Sometimes sea kayaking is not about playing in ocean rock gardens, surfing awesome tidal races, or mastering esoteric traditional rolls. Sometimes you just go on a trip and you paddle all day long and nothing really happens. That's OK! When I bought my first kayak, I just enjoyed long trips alone on a calm sunny day. There is a sense of space you get from being under the wide open sky and on the water a mile from land that you don't experience living indoors. When the sky and sea are the same gray color there is also a bit of sensory deprivation. There is definitely something meditative about both the environment and the rhythm of paddling that allows you to turn inward.
Some people have asked me how I can not get bored while paddling, if I don't listen to music or something. I don't listen to music on long trips and I think it's sad that people really ask that question. It's like they can't imagine not being constantly stimulated and entertained by music, the internet, TV or whatever. They are afraid to be left alone with their own thoughts.
My original idea was to make a time lapse video showcasing the beauty of the San Juan Islands. It's not easy both paddling and making time lapse videos, because time lapse videos take a lot of time to make! It can also be a challenge keeping your photo gear clean and dry while touring. So I did what I could and came up with this. It turned out to be kinda New Agey, especially when I added music, so I decided to just go with it.
Our Lady of Manaoag is a miraculous church with a 400 year long history of renowned miracles and pious events. According to the legend of its origin centuries ago, a farmer was walking through a field when he heard a woman's voice. He looked around and saw the Virgin Mary with a rosary in her right hand and the child Jesus in her left, standing in a cloud veiling a treetop. The man fell to his knees before the apparition, who told him where she wanted her church to be located. He told people of his vision and soon a church was built on the spot where the lady appeared. A town quickly flourished around it, and was called “Manaoag”.
Painting depicting a fire that destroyed the village of Manaoag.
Replica of Our Lady of Manaoag, in the Candle Gallery.
"Our Lady of Manaoag" actually refers specifically to an ivory statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, brought from Spain via Acapulco in the early 17th century to the Philippines by Padre Juan de San Jacinto. Now located in the shrine in the church, the image is one of the most venerated Marian images in the country, and is thought by believers to possess healing powers as patroness of the sick, the helpless and the needy.
In the early days of Spanish colonization, animist mountain tribes attacked the village of Manaoag and set the buildings on fire with flaming arrows. Although the entire town was burned to the ground, the church was miraculously preserved. In 1898 revolutionaries burned the church down, but the image narrowly missed destruction, because it had been abandoned in a storage room behind the church. Similarly, during WWII the Japanese bombed and utterly destroyed the town, but the church remained intact (for the most part anyway: the plaza and façade were moderately damaged). A bomb fell right through the roof and landed on the sanctuary, but miraculously didn't explode. Six million Filipinos died in thel war, but the church was spared!
Detail from the fire painting.
Pope Benedict XVI granted the Shrine of Our Lady of Manaoag “a special bond of spiritual affinity through which the visitors of the Marian Shrine are assured of the same blessings of the Lord and the entitlement to a plenary indulgence equal to that received when visiting a papal basilica in Rome.”
People come from all over the country on pilgrimages to Manaoag. Religion in this country is alive. Churches are crowded and relics are adored. People will stand in line for a couple hours just to get a chance to touch the gown of the bejeweled statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Manaoag.
Candle Gallery at Our Lady of Manaoag.
Candle Gallery at Our Lady of Manaoag.
Candle Gallery at Our Lady of Manaoag.
In the back of the church is another building called the Candle Gallery. You can choose to purchase from a wide variety of candles from one of the church run candle stands. Katya had been stung earlier in the morning by a jellyfish and was also feeling a bit run down from a cold, so she lighted a candle and recited the recommended prayer for good health, which was posted on the wall. On the van ride back up to Baguio, she suffered a severe bout of nausea and retching, which was followed by the worst migraine headache in her life, along with fevers and chills that lasted through the night. Although feeling quite worn out the next morning, her cold was gone! (Well, maybe not completely, but much better). If your belief is strong, you will experience miracles!
The Catholic Pantheon: a multitude of plastic statues for sale in the market surrounding the church.
I've actually only foraged for oysters a couple times prior to making this video. The original idea was to just record ourselves gathering oysters but it turned out to look more like a public service announcement. I'm certainly no foraging expert and can barely shuck an oyster to save my life, although through the magic of video editing, we make it look easy! So that's where the "for DUMMIES" part of the title came from. More accurately, it probably should have been titled "Harvesting Oysters, by Dummies".
