and about a dozen others that are large this pattern is predictable, and only a smaller place such as “Hussys” diverges. Smaller places often simply have a girl in front waving and seem to catch in between the big nets. The one night I was out after midnight there were girls looking for dates on the street, but in general the sex work seems to very much center on the bars.

I entered the rather crowded L A Café, and worked through the crowd to the bar, where I tried to catch a bartenders attention. The seat next to me was held by a bargirl who was talking to another girl, on either side were heavy set middle aged white men with several bar girls talking to them. The girl sitting, insisted that I take the seat, I insisted I didn’t want to take her seat, she stood, I stood, she looked at me as if I was a fool, and I eventually sat. I tried to order a beer from the bar and got a sort of nod, but was told by the girls who had appeared in a ring around me that I should order from a waitess. I acquiesced and they called a waitress over while they jockeyed for position making me feel uncomfortable. By the time the waitress came three girls had squarely surrounded me, and I offered to buy them a drink after asking how expensive the girl drinks were. I was told that this place was for independent girls, and the bar charged the same for drinks for the girls. I ordered two of us beers, one of the girls a coke and the third a bottle of water. I was a bit tipsy from the beers before dinner, and asked their names. Jamaica (pronounced like the Mexican beverage, not the caribean country), said her name and when I looked surprised she said it was her nickname. She was the most talkative, though Mary (the youngest, and chubbiest) who stood sort of behind me sipping her coke, had the best accent speaking english. The third I have forgotten the name of, so I will call her Anna.

I introduced myself, and we toasted while each took the drink as a sign to sort of fondle me, making Jamaica smile as I sort of flinched into my chair. I understand why someone would like this, but the immediate manhandling by three women I’ve never met was uncomfortable for me as a neurotic. We discussed that it was my first time there, first time in manila, and first time in asia, and they thought it was nice that I would come to see it. I should clarify that I have taken to saying that I am in Manila, to see what I have read about, as part of my explaining that I am a student. Jamaica, who clearly had a better sense of how to play a client, expressed interest in my studies and we briefly talked about my studying healthcare policy and how people got medicine. None of the three had ever really heard of medical tourism, but all understood the idea that someone might conceivable come to Manila for that, rather than just sex. Mary, who was the second to realize I was a little uncomfortable, had insisted on feeding me a French fry in a sort of movie parody of a failed attempt at sensuality, joked around a little and then wandered off after saying I should know that Jamaica was great, and as she left that included giving great blowjobs. This led to Jamaica providing a brief set of comments that I will describe as being part of her sexual tourguide tone. Explaining (in my paraphrasing) that the bar girls here were independent, no pimp like at some bars, and so I could work out a deal them as I saw fit. Explaining that I shouldn’t feel like I had to go immediately, or buy many girls drinks, or pick a girl immediately. With just the two of them in competition, Anna, who had been quieter made a comment and said I was young enough to be her son (which struck me as bad tactics, but sort of sweet), and was apparently genuinely surprised to hear I was 33 to which she agreed she would “probably not” be old enough to be my mother, despite not being willing to say how old she was. I got the sense that even though I told her I was bad at guessing ages, I would place her as younger than 40 to which she smiled. After much earlier a joke among the girls that I would take all three home, since I was handsome young, and my place was close by. I was drawn back from talking to Anna about her age, by Jamaica who again in her sort of sex tour guide tone leaned over and asked if I wanted to get another drink (mine was empty theirs mostly full). I said no, I’d just be leading the girls along since when I left I’d be getting dinner, and didn’t plan to take a girl home with me. She smiled and said I was cute. Anna asked if I wanted to take her to dinner with me, but the tone didn’t convey dinner conversation, but had this tone which felt strangely like she didn’t want to lose a fish from her hook. She looked tired and her English wasn’t that great, and I said no, I was just getting something quick. She started to ask if I could give her some money to get something to eat, and I handed her a 50 peso note (what I think of as equivalent to a dollar), she smiled happily, yet still with those tired eyes and moved off. I turned back to Jamaica and asked if she was regularly at the LA Café, because maybe I’d be in another night and could buy her a drink again. She said she isn’t usually, but sometimes on Fridays and Saturdays. I thanked her for talking to me and started to get up. She reiterated I was handsome, this time in tagalog, and I said thanks beautiful in Tagalog in response, which got a clap, and that was that.

