excerpts
Whisper of the Bamboo
edited by Penélope V. Flores
Allen Gaborro
Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
2004
202 pages
LCCN: 2004115636
ISBN: 0-9763316-0-8
Back to Contents of Book
featuring
previously unpublished pieces by Oscar Peñaranda,
Rellenong Manok from ER Escober's Not my Bowl of Rice,
Larry and Susanah from Lilia Hernandez Chung's The Rush of the River,
Lionel Tierra on Philippine Genealogy
Whisper of the Bamboo
edited by Penélope V. Flores
Allen Gaborro
Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
2004
202 pages
LCCN: 2004115636
ISBN: 0-9763316-0-8
Back to Contents of Book
featuring
previously unpublished pieces by Oscar Peñaranda,
Rellenong Manok from ER Escober's Not my Bowl of Rice,
Larry and Susanah from Lilia Hernandez Chung's The Rush of the River,
Lionel Tierra on Philippine Genealogy
Oscar Peñaranda
Remembrances of the Unborn
I must have been thinking of my grandfather when I was writing pieces such as Dagohoy, Conch Shells, The Courier, Salinlahi, The Poet In You, and many others. He must have been there haunting the corners of my mind when I wrote those pieces.
His name was Florentino Peñaranda. My father’s name was the same: he was the first-born. My middle name is Florentino. Several of my cousins are also named Florentino, just as my sister and several of my female cousins were named Francisca, after his wife, my grandmother. Sometimes, even girls were named after him—Florentina. I probably wrote about my grandfather and his times before I was told of him. That is to say, that part of my preoccupation about certain things in life is possible because of him and the ideals he eventually stood for in my mind. He was probably part of the fermentation that I am now. He died about five years before I was born. Therefore, I did not know much of his life because he was my father’s father, although I grew up with my cousins (on both sides of the family) in the provinces. In Manila it was different. I did not have as many cousins in Manila at the time of my childhood, my father being one of the first ones in my family (pioneer that he was) to have migrated to the capital city. On the other hand, in Barugo, our hometown in the province, the “ghost of my grandfather still stalks the land,” one of my writer cousins Bimboy, once wrote...
Oscar Peñaranda
Sketches of an Alaskero:
Pieces of the (Midnight) Sun
It was the summers of my youth, which are the summers of
most people’s lives. I started working in Alaska when I was just finishing my twenty-first year. When I came home to San Francisco to start school, I was a father. That was my first year in Alaska. It would be fourteen more consecutive summers before I would see what would become my final trip (up to now) to South Naknek in Bristol Bay, the salmon goldmine of the world.
You took three planes to get there: a big one from Seattle to Anchorage, a B747 sometimes, then a smaller one of about 50 people from Anchorage to King Salmon, an air force military base, I think, and then a cub plane or a bush plane (which is the most common mode of transportation in Alaska) to the cannery itself. I always liked the ride. It felt like I was in a sports car that was flying. I could see everything underneath me, and I remember the pilot telling me “Well, there she is…a lot of…nothing.” And true enough, as far as my eye could see, there was nothing but tundra, low bushes of vegetation for miles and miles and miles...
ER Escober
Rellenong Manok
from: Not My Bowl of Rice, 2003, 1st Books Library
Courtship in the Philippines often involved the boy courting the girl and the mother as well. There was a period of courting in which the boy worked alongside the parents of the girl, allowing the parents to observe the fitfulness of his character. To win the heart of the girl’s mother, a boy did all sorts of chores in the girl’s household: gathering and chopping wood, fetching water, fixing a broken staircase, tilling the girl’s father’s farm. If the boy’s behavior did not find favor with the parents, the parents usually ended the courtship. The parents’ decision was irrevocable and indisputable, like the word of God. According to folklore, if the couple eloped against the wishes of the girl’s parents, barrenness, or other equally painful tragedies, would surely ensue. It was a parental curse arising directly from the couple having ignored the parents’ mandate.
I was determined to buck this age-old Philippine tradition here in America. Dating in the Western culture was done with little or no parental supervision at all and with little regard for the parents’ wishes. I, being a mature, responsible twenty-five year-old woman, was determined to embrace American ways, including dating who and when I wanted. Brave words from someone who was raised under the umbrella of an ultra-conservative Filipino society. But we would see. We would see...