Kayaking at the entrance to Hood Canal, extreme low tide.
Katya in front of "The Dragon", a sculpture of driftwood and found objects, at Point Hannon.
We actually almost scrapped the entire project because were confronted by some locals at Hood Head who told us we weren't supposed to be gathering oysters there. While Katya and I were scraping oysters off the rocks a man approached us and yelled, "Hey, don't you guys know oyster season is over?" I told him that actually it WASN'T over, and that we knew for a fact that this particular beach was open. He said, no, it WAS over, and this beach was closed, and also asked if we had a license. I said that I sure did, and that it was in my pocket. "Well you pull it out and show me where it says on there that this beach is open!" I asked Katya to look up the harvest rules and beach closures on her iPhone, but before she could he just walked away. Later, another man approached us and said, "We told you guys that oyster season is over! You need to put those oysters back right now! It's Jefferson County regulations." I said he was wrong and that he had no idea what he was talking about.
We finally pulled up the beach closures on the Department of Fish and Wildlife site and confirmed that oyster season, and specifically this beach, Point Hannon, is open year-round. We walked over to these two guys to where they had planted clam seed that morning. The man I approached refused to look at the information. "I don't need to look at no computer!" He yelled. "I haven't been on the internet my whole life anyway."
When he saw Katya pointing her camera at him he yelled at her to stop. She did immediately when it looked like he was going to throw a bucket at her.
Look at the RAGE in this guy's eyes! Your old LIES don't stand a chance against the POWER OF THE INTERNET, buddy!
They declined to be interviewed on camera (to put it mildly). The other man said that they owned property on this beach and had taken great care to ensure the health of the shellfish here and in fact were planting clam seed at the time. "I have watched the public rape and pillage this beach," he said.
"You mean by harvesting shellfish?" I asked, and he said, "Yes." He said that because of all the effort they had put into protecting and maintaining the beach, "We basically own this beach."
Oh, OK. I think I get it now. You guys don't want people to harvest on a publicly-owned beach, because they take all the shellfish away. But it's OK for YOU to do it.
After some discussion, he basically admitted that it was a public beach, and that they tell people that it is closed to keep them from "raping and pillaging" it. So they can save the shellfish -- for themselves! Later he said he had no beef with us, because we were just doing our best to follow the rules, unlike a lot of other people. I also found it very interesting that he recommended we go foraging on the other side of Hood Head where there are some very good oyster beds -- on tidelands that I know for sure are privately owned.
I tell this story as a warning. You need to know which tidelands are public and which is private. You need to know exactly where the boundaries are. Public tide land only includes the beach below the high mean water line. Local fishermen and waterfront property owners will challenge you, ask to see your license, and will LIE to you about boundaries, the season, and your right to harvest in any particular area or time to protect their own interests. Be prepared to defend yourself from aggressive locals by having the right information.
Sitting underneath The Dragon at Point Hannon.
Katya shoots The Dragon
These confrontations really raise the whole issue of private ownership versus public access to waterfront land. All tidelands in Washington State used to be public. Between 1889 and 1890 the Washington State legislature authorized the sale of public tidelands to private individuals to raise revenue. Sixty percent of Washington's public beaches were sold before the practice was discontinued in 1971. Now, Washington State actually is one of the most restrictive states in the country when it comes to access to public beaches. In Texas, for instance, public access to all Gulf Coast beaches is not just the law, it is a constitutional right. Cities and counties along the coast are required to adopt laws to protect the public's beach access rights. There are actually 1,300 miles of public beach in Washington State, but you can only get to much of it by boat, because it is entirely surrounded by private property.
It's true that if everyone went out and harvested shellfish without limit, the stocks of wild shellfish would be rapidly depleted. But private property owners like to use this argument to limit public access and keep the privilege of harvesting for themselves.
I’ve only started foraging for shellfish around Puget Sound. Eventually I’d like to explore all of the designated harvesting beaches in the area. It gives me yet another reason to get out and paddle, with the added challenge of trying to arrice at my destination at the right time, when beaches are exposed at low tide.
My diet is normally entirely plant-based, but I will eat a small amount of wild foraged shellfish a few times a year. Oysters or mussels are simple organisms that are most likely not sentient and don’t feel pain. Harvesting them also poses very little environmental impact. Because they are filter feeders, oyster farming actually improves water quality.