I went back to the bar, had a nice conversation with another aussie, and the remaining German. When I got there the two germans, both regulars at the hostel, Yoric (or something that sounds like Yorik) is a fat bald but funny and sort of sweet tempered Chief Chef on a Regal Cruise ship, he takes vacations from the ship in Manila a couple times a year, and the other a land lubber still living in germany named Gunther was Taller younger darker and absurdly hairy. By midnight, well into drunk, but limited by the Israel lesson, I went to bed.
The Isreal lesson is this: If the environment is hot, for example the desert or tropics, I will have hangovers 2-3 times worse than in the US. The logic being proven true repeatedly in Israel, and so far here. When I would be fine after 3-5 beers at home, they give me a mild hangover here, this has been the state most nights/days in Manila.

SATURDAY:

Friday night I had about a dozen beers and woke Saturday with a medium hangover centered on a dehydtration headache. A big bottle of water, coffee, and another nice breakfast got me feeling right, though with the exception of some wandering around ermita again looking for a nice dinner place I didn’t do much. I had grilled meat again, and didn’t drink at all for the first time since being here. I did spend a fair bit of time reading a school book, Jill Fisher’s book on the reorganization of drug development and medical experimentation. The thing is I had skimmed it before, and taken a phrase or two for my proposal, but really reading it, I see it much more clearly as a useful model for my work. She talks about the development of niche industry to support the privatization/comoditization of testing away from traditional sites of research. I’m not going to comment much here, but I think as I am framing a dissertation in my head these days, it as well as the Tourism book I read just before leaving have taken a much more central place in framing my work as model texts. The tourism book ‘the heritage scape’ by Di Giovine (spelling could be off), is a bourdieuian analysis of the making of the UNESCO heritage site system, linking it to multiple discussions of authenticity and heritage in the tourism literature. Still a little tired from my hangover, I ended up going to bed early, and waking up repeatedly with bad dreams for some reason. I don’t understand it, but I usually don’t even remember dreaming when I wake up, this time woke up several times from bad dreams, would drink some water watch a half hour of TV, go back to sleep, and then wake up again later.

SUNDAY:

Had breakfast at the hostel, and had a long discussion with an Australian Expat who runs a Dive shop on one of the southern islands, just to get away from work he sometimes comes to Manila for vacation. The aussie, Migs, talked for a while about the culture of corruption in authority here, and made the observation that foreigners often dislike it, but given an internal (what I would call an emic) perspective you could see it as a good thing. I asked him to explain, and the bar staff agreed with him. Given the failures of the system and of governance here, the opening of alternative routes to do things, which often require very affordable bribes, allows people who don’t know the system’s loopholes to do things that would be denied them in Australia or the US. For instance he was saying, starting a small business would require incorporation, and thus paying a lawyer, license fees, etc… which would be hard to follow given weak educational systems, especially down in the southern islands. But for a minor bribe, the guys at the office take care of the details providing simply the end result to the person who needs it. I said it sounded like the legal process in the US of hiring an expediter, which when

I explained it, he pointed out was a far less efficient system than making public officials do the expediting themselves for far lower fees.
At around this point in the conversation, I realized that something had gone wrong in my digestive track. Retreated upstairs and spend the rest of the day relaxing in my room and the bathroom while it went back to normal. I made it downstairs once and was reminded that all the Ozzies were going to be in their rooms watchin the movie Australia that night, and decided that this was a sign to return to my room.

MONDAY

Woke up, showered and watched some Oscars red carpet which felt very strange since I am used to seeing it in the evening. Got dressed, and went out to be productive. This idea of being productive hasn’t been working out, but I have had good intentions. Spent an hour going through the museum of the historical institute, and was fascinated that either a) the tour guide knew less history than I did, or b) was unable to express much in English (despite apparently speaking English very well).

Three interesting moments,

1) we discussed the role of the American occupation, and my comment was that the refgusal to grant autonomy was basically unforgivable, but he countered, the Americans really did what they said they were going to do in providing a bridge to independence. Though the eventually war of independence was necessary, his sense was that the modern love of all things American in part stems from a real sense that the Americanization that happened during US colonial times was a necessary step to political and social development leading to democracy.

2) while I was researching Philippine history, there had been a sort of side note that mentioned the use of water torture, and its denial by McKinley and his secretary of war that was nigh on identical to contemporary discourses in the Iraq war (if I remember right which president correctly). This had been a sort of ironic side note , of interest for comparison, but there in the museum was an 8x10 black and white photo of American officers water boarding a philippine civilian. I mentioned that I read about these abuses, and he seemed unfazed by it. The history of colonial brutality was yet another step along the tour of foreign abuses which his story said were necessary steps to the contemporary. I let it drop.