Lilia Hernández Chung
Larry and Susanah
from: The Rush of the River, 2004, Vantage Press, NY
“Larry always makes it a point to see me,” said Susanah to no one in particular. Dressed in a blue skirt and a well ironed cream blouse and still attractive at thirty nine, she stood and looked about the room. The clear pale green of the couch pleased her —it reminded her of the greenness of delicate rice plants vigorously pushing their way through the rich, sticky mud of seedling beds. She smiled. There was nothing outwardly Filipino in the room and that was exactly how she wanted it. In all the common rooms of the house she had used the colors of her country—that special green of rice seedlings, the warm gold of an incoming dusk and the clear blue of Philippine skies. Even the colors of the flowers she bought, daffodils, yellow daisies or goldenrods were colors rampant in the Filipino countryside, colors of the land she had left a good twenty years ago. She chose them for this very reason but kept this to herself even when Marta, her oldest daughter asked, “Why do you always buy yellow flowers, Mom?” The colors made her feel somewhat loyal to a little part of her, now heavily encrusted by husband, children, home, and all the odds and ends she humorously called her “frantic American life.” Still, that bit mattered. In fact, it mattered tremendously, but she wasn’t quite sure why. It was lovely to sit in the living room alone, quietly sensing the colors as though the sun of the yellow flowers and the sheen of muted bronze were there only for her.
Lionel Tierra
Ritchie Ungco, Pathfinder
Man’s soul floats out on its lonely voyage upon an eternal sea as unseen as when it came. Left on the shore in its shell are his pyramids, obelisks, monuments, his handiwork, trophies, writing and ideas—mere heaps of sand that soon vanish beneath time’s surging tide, like a man who had never been born in this world.
A “pathfinder” is one who makes a way or path where none had existed previously, as in an unknown region—a wilderness. This article is about one such “pathfinder,” a young Filipino named Ritchie Ungco (b. 1971). We met at a birthday party, three years ago. A graduate of California State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Ritchie was now working at an American bank’s home office in Concord, California. I told him that I went to law school at Ateneo University and had retired after 25 years of managing a claims adjustment business abroad. We were just exchanging small talk during the party.
Meeting him a few months later at another fete, a smiling Ritchie greeted me saying,
“You know, after a little research I now know more about you.”
“Why had you bothered to find out about me at all?” I asked a bit startled.
“Tracing my family’s ancestral lines has become my vocation,” he replied.
Most of us who aspire to achieve lifelong goals often accomplish our work during the later stages of our lives. But he is different. I learned that he would be finishing his project by the…
TOP
Copyright © 2006. Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc.
Remembrances of the Unborn
I must have been thinking of my grandfather when I was writing pieces such as Dagohoy, Conch Shells, The Courier, Salinlahi, The Poet In You, and many others. He must have been there haunting the corners of my mind when I wrote those pieces.
His name was Florentino Peñaranda. My father’s name was the same: he was the first-born. My middle name is Florentino. Several of my cousins are also named Florentino, just as my sister and several of my female cousins were named Francisca, after his wife, my grandmother. Sometimes, even girls were named after him—Florentina. I probably wrote about my grandfather and his times before I was told of him. That is to say, that part of my preoccupation about certain things in life is possible because of him and the ideals he eventually stood for in my mind. He was probably part of the fermentation that I am now. He died about five years before I was born. Therefore, I did not know much of his life because he was my father’s father, although I grew up with my cousins (on both sides of the family) in the provinces. In Manila it was different. I did not have as many cousins in Manila at the time of my childhood, my father being one of the first ones in my family (pioneer that he was) to have migrated to the capital city. On the other hand, in Barugo, our hometown in the province, the “ghost of my grandfather still stalks the land,” one of my writer cousins Bimboy, once wrote...
Oscar Peñaranda
Sketches of an Alaskero:
Pieces of the (Midnight) Sun
It was the summers of my youth, which are the summers of
most people’s lives. I started working in Alaska when I was just finishing my twenty-first year. When I came home to San Francisco to start school, I was a father. That was my first year in Alaska. It would be fourteen more consecutive summers before I would see what would become my final trip (up to now) to South Naknek in Bristol Bay, the salmon goldmine of the world.