An annual shellfish and seaweed harvesting license costs a little over $16 when you purchase it online. Refer to the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife Harvest Rules.
Mussels can be harvested from salt water year round, up to a limit of 10 lbs/day.
Mussels cooked with a little white wine, garlic, and Earth Balance.
I also always refer to the Shellfish Safety Information site for beach closures due to pollution and biotoxins. Not surprisingly, the areas around Seattle and Tacoma are typically closed to shellfish harvesting due to pollution. Biotoxins such as the one that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) can even occur in the San Juan Islands, despite the much colder water and strong currents. The risk of PSP varies depending on the species. Mussels accumulate the toxin faster than other species, so it acts as a good indicator species. Clams accumulate the toxin at much higher levels and take longer than mussels and oysters to clear the toxin. Concentrations of PSP usually start going down in October and November, but clams can still be toxic an entire year after an algae bloom. This is important to know because some beaches on the Department of Health map appear to be closed (indicated by the red color), but they are actually only closed to clams and are still open for mussels and oysters.
The island caretaker's house.
Hope Island is one of my favorite destinations in the South Sound. It has pristine beaches but is easily accessible from Boston Harbor north of Olympia. I discovered yesterday that it is also a good site for finding mussels. Beds of mussels are located on the south east gravel beach right next to the entrance to the park. These are the smaller Foolish mussels (Mytilus trossulus), and only grow to 3 inches long, as compared to the larger California mussels (Mytilus californianus) you find on the coast which grows to 6 inches.
The put-in is the public boat launch at Boston Harbor. The boat ramp is right next to the marina building. There is free parking right next to the boat launch for people with kayaks and canoes, and restrooms with flush toilets across the street in the parking lot. Boston Harbor Marina is a full service marina which includes a grocery store and kayak rental.
If there is one take away message from the Northwest Paddling Festival this year, it’s that stand-up paddle boards are hotter than ever! The variety seems to be growing, with more manufacturers joining the game and coming up with more designs, including the faster racing displacement-type hulls with the piercing bows, and inflatables. Prices have gone up too. High end, lightweight and fast boards made out of exotic composites have pushed the upper limit way up. And it’s not as easy to find a decent, cheap, used SUP on Craigslist anymore either.
Everyone loves SUPs! They are great for dogs! And kids! Personally, I am attracted to the simplicity of being able to carry my board under my arm to the water and going for a quick paddle, without bothering to put on a sprayskirt and drysuit. Who needs it? Especially during an unseasonably warm day like we had at the Festival (82°F!) And as far as wearing a PFD goes, I got plenty of floatation leashed to my ankle! No need to practice wet-exits, complicated self-rescues, or learn how to roll. That makes it a lot easier to learn than kayaking (but also less satisfying, I might add).
Still conspicuously absent were any homemade wooden paddleboards. Katya and I brought her cedar strip board and set it down on the beach to show it off. We were mostly fishing for compliments before we went off paddling in the lake, but it was also part of an experiment I wanted to conduct. I’ve developed a hypothesis, that certain people are simply blind to wooden boats. I think it falls outside of their perception. It's like they are presented with information that just doesn't fit into their worldview and they don't know what to do with it.
The blindest demographic of all seems to consist of attractive young women, especially ones wearing bikinis. They are like the kittens in the classic 1970 Blakemore and Cooper study, where scientists raised kittens in an experiemental environment consisting only of horizontal stripes. They kittens grew up completely blind to vertical lines and when removed from the experimental environment, kept running into chair legs. In contrast, older people are more likely to see and comment on a wooden board or kayak. The demographic most likely to stop and admire a wooden board appears to consist of older men, especially the ones with a lot of facial hair and a background in engineering. Our observations at the Paddling Festival provided overwhelming support for this hypothesis. If you happen to own a small wooden boat yourself, I challenge you to set it out on a crowded beach one day and see what happens for yourself.
Other Festival highlights:
They were giving away free SealLine dry bags next to the transparent EddyLine Journey. I picked up a 5L bag!
The SUP on-land simulator.
The Dragonboat.
The native Salish canoe.
The Aquaglide Multisport 270 compact inflatable sailboat. When you have arrived at your destination, you can use it as a mattress!