3) While doing the hall of heroes and presidents he would ask if I knew anything about each person, and I would comment briefly. The great hero Rizal is amazing to me for his triple identity as doctor, freedom fighter and writer, and also for the automatic use of the word hero before his name by every one here. When the Cabby mentioned him it was “the hero of the Philippines Rizal”, and so on with everyone else.

Down the line of displays we got to the Marcos Regime, the earliest of the presidents I really know much about, and I immediately commented that I knew some about this government because of the corruption and repression. He immediately responded with an apologia, that during the early years of the regime they were great, and at one point their agricultural reforms had made the Philippines the biggest net exporter of Rice in Southern Asia (by which I assume he meant to not include China). They had, he suggested gone bad part way through, but it was the fault of Imelda and her shopping. For my guide President Marcos himself was still popular, with himself and even his grandparents who had lived through all this history. Marcos’s flight from the nation, carrying away billions of dollars in US and Philippine currency (nearly bankriupting the treasury), was an anomaly that was sort of forgivable. I gaped and we moved on to the next president, the heroic Ninoy Aquino, and his wife Corazon who took over. Even while explaining their importance as opponents of the evils of the Marcos regimes martial law, abuses and abunadant imprisoning of political prisoners, there was no apparent dischord with his apologia for Marcos. I let it go.

I was reminded of the discussion of the problems in contemporary Philippine politics when he pointed out that Joseph Estrada, the president who preceded the current one, had been sent to prison for corruption, for gathering millions of dollars by illicitly supporting underground gambling networks and other graft. This name sounded familiar, and he explained that Estrada was the same Arnold Scwartzenegger figure of politics I was thinking was running for president now. I hadn’t made the connection that the #3 presidential candidate at the moment, had spent 6 of the last 12 years in prison after being impeached for corruption. Estrada, who had made dozens of movies before getting elected VP and then President, has apparently still got enough of a cultural following to be making a good play for political resurrection.

After finishing the historical tour, I went upstairs to the national library/archives, and asked about access. It is easy, so long as I don’t want to take anything out, or Xerox, I can sit there and take notes as long as I want. The problem being, they have nothing. I should explain, they don’t have nothing, they have a few more books than I do. Though theirs are solely on Philippine history and society, but they have a smaller selection of books than I had access to via interlibrary loan at home, and the most interesting ones are things I have already looked at. Federal documents are available with a slight headache, but… BUT only until about 1979, since then there is no finding guide, and no centralization. The archives may have them but they are not available. Because of this limited selection, I’ll be able to spend some time here to expand my literature review, but as a real resource I think it is a dead end, as I will have to apply to each government office branch for their documents in the last ten-twenty years, a process she didn’t seem to think was likely to work.

That leads me to Now, I’ll post in a moment, and then decide what to do. Tommorow, I’ll be heading up to see the Quezon City section of Metro Manila, which I am likening in my head to Queens in NY, more suburban, more consistently middle class than the mixture in other areas. But I shall see. So today, another shot at abstract writing. For anyone reading, forgive the huge post, but I didn't feel like walking to mall and going online over the weekend.

failedoptimist — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:52:59 GMT

Day 3 end-note

The third day of the trip which had begun well with the move and early email, ended up being very quiet, between the heat, and my continued exhaustion/sleep troubles I ended up staying in at the hostel, watching some tv in my room, napping and reading. I came downstairs and had a quick drink among the older guys, but once again was gone before any semblance of a bar girl scene was in effect. I may have to do more than look in the door of one of the big places, just for the experience. As it was little to write about, but with the two months or so here, I don’t feel a lot of pressure to keep a fast pace.
In my head I am thinking, “If perchance you don't mind, may I inquire as to the value of lines on the street, they seem to not mean the same things here as where I come from. If there are three lanes between parked cars all marked with intermittent white lines between, and cars more or less share the middle going in both directions, is this not a likely source of problems... Oh of course not sir, I am sure it does make everything smoother, you know share and share alike.”