You took three planes to get there: a big one from Seattle to Anchorage, a B747 sometimes, then a smaller one of about 50 people from Anchorage to King Salmon, an air force military base, I think, and then a cub plane or a bush plane (which is the most common mode of transportation in Alaska) to the cannery itself. I always liked the ride. It felt like I was in a sports car that was flying. I could see everything underneath me, and I remember the pilot telling me “Well, there she is…a lot of…nothing.” And true enough, as far as my eye could see, there was nothing but tundra, low bushes of vegetation for miles and miles and miles...
ER Escober
Rellenong Manok
from: Not My Bowl of Rice, 2003, 1st Books Library
Courtship in the Philippines often involved the boy courting the girl and the mother as well. There was a period of courting in which the boy worked alongside the parents of the girl, allowing the parents to observe the fitfulness of his character. To win the heart of the girl’s mother, a boy did all sorts of chores in the girl’s household: gathering and chopping wood, fetching water, fixing a broken staircase, tilling the girl’s father’s farm. If the boy’s behavior did not find favor with the parents, the parents usually ended the courtship. The parents’ decision was irrevocable and indisputable, like the word of God. According to folklore, if the couple eloped against the wishes of the girl’s parents, barrenness, or other equally painful tragedies, would surely ensue. It was a parental curse arising directly from the couple having ignored the parents’ mandate.
I was determined to buck this age-old Philippine tradition here in America. Dating in the Western culture was done with little or no parental supervision at all and with little regard for the parents’ wishes. I, being a mature, responsible twenty-five year-old woman, was determined to embrace American ways, including dating who and when I wanted. Brave words from someone who was raised under the umbrella of an ultra-conservative Filipino society. But we would see. We would see...
Lilia Hernández Chung
Larry and Susanah
from: The Rush of the River, 2004, Vantage Press, NY
“Larry always makes it a point to see me,” said Susanah to no one in particular. Dressed in a blue skirt and a well ironed cream blouse and still attractive at thirty nine, she stood and looked about the room. The clear pale green of the couch pleased her —it reminded her of the greenness of delicate rice plants vigorously pushing their way through the rich, sticky mud of seedling beds. She smiled. There was nothing outwardly Filipino in the room and that was exactly how she wanted it. In all the common rooms of the house she had used the colors of her country—that special green of rice seedlings, the warm gold of an incoming dusk and the clear blue of Philippine skies. Even the colors of the flowers she bought, daffodils, yellow daisies or goldenrods were colors rampant in the Filipino countryside, colors of the land she had left a good twenty years ago. She chose them for this very reason but kept this to herself even when Marta, her oldest daughter asked, “Why do you always buy yellow flowers, Mom?” The colors made her feel somewhat loyal to a little part of her, now heavily encrusted by husband, children, home, and all the odds and ends she humorously called her “frantic American life.” Still, that bit mattered. In fact, it mattered tremendously, but she wasn’t quite sure why. It was lovely to sit in the living room alone, quietly sensing the colors as though the sun of the yellow flowers and the sheen of muted bronze were there only for her.
Lionel Tierra
Ritchie Ungco, Pathfinder
Man’s soul floats out on its lonely voyage upon an eternal sea as unseen as when it came. Left on the shore in its shell are his pyramids, obelisks, monuments, his handiwork, trophies, writing and ideas—mere heaps of sand that soon vanish beneath time’s surging tide, like a man who had never been born in this world.
A “pathfinder” is one who makes a way or path where none had existed previously, as in an unknown region—a wilderness. This article is about one such “pathfinder,” a young Filipino named Ritchie Ungco (b. 1971). We met at a birthday party, three years ago. A graduate of California State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Ritchie was now working at an American bank’s home office in Concord, California. I told him that I went to law school at Ateneo University and had retired after 25 years of managing a claims adjustment business abroad. We were just exchanging small talk during the party.
Meeting him a few months later at another fete, a smiling Ritchie greeted me saying,
“You know, after a little research I now know more about you.”
“Why had you bothered to find out about me at all?” I asked a bit startled.
“Tracing my family’s ancestral lines has become my vocation,” he replied.
Most of us who aspire to achieve lifelong goals often accomplish our work during the later stages of our lives. But he is different. I learned that he would be finishing his project by the…
TOP
Copyright © 2006. Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc.