The Man and the Monster

I apologize sincerely for not being able to post as often as I promised. :( Life gets in the way, and this isn't cutting out to be the hip, adventurous Summer I was planning it to be. Haha. Expectations > Reality, as always.

One good thing about this Summer, however, is being able to indulge in all my ideas. I've been drawing like crazy, especially since I've restarted on Issue 2 as a clean slate (yes... hehe).

Anyway, one of the ideas I thought of expanding was the Manobo version of Beauty and the Beast from my Filipino Fairy Tale series. I love Manobo clothing and aesthetics and no matter how tedious the textiles might seem (are), it's really rewarding.

You know what else is tedious and rewarding? Freaking crocodile scales.

Habang lumipas ang mga taon, lalo siyang nawalan ng pag-asa. Sino naman ang matututunang magmahal ng isang halimaw?

I was especially inspired by Claire Hummel's Historical Princess series in this one. Dat style.

I'm sorry I have so many words for just one picture, I spent almost a day working on this, alright?

Also, here are some detail shots, because I worked hard on these, dammit!!!

Habis and Interests

What is the definition of habi? In the Bisaya-English dictionary, "habi" is "the act of weaving/weave/interlacing". - Bisaya to English Translation 

Please forgive my punny ways.

Anyway. I told you guys last post that we were going for a tribal print for my Grad Ball dress and I would have bought it yesterday. That's only partly true. Tita Mila told us to look for a store called Balikbayan near Glorietta, and we did find it, except they didn't exactly carry any indigenous prints there except for a couple of table runners and pillow cases. Hehe. But it was really nice seeing the so-called "dream weavers" (T'nalak/Tinalak) in the flesh cloth.

Today we went to Kamuning to look for fabric. But this morning my Grandma brought out some fabrics she bought in Greenhills ten years ago (so she says) that she believes were sourced from, like, Malaysia.

I trust her on that. This lowly Instagrammed picture gives it no justice, by the way. It's gorgeous in all its gold-mixed glory, but it wasn't what I was looking for.

Instead, when we hitched a taxi ride to Kamuning, we found this:

It was from a shop on the inside of the market and it cost 250 per yard (woohoo!). The people at the store estimated that we needed about six yards all in all. Imagine, the table runner (still laughing) in Balikbayan cost like, 700 bucks for about four to five feet.

It's really pretty. I was aiming for something more intricate, but this looks more Ibaloi than anything and I'm content. There was an alternative pattern for 150 a yard, and it was half as thick. I asked the lady at the store where she sourced them from and she said they came from Baguio. I trust her on that, hehe.

I want to apologize for having taken an entire post to nerd out about cloth, but let me just this once. Anyway, I bet my family will make fun of me for being dressed in a huge-ass table runner, but a lot of people are planning on skipping Grad Ball/Senior's Night because it's being held at school. I've always wanted to go on a fashionalistic (fashion + nationalism) route and this is probably one of the few chances I'll do so. If anyone asks why I wore Igorot print to a Grad Ball themed "Winter Wonderland", well... Baguio is believed to be the coldest place in the Philippines, right? My dress is gonna be the bomb, yo.

Resolutions 2013

Yes, I am aware that I haven't been blogging. No, I am not dead, and school is much too boring for people on the Internet to read about repeatedly (at least for me [this I write with classmates Kira and Trisha watching my every move]).

You must look at the title of this post and think, sixteen days into the New Year and only now are you formulating your Fantastical List of Never-Before-Seen Resolutions That You Are Supposed To Achieve This Year? PREPOSTEROUS! Ha. What I find preposterous, dear reader, is the fact that human beings wait three hundred sixty five days a year to resolve something new for themselves and postpone for the rest of the year to achieve when they can actually spend any (or every!) of those three hundred sixty five days resolving and achieving in a fashion that is productive!

Don't get me wrong, I'm no New Year's Scrooge. I'm just defending why I came up with these resolutions so late, and so generally, as you will see. Here goes!

***

I warned you this list is so general. I'm not trying to cheat or anything - these three items just literally came up while I was in one of those Daydreaming in Transportation situations, except it was at night. They were, in fact, kind-of "unachieved" enough to turn into resolutions as well as achievable enough to turn into resolutions. It's totally a win-win, right? And these don't even have to be just my resolutions - they're general enough to adopt as your own, too!

 

1. Make more things

If you haven't noticed yet, this is a blog about making things. I do enjoy creating, and this year I resolve to create many, many more things. Things, maybe, that I haven't even tried to make before. Which leads me to...

Source

2. Try new things

This was the first resolution I came up with, and for good reason. I have been itching to eat at da.u.de (dah-you-deh) somewhere in Taguig. I say "have" because I haven't. However, last night we had dessert in its somewhat-sibling, Manila Bake, which is also under the Serye Cafe Filipino group of restaurants. I fell in love with Serye then and there for being so Filipino and so delicious at the same time - they were selling bottled Tsokolate, for Chrissakes! 