Day 4 –A long walk in the The Intramuros

The intramuros, the old city dating to Spanish colonial days in some parts co-locational to 14th century settlements, sits on the far side of Rizal park from Ermita where I am staying, this morning I determined that I’d get to the archives and then if I had time, I’d go into the Intramuros. Well, sadly though I did find the national library, archives and historical institute, I could not get in. I took other folks’ advice and locked up my passport, carrying a Xerox copy of my ID in case of theft. Sadly, despite being a clearly sweaty, chunky and approaching sunburnt American, I was not allowed in without my passport. I shall endeavor to get there tomorrow.
In light of this change in plans I walked into the intramuros, and wandered. It shares some traits with my remembered image of contemporaneous Mexican colonial areas, from when I saw them years ago. The old architecture of broad brick and stone buildings surrounding courtyards are scattered occasionally amidst the far more current ones. The streets are narrow and have a somewhat European scale to them as is the case with those old cities so influenced by early colonial growth, such that even where the slum or chain store attire of the streets might give the impression of similarity to the US, it still had a different spatial feel. The streets that were more colonial, and better preserved were walked less, and by greater numbers of tourists (or so it seems to me), while often around the corner bustling crowds of school kids, taxi men, and passersby did what people always do, laugh and play, bicker about their cars, and walk to and from work.
There are probably more historical sites that I failed to care about (or perhaps simply failed to see), and I may make another trip later in the time here, but for now I saw a beautifully preserved mid Victorian household museum, which was interesting but much like any household museum, largely just a bunch of furniture for lack of the messiness that would make it interesting to me. I did find two things interesting, first that the furniture is often more delicate than pieces in Europe because of early American influence, and that the variation in temperature in the large windowed rooms as one moves between floors is fascinating. My laziness had wondered why the top floor would have the master bedroom, but it was clearly cooler even though I was there around noon. The broad open windows looked sadly out into vacant lots strewn with trash, cinder block houses that look poor in a way that needs no translation, and the narrow streets with their ever-present smelly puddles and slightly scummy gutters. I wonder if there is any street cleaning here, other than the fancy places that have their own guys sweep in front. Or, perhaps the rains are assumed to be enough when they come. I am not one to worry about dirty streets, and the trash doesn’t bother me really, but the smell, sometimes there is a smell.
Wandered through the Basilica Minor de Santa Something, First Manila Cathedral, and wondered at the sensibility of having had to rebuild it three times. In its first year of completion, nearly knocked down by typhoon, next year, burned to the ground, then rebuilt, then knocked down… really if that isn’t enough to say don’t build a cathedral here… well they rebuilt it anyway. I have a feeling I am slightly jaded for cathedrals after having seen the ones in Paris. They and the Abbey in London, both proved more church than I can care about, and were far more interesting…. But walk on I did, and saw a number of other sites with plaques designating them as this or that. I walked until I could look down the street to the north and see the exit of the intramuros, and by then sweating and frizzy, I began to wend my way back south.
I consider it a sort of foolishness on my part but, I dislike the idea of walking the same route in a place I don’t know, unless it is for safety/sense of security. And in fact, I am slightly judgmental when others don’t vary their track. So in this case, more than that, I didn’t want to walk back on a parallel street. So I wandered away east, then south, and east again until realizing the streets angled and I had no idea where I was, I figured I’d try to walk straight south and see when I hit the wall. I mean what could be more useful for navigation than a bounded piece of city with a gigantic stone wall around it. I do note now, for those who have had the experience, for instance like I did, in Jerusalem’s old city, of realizing that this logic is false. One can walk in infinite circles within a confined space with surprising ease. But I was still enjoying seeing, despite the heat, and almost joined in when trying to walk past, through a pack of kids playing handball/keep-away. I don’t know that it was as amusing to all of them, but they played around me, used me as a barricade to chasers and all laughed as I waved walking away. Needless to say their ability to run full speed in flipflops was distinctly impressive.

After a bit more wandering in the intramuros, considering buying a jumbo bag of oranges for what I would expect the plastic bag to cost, I decided to see about a cab, and before I found a car taxi I was waved at by a bicycle side-car sort, which make me a little uncomfortable, for their similarity in my head to a colonial british major riding in a rickshaw. Regardless, as it was approaching 1pm and significantly warmer than I would like, I accepted for an exhorbitant price of what amounted to almost six dollars, because as he rightly said “it very far on this to malate” and gestured to the bicycle. If I haven’t said before, traffic here scares me in vehicles, oddly the dodging on foot, and aggressive pedestrian acrobatics are sort of understandable to me, but the push and pray of a bicycle turning perpendicular between two moving trucks to cut into oncoming traffic, or some equivalent is just terrifying.
I arrive back in Malate at one, and start to write this, and having actually done something today, find it easy to write some words down.

Plans for today are likely sitting down and trying to write a pair of conference abstracts, one a workshop I saw a thing on the medical anthro list, and the other is for American Anthropology meetings… which I think is due soon, so I want to get started on it. I haven’t decided yet what it will be, but with the proper application of liquor and a few hours today, I’ll come up with a topic.

As I am finishing writing this, a loud american sits at the table next to me through force of entitlement, how you ask? well he walked over and kicked the Filiipina who were sitting there out of the table, through loudly claiming they couldn't sit there since they hadn't purchased anything at starbucks. It wasn't the argument so much as the tone that he had that got them to move, loud andgry and well entitled, someone you couldn't argue with. It makes me embarassed.

And that is likely all for today, since I'd have to pay to be online at the hostel and I'd rather just come over here to the mall and do it once per day.

failedoptimist — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:25:32 GMT

Full Day 2 (Now yesterday)

This morning I got up and wandered around a bit here in Malate again, it still seems like the wrong neighborhood for me but I’m looking at cheap hostels. There are two a relatively short walk from here. One, the Manila Bay Hostel is right near the US embassy, not something important but it is a little farther from the bowery red-light feel where my hotel is. The Other, the Australian expat run “slouch hat Inn and bar” is more central to the red-light feel, but has a backpacker English speaker thing going on that seems like it will be more interesting at least. They are both affordable. There is an old Australian man who says he has lived out of the Slouch hat off and on for 20 years, Scotty, talks like a sailor about the pussy in the area and it takes little imagination to guess what he is doing here. It is nice to talk to someone who doesn’t want anything from you. I’m back at the Robinson mall and find myself surprised how so many of the things I hate about malls in the US aren’t so bad here, the same stores provide a semblance of familiarity, and the excessive control of the environment does a good job of making me forget that there is so much humidity outside. My stomach is a little off today, local germs are settling in even though I haven’t really eaten much in the last day I have been here. I’m going to give it a few more moments for the internet to work, It is overtaxed by the number of people trying to use the malls free wi-fi, then I’m going to wander around looking for somewhere I can try to get my phone unlocked and a local sim card. (returning to the internet the next morning as I write this).
The rest of the afternoon seemed to go smoothly, I found a store in the mall and got my cell phone unlocked and a local sim card. It seems as though Blackberry phones are less popular here, and the girl had no idea how to do it, so it took a while, My politeness amused the hell out of the other girl there, as I got up to make room for them to pass in and out of the shop. At the same time some sort of pop concert in the mall had crowds and cheering going on, the music could have been any B-list pop group world wide, but I forgot to ask if they knew what it was. I also took a look at a third Hostel, this time north of the center of Manila, in the Santa Cruz area. Santa Cruz and the neighborhood next to it are the Chinese ethnic enclave, and while I liked the feel at the hostel it was a little less exciting because they have only shared dorm rooms. The Girls working the desk said the owner had a degree in Political Science from Notre Dame and would probably enjoy talking to me, but the other guests were all Chinese, suggesting less general conversation. I spent the evening trying to decide what to do about living space. The trip up through Manila center in the taxi was really interesting, hadn’t really been north of the river yet, and seeing the density up there made this area more tolerable. I am also interested in the continued organization of the city into mercantile districts, a tendency that went out thirty years ago in new York for instance. We drove through the flower sellers, the wholesale mango sellers street, and the large are in central manila that does the wholesale/retail trade in medical supplies and machines. They are open to the public but also supply hospitals, and I was curious to find out, you can buy second hand. Got my first glance at the colonial stockade of the INtramuros, the old walled city, and intend to go back and visit in the next few days.
Had dinner, first meal of genuinely Philippine food, I am blanking on the name of the food, but the first thing was something I’d seen on Anthony Bourdain’s show, a sizzling platter with a melange of pig- skin/fat, meat, finely chopped organ, with red chilis, onion garlic and dressed with crushed chicharon (crispy fried pork skin). It was sort of good but not as good as I hoped, and the presentation was a bit greasy. Along with that I ordered the three Filiipino Salad plate, 1) sort of chopped cucumber salad with chunks of grapefruit that was tasty, spicy but light 2) fresh pickled red cabbage served with deep fried little potato strings and some sort of cheese tofu , and 3) an overly seasoned green mango salad with the sweet soy sauce that seems common here. It was hard to taste the mango, and had a slightly oily mouth feel. Over all mall food is apparently less exciting then I would hope, but the slightly off stomache I’ve had since arriving is still settling and I don’t want to challenge it with street food until I feel fully better. I’m not sure what I’m doing yet. I also looked up the address of the Archives and think I’ll head down there tomorrow to see it.
On a lark, I decided to go back to the Slouched hat, the aussie hostel last night, and went after dinner to have drinks there. It turns out its regulars/long timers are all older, with Scotty’s age (77 I think someone said) only a mild outlier. The whole group of them are white hairs who come and go regularly and for long stretches and most seem to be married to younger Filipinas. Somehow it doesn’t come across as sketchy in person, perhaps. Met three or four others including a german and an a seattle native who is the exception in that he is loyal to a wife in the states. The place was still fairly quiet at ten or so when I was wrapping up, and I waited out a diatribe on the silly state of Philippine national politics before I left. The place is unusual in not being packed with bar girls, apparently it has a different valence, not a pick up spot, though a few were quietly there before I left. \
I like the slouching Hat, and go to bed torn as to where to move in.
I have been contemplating the homogeneity and transplantabiligy of starbucks, as I sit here using the internet. Their coffee and drinks are about the same price here as in the US, but the food is really cheap, also the food is a slight frame shift different, e.g. the sweedish meatloaf sandwich, and the pork buns. But really it is almost like being home in the US in a very ethnic neighborhood. Not like Mac donalds which has a very different class element here, whereas it is poorer in the US, Starbucks is equally middle class here, and the people dress almost the same within this class linkage.

I also want to come back to something that struck me while driving in the taxi to check the northern hostel, that is the link between perception of development and traffic laws. When I wrote the encyclopedia article on traffic lights, I had originally included a section on the meaning of traffic lights, as in the phrase “a one traffic light town” being similar to the “one horse town” and the roll of the traffic light in images of the developed metropole versus the developing world where images of chaotic streets take center stage. But the terrifying balance of of the chaos and the fact that it never exploded into carnage yesterday was fascinating. I always am impressed with the self organization of traffic patterns, people walk on the right in subway stairs in NYC as it gets more crowded, but here, I can’t see the pattern… despite that pattern blindness it still works, it flows.

DAY THREE INITIAL NOTES< SINCE I AM WRITING>

After considering, decided to move into the Slouch hat, it is a middle choice and the cheapest by far for a single room rather than dormitory share. I’m now on the edge of Ermita rather than centrally in Malate, and so a somewhat less surrounded by begging and poverty amid plenty. I also am now close to Rizal park and will spend some time there when I walk to the library and national archive later today.
I feel a little more settled, and less unhappy.
After checking in at the Australian slouch hat, I had lunch. A decent Chicken Adobo, with rice, the only Philippine food I’ve actually had before, at a restaurant in Jackson Heights (quite a while ago). Thickened pepper and salt gravy on well roast then braised chopped dark meat, plenty of onions and garlic. This I think is more my speed than the mall food, and as a plus side the area I am now, though only blocks from the old hotel has more street food and healthy life outside. For anyone interested in looking it up online to see a google map, the aussie Slouch hat Inn and Pub is 1112-1116 MH Del Pilar Street, Ermita, a block from United Nations Avenue. Not great, but the room seems comfy enough, and though I share a bath room with several other rooms I took a deep breath after making the decision this morning. During lunch, I had a nice guy, Fernando, who knows folks at the hostel I am moved into, offer to introduce me to women and help me find a wife. I explained that I was a student looking for research and not looking for a wife, and he said. "So you are here on buisiness", when i said yes (tentativly) his attitude changed and it was apparently not strange that I wasn't looking for a wife. This suggests to me that the main tourist attraction in his mind was women. He gave me his number if i thought a local's advice would be useful at some point. So far, I don't predict calling him. Spoke briefly to MacGregor, the scot of the hostel regulars, and another married to a younger Filipina. He was nice, told a few jokes and it turned out they were sort of waking/remembering a Norwegian ex pat who had died, a relative newcomer among their group, but remembered nonetheless.

Decided to mention, today is unusually hot here about 90 F, 35 c or something. May not wander in the park today afterall.
All for now.

