Philippine Normal University

For those who never been to Philippines, the land of eighty plus million people, of which a good ten percent works overseas and remit money on a regular basis that keeps the governments cash flow at surplus, and for those who have been or had traveled to Manila but chose to stay close to more touristic or business spots such as Greenbelt, Makati, Edsa and Forbes areas, strolling the high-end malls, smoking cigars at the Havana, sipping semi-authentic Mojitos and talking to locals as if they’ve seen and enjoyed all of Philippines; would not have known the Philippine Normal University, situated amongst the historic Walls of Intramuros, a vibrant, academically stimulant neighborhood, energized by young Filipinos who wants to build the next wave of skill supply overseas, who’s on the verge of re-taking the great Indian outsourcing market and threatening China with it’s power of English as the first language; if you’d consider Tagalog as just a living dialogue.

Although the name Philippine Normal University raises genuine concerns about the normalcy of the person who named this university, it certainly is not abnormal by the shape and form of it’s historic buildings, surroundings and the presence of companionship around it: the Letran, a college started in 1620, the Institutes of Technology that produces best engineers of the country, The Lyceum that showcases the hotel industry’s top notch customer oriented personnel and much more.

The pedi (short for paddle) cabs, a tricycle with an attached sidecar that could sit three people at twenty pesos each and bruised ribs, ferries students from the LRT to this abundance of academia, across the wide, unruly road of Roxas Boulevard, splashing muddy water from a morning’s rain. The SM Manila, a sprawling shopping center attracts everyone for lunch, little shopping and movie theatres that charge one fee for a whole day’s sitting, if you’d suffer repeats of a bad movie, in plastic covered red seats and lovers in embracing positions not wanting the lights to come on.

Even a stormy rainy evening bring sudden entrepreneurial ability to the crowded, flood filled path. Within the throng of people looking for cover emerge a hoard of little street children, carrying over sized umbrellas to help out the stranded, assist to hail a taxicab or to become an impromptu porter. The sudden storms and unannounced typhoons are a lifestyle here. There are no unhappy faces against the splash of Mother Nature. They smoke; chat, text and wait out the nature that they know will pass in an hour and to visit unannounced another day.

That is when I met Grace and Tom (names are changed to protect the innocence or in their word, ‘the guilt’) at a coffee shop where I seeded asylum, with an office colleague, to ward off the rains. The shop was packed with steamy lattes and cappuccinos, with opened laptops, books and an even a bible studier sipping vente mocha frap, no whip cream added. Tom took the effort to ask if they could share the table with me. I looked up and met Grace’s eyes, a shy smile running across a pretty half opened mouth, water dripping from her dark hair. Tom’s red shirt was all wet that he crossed his arms to warm up, I presumed.

“We are lovers”, they declared, after few minutes of keeping silence, focusing on coffees followed by semi-introductions, filmy handshakes and talks about weather. I couldn't think otherwise, so I nodded in agreement. Then it hit me: They both are female. Tom’s crossed arms didn’t actually used up to warm up the body. It in fact blocked her bodily features; nothing to write elaborately about because ‘he’ didn’t look like a ‘she’.

By now, Grace is looking down and frowning at Tom for declaring their secret to an unknown.

Now on a side note, please mind that I don’t have such charming personality for strangers to come and drop their sorrow and sometime happiness on me. But it has happened in the past, during my previous job, when I was the only man in a department of several mature women. So, I wasn’t entirely surprised at this rainy day confession.

Philippines is a very Catholic and conservative country where abortion and divorce is illegal except for in life threatening situations. Abusive relationships are annulled in court however, not declared ‘unmarried’ in the church. Even living-together situations are frowned at although it is non-factual common knowledge that it happens, again for the same reason and restrictions placed on legal marriages.

So, two women to become tangled in a romantic relationship can’t be publicly announced nor celebrated lavishly. As we all know by now, even the ultra liberal Californian population recently voted against gay marriages. The Canadians are still up for it however, the world normally don’t bother with social attitudes of ‘people up north’.

Grace and Tom appeared very friendly, normal couple with full blossomed love. I even noticed they were holding hands discreetly under the table. While Tom talked about discrimination against their relationship within their families and circle of friends, Grace avoided eye contact and probably felt embarrassed in front of the whole of ‘straight’ world.

Tom runs a cafeteria in a university - not the ‘Normal’ one that is the subject of this blog – which Grace attends and that’s how they met. To work against world’s - or the Filipino kind, according to them - perspective of their relationship, they have decided to live together over the past two years. While this decision also is very discreet, without the knowledge of their families, it according to them works well however, without a definite knowledge of the future.

And, that’s where my Canadian citizenry came into place. Having gathered that I am an adopted Canadian (how it happened is another story, another day) they were very curious about Canadian laws on gay marriage and whether the country would legally allows immigration of an unmarried gay couple. While I am neither lawyer nor a legal consultant to shed information on this subject, it did bring ethical questions about Canada’s immigration policies.

Presently Canada only allows married, straight couple to apply for residency as skilled or independent immigrants. There’s no clause that I know of for exceptions, unless the couple shows that they are persecuted for their beliefs in their own country, which we all know it’s tough to prove when you really can’t declare yourselves openly as gays, even to invite persecution.

So, Grace and Tom are in a dilemma.

For the record: I do not personally endorse nor against homo-sexism. It’s beyond my imagination to be one; no pun intended.

On another of my visit to this friendly city of Manila, I was privileged to be invited to Grace and Tom’s residence for dinner. They served lovely Puchero - a traditional meal-in-a-bowl soup that contains vegetable, sea food or meat and sometime rice or noodles -, grilled Lapu Lapu and an obvious supply of San-Miguel light. It was delightful company of two women of conflict, against the nature, against the normal sexuality, against the odds of building an acceptable family.

The abnormality in life is a judged opinion. Normalcy lives within and by your beliefs.

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I made some factual errors in the initial post and now corrected. Thanks to my pal and Manila native Bles to observe & notify. Here's an interesting article on History of Manila and the author apparently runs alternative tours of the city:
http://celdrantours.blogspot.com/2007/05/my-pocket-manila-i-believe-that-manila.html

Walk on the wild side

The week of November 10 has been declared Road Safety week at my client's sites across the world. My client is one of the largest public companies in the world (hint: oil & gas) and have operations in over 180 countries. As one the concerned and caring organizations (believe me, it's true), they enforce and empower safety awareness amongst employees and hundreds of thousands of contractors whom are socially, culturally and linguistically as diverse as a ride on an A train on the New York subway.

I have been fortunate to travel with or to my client's locations in over twenty countries over the past many years and have been subject to diverse road and pedestrian habits at the cities visited. Some of these experiences are fascinating and some would just make you cringe:

Perth, Australia: One of the best I would say. Neat side walks. Brail surface at intersections for blind people and also for people getting out of the pubs at late night. And, a novice concept of diagonal crossing at major intersections. This is the first I've seen where all traffic stop in all directions in order to give pedestrians to cross the road anyway they want. Now I hear that this method has been adopted in few other cities as well, including Toronto at the Dundas Square.

Jakarta, Indonesia: The nightmarish traffic and pollution in this city would test your patience to the extreme that you'll be happy negotiating with a three year old toddler at the Wal-Mart toy section. However, for pedestrians, the Jakartans have implemented an "invisible force field" in which, if you ever wants to cross the road, just put your wavy hand in front of an incoming vehicle - and hundreds of motor cycles that surrounds that vehicle - and just walk across. Most likely they'll come to a stop and will give you the right of way. Now, please note, this hasn't been scientifically proven or sanctioned by the Jakarta traffic authority but I've seen hundreds of time that it worked. And, we also took the precaution of putting Rama - the biggest guy of our team, on the left or right depends on which way you crossing - to protect our bones and loved ones back home, just in case!

Bangkok, Thailand: Good that they have lots of over pass bridges built for pedestrians. Although it helps to reduce the driver - pedestrian conflict, the format of these bridges aren't entirely user friendly. If you're, like me, not in very good shape, climbing these bridges can be a breath taking task (mini-aspirin helps at night). Beside, they aren't disable-friendly and very few over passes have elevators or escalators to support the physically challenged population.

Atyrau, Kazakhstan: Well built sidewalks - designed from the Soviet era, I presume, when most of the population didn't own vehicles - are found in most places within the city. Once you emerge into residential areas, the roads are dusty or muddy and there won't be any sidewalk for pedestrians and you are at the mercy of passing vehicles however, the traffic isn't bad to enough to worry. The only worrying observations is that at intersections, a 'walk' signal doesn't always mean that you can close your eyes and cross the road. The right turning vehicles or drivers who are intentionally color blind are to be cautioned of. I've had near 'wipe-out' scenarios at least three times so far. Now, the winter is yet to blossom. So more care is needed for we, the poor pedestrians.

India, Sri Lanka, Angola and many other countries: You are either at the mercy of the driver or you better be good at slalom maneuvers. No rules are followed by all parties however, somehow you'll make it to the work place or home. It's called 'common sense' and not relying on other person or drivers to obey any rules. Just like that!

Toronto, Canada: We are the best. $100 spot fine if you're caught not yielding to a pedestrian. If you hit a pedestrian by any chance, either on a crosswalk or otherwise, better be prepared to forgo your life savings and sign-up for slavery.

Walking on the wild side can be adventurous however, make sure you and your loved ones are safe!

Man on the subway

I don't exactly remember the date, time or the subway station we met. But I neatly remember the event, the impromptu nature of it and how it would become a life changer for both of us.

It was RRSP season at the Canadian banks and a time when they'd normally hire temps to process over flow work. As a recent Canadian immigrant, during the late eighties, when foreign qualifications were ignored and foreign sounding names were snored at, I was fortunate to find a temporary job at one of these banks. The open ended job lasted few months, at $7.00/ hr, enough to share the rent with few others, pay for donuts & coffee, subway tickets and occasional beer and phone calls back home to say that I live quite comfortably in Toronto.

It was a cold morning, mid to late November I think and the setting was a subway station platform. As I waited for arrival of the next train, a man approached and stood next to me. He was short haired, looked very young, thin and tall. His aim of life or on that particular day looked as if to get into the subway car to block the brisk cold draught and get warm. There was no smile or introductory nod of any kind. However, without thinking, I reached out and asked whether he is a Tamil. And the answer was 'yes' and that's how our friendship started, 22 years and still counting.

We had lots of common interests, nothing of life ruining kind that normal youngsters take a habit of these days. He also became part of a group of five regular hang-around friends and families. Our bond lasted through good and bad times and he was there to lift and cheer me up when I was wounded or needed a shoulder. I'm not sure I did the same for him but his gracefulness wouldn't claim otherwise. The times moved on. He went on to university, jobs, marriage and kids and I also did similar upwardly mobile steps of life. The usual touch and closeness we had drifted away to other important priorities in life.

However, the one thing that lasted till today, after four presidents of the U.S., many prime ministers of Canada - one that lasted just a month -, two Gulf wars, unfounded WMDs, scores of lives and deaths in unwanted civil, racial and ethnic tensions, bull & bear markets, crashes, lost pensions and such, was that we never forgot to wish each other on our birthdays, no matter where we were and what has been going through in our lives. There was always an email that waited in my inbox on my birthday. Without expectations, without any show-biz kind of courteousness. It was always there; few simple words to say that I still think of you.

And, my friend, I do too. The blog I used to write had gone missing in the virtual clouds, so I'm starting this new blurb; The Daily Sprinkle. And, the first dedication is to you.

Today is November 13th. Happy Birthday!