And shame on me for not knowing enough of these "hidden" gems in Metro Manila, what with their distinctly Filipino roots but - dare I say it? - world-class original and creative flavor that end up supporting the local economy and helping others, like, in the case of the Serye group, native Filipino ingredients and their producers.

I'm not limiting myself to Proudly Filipino things, or food, either. Last night we also ate at The Fat Skillet, which I've never tried before. I've never been to Thailand, or Indonesia, or Malaysia (SO SUE ME, OKAY?). There's just a world of possibility and newness that's waiting for me to - erm - graduate? Hehe.

Source

3. Do Filipino things

Speaking of Proudly Filipino, I resolve to do more Filipino things this year. If there's one thing I significantly jumpstarted last year, it was my nationalism. Nueva Filipiniana was a good, although maybe not-so-original testament to that, as well as many other projects I began. I just hope last year didn't burn me out, because I am so prepared to burst with love of my country this year.

So help me God, let me pass U.P.!

Oh yes, about yesterday!

I'm so glad because I'd previously made three, "Filipiniana-inspired" dresses for the Grad Ball. One was a barong-style thing, one was a 50s dress/"baro't-saya" inspiration, and the last was a really simple design but with this tribal fabric. The thing is, I didn't even hope that the last one was up for consideration. I really wanted a dress like it, but getting the fabric was tricky because it wasn't common. I assumed you'd have to go to ten hours North of here to get a couple of yards, but Tita Mila told me I was wrong, and now we're going with that! I'm so excited, you guys!

The Congratulations You're World-Class Badge Theory

A few disclaimers before we go on.

1. This is a Theory I named just yesterday so I could use it for my Thy Womb entry just briefly.
2. However, I've been thinking about this Filipino mentality for a while and only now am I putting it down in words.

The unofficial design prototype.

The Congratulations You're World-Class Badge Theory came about from that popular Pinoy belief that as long as you're deemed worthy by some famous foreign body, you are immediately deemed worthy by Filipinos everywhere. Alternatively, it is also the belief that being "world-class" is the only defining factor of anything Filipino-produced.

"World-class" is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "being of the highest caliber in the world". That's no longer the case. Today, "world-class" is the only thing  separating the wheat from the chaff in terms of Filipino art, music, film, books, etc etc, even in BEING FILIPINO AT ALL.

Why do we need the world to tell us we're good enough when we know that we're good enough? Is it because of us not knowing that we're good enough?

Look up "world class filipino" on Google and you're bombarded by all these articles detailing who "World Class Filipinos" are. You see the usual suspects, like Manny Pacquiao and Lea Salonga. These are people you should look up to - at least, they're people who've made it big in other nations.

I suppose this is what almost four centuries under colonial rule does to you. The Philippines forgets that she is her own person, that she can actually complement herself??? and that she doesn't need the endorsement of foreigners to feel accomplishment, and similarly go apesh*t in defensiveness when foreigners endorse her negatively?

I'm not saying it's wrong to use the word "world-class". That aspect is only on its overuse and my sheer personal annoyance at how many times people just have to use it. However, when deeming something Filipino "worthy" only boils down to being "world-class", when we actually have that chance to find ourselves worthy and independent of anyone else's opinion, we have to decide once and for all to put away "world-class" and start thinking "Filipino pride". That is, a pride that doesn't need the approval of any foreign nation. 

Chino on his article in antipinoy.com, entitled The Truth About World-Class Filipinos, says it best:

We have to recognize that to become World-Class Filipinos, we need to examine our place in the world, and humble ourselves in acknowledgment that cooperation with, not competition with or more especially hostility towards, other countries is the right attitude and the way to help uplift our own. We should develop ourselves in a way as not to live in a box, but to get out of this box and learn to live alongside others out of this box.

We're well past that stage when we look up to the Foreign Body with big brown eyes, asking, "Is this good enough?", throwing a good, ol'-fashioned kiddy tantrum-slash-hissy fit when it doesn't meet their approval and throwing a celebration when they do. Grow up, Philippines. You deserve so much better than that.

I leave you with a quote from one of my favorite Phil. Star Supreme articles by the lovely Cate de Leon, entitled Pinoy pride and prejudice:

I want our pride to be something that is already there when we groggily wake up in the morning; something we would talk about very sparingly because mentioning it is actually quite redundant. Basically, shut up and be. Selling is hard. Real swag is easy.

Redundant Links:
Pinoy pride and prejudice by Cate de Leon (@catedeleon)
The Truth about World-Class Filipinos by ChinoF
Whatever the heck this is (Worldclassfilipino.com)