FIRST DAYS IN MANILA

failedoptimist — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:53:58 GMT

Arrival
The flight departed San Francisco Airport, bound for Hong Kong at noon, Sunday February 28th, and I was seated next to a nice woman who was a born again saleswoman for nutirlife, an amway line of products. Primarily health supplements, Nutrilife had really only appeared on my awareness once, when reading an article in the journal cultural anthropology that discussed the development of a ‘neoliberal’ culture of self –betterment and economicization of hope in mexico. This woman, ethnically Chinese, identified as a Californian, despite a thick accent, in between my watching movies she told me about her business and efforts to spread healthy living. I had introduced myself as a graduate student, a ‘sort of sociologist’ who worked on medical tourism, trying to see if it had good or harmful effects. She asked a few simple questions about my studying healthcare, and showed me a selection of photos. Her health classes and friends who had been helped by nutrilife, and her classrooms- initially in her basement, and later a larger storefront with space for nearly fifty in the picture. She talked about the relationship of healthy water, organic food, and exercise, but stressed the fact that people need to think of all aspects. For example a friend of hers who teaches swimming, plenty of exercise, but wasn’t ever healthy, through coaching and nutrilife products this friend had improved. The tenor of her talk was always somewhat cult like, she spoke of the enlightenment offered in the classes that she went to, learning how to better teach others to improve their health. She was on her way to the new world’s fair in Shanghai, and then on to visit friends and relatives in Taiwan, before returning to California. She thought about it and asked if I would be interested in talking to some folks at the nutrilife center, to learn about them, and perhaps to offer them some ideas. I took her number but didn’t really think about it. We said goodbye as we left the ramp, and I wandered down through lengths of well designed but sterile terminal until I found my gate, and beyond, the bliss that was the smoking lounge. The smoking lounge, a 15 foot by 15 foot box nearly entirely of glass, was packed with about a dozen folks, mostly asian inhaling quietly, conversation limited to newcomers requesting a light when they had no source of fire. The common language seemed to be English despite the wide array of accents, and all carefully avoiding eye contact.
The flight landed in Manila a little after midnight local time, almost 24 hours after arriving at the airport. I wonder if this is evidence against the importance of time/space compression and technological mediation of space, as I stumble bleery eyed and achey from the airplane seats. I had changed money in SFO and walked briskly to the cab stand at the airport. “Mabini Street in Malate, Las Palmas Hotel” in a silent lack of voice, we watch the city hop by in fits and starts amid the traffic, and listen to bad western pop music interspersed with Taglish- mixtures of English and tagalong as they talk to callers, the tones of voice are clear even when language prevents my understanding.
We drive past rows of pedi-cabs, exhaust pluming Jeepneys, and a private ambulance with a smiling advertisement on the side. Airport hotels turn into shopping, flow into the bay walk, to the river, and then to the grimmer bars and smaller hotels in Pasig. The cab turns off onto a darker street which leads to the corner at which I find my hotel. I shower the airplane off, and walk around the street to see what is there The “las palmas” shares the street with two pawn shops, a 7-11, a few questionable loiterers, children begging for food, and a cab stand where the drivers suggest they know girls as I walk past. I wonder if I have chosen poorly the site to begin my stay in Manila, returning to the room with a certain amount of sadness regarding the surroundings.

DAY 1 – First full day in Manila

Woke up early after only a few hours of sleep, laid around the room for a little while. Unpacked my bags a bit and found out that a book and my toiletries must have fallen out of my suitcase when they made me check it. Went out and walked around the neighborhood, wandered down Pedro Gil Street to the Robinson mall, and went inside where I found a supermarket, and a bookstore selling a map of manila. The supermarket provided bread and some other snacks as well as replacement toiletries.
On the way back from the store I bumped into a guard from the hotel I stay at, who was off duty. Eric seemed nice so I talked to him for a little while. Perhaps I should have skipped it, I still don’t know if he ended up scamming me, or if he was trying to be nice. He invited me to walk a little way to the shooting range he practices at, where he suggested I should try shooting an Uzi. He said it wouldn’t be expensive since all I’d have to pay for was ammunition. The shooting was fun, about four magazines with the uzi and about 4 or 5 with a .45 pistol. When we were done, the guys who ran the place quoted me 18,000 pesos for the ammo. While this was outrageous, I decided not to argue over it. They had guns, I had enjoyed it, and have marked it down as a learning experience. Wandered back to the hotel since Eric went to meet his family. I was discouraged, but perhaps it will work out okay since he said he might know a cheap apartment. I came back to the room and fell asleep for most of the day.