Of course the coolest thing of all was the SUP Buddy beverage holder for your SUP. Katya and I had first heard about the SUP Buddy from its inventor, Devin Carroll, at Urban Surf across the street from Gasworks Park in Seattle, and we ran into him again at the Festival. Elegant in its simplicity, the SUP Buddy actually has proven to be amazingly versatile: Devin uses it in his shower not only to hold on to his beverage but also to give him a place to hang his wetsuit, for instance. Check out our interview with Devin in the video.
Between the two weeks we spent at Baguio General Hospital, we had a free weekend to relax and explore. Our group hired a couple vans to take us to a resort located on the beach in the neighboring province of Pangasinan. We left Friday evening right after work, driving only about an hour and a half down the winding mountain roads and through small villages in the lowlands to get to the water, the Philippine Sea. We arrived just as the sun was setting. After checking in and unloading our bags we gathered for drinks in the open air bar, which sat on the roof of a small building right on the beach. They had cold beer and buko (young coconuts) waiting for us, and we were treated to stunning views of the sun setting across the calm ocean.
The resort, called Happy Ripples, is owned by Shirley’s (the mission coordinator's) brother. It is right off the main road that runs along the shore, just north of the small town of San Fabian. Besides the beach, it offered clean air-conditioned rooms with showers, a pool, karaoke, and massage services that went on all day long. You had to get your reservation in early because everyone in the group wanted at least one massage a day and I think some people were able to get in two. Katya and I were probably the last people to sign up and we had to schedule for the leftover spots that started at 9 in the morning. Personally, I don’t understand the attraction of having a massage. I can name at least a couple more things I find more relaxing than a massage (that don't involve drugs) including sitting in a natural hot spring after a few days kayaking in the Canadian wilderness and savasana after a good yoga session.
The warmth of the lowlands was a welcome change from cool weather in Baguio, where I would often put on a fleece jacket to walk to work in the morning. Swimming in the ocean was a real treat too-- as warm as bathwater. A few of us including Katya couldn’t wait until the morning to take a dip.
Cattle graze around the brackish pools just above the beach.
Katya and I wanted to get up early to photograph the fishermen on the shore. The beach was wide and flat. Although the tidal range wasn’t more than a meter, there was a noticeable high water line where all the plastic garbage collected. Shoes were a common finding, and Katya ended up with a impressive photographic series of old shoes.
The fishermen here use small boats known as bancas, which are traditional filipino outrigger canoes. They range in size from 10 ft long one-man, human-powered canoes to boats 45 ft long with inboard diesel engines that can carry several people. They all follow the same basic trimaran design and wood construction. The bottom of the main hull is carved out of a large log, and the sides are constructed from plywood. Bamboo is used for the for the amas (outriggers) as well as the akas (the parts of the frame that connect the main hull to the outriggers). One boatman described to me how they would heat the bamboo under a fire to bend the ends of the large akas. Synthetic line is used to lash the frame and the amas together. We saw a few bancas under construction on the beach and it appears that they use an epoxy compound to seal the joints in the hull. Many fishermen build their own bancas, using old diesel engines and scavenged parts. Despite strong breezes and good sailing conditions, we never saw any boats with sail rigs.
In Pangasinan the fishermen would haul their bancas onto shore when not in use. In El Nido they would leave them anchored in the water at night, in water so shallow you could wade out to them from the beach, When the tide went out they would be left high and dry.
We saw some fishermen pulling in a net that was cast just off shore, and one who had come from his banca. His catch looked pretty meager -- just a few small silvery fish. Despite all the fishing activity on the water and on the shore that day, we really didn’t see many fish, probably because this fishery is depleted.
A meager catch.
With 7,100 islands, the Philippines has the world's longest discontinuous coastline. Over a million Filipinos are engaged in marine fishing, the vast majority using traditional methods such as net fishing from small boats. Commercial fishing operations from Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States have a large presence in the waters around the Philippines. They use industrial fishing methods such as large-scale trawling and purse seiners that clean the open ocean of fish. This has resulted in fewer fish along the coastal areas where subsistence fishermen live. As the stocks of fish decline, coastal fishermen have to venture farther out to sea to find fish. This requires a greater investment in fuel and maintenance, to the point where they can’t afford to eat what they catch, but instead have to sell it to meet their expenses. The extra time they spend chasing the fish farther out to sea also means that they have less time to spend on supplemental farming at home.
One tragic outcome of the increasing scarcity affecting subsistence fishermen is that some have turned to dynamite fishing -- a more cost effective, although extremely destructive, method. The way it works is that a fisherman throws dynamite into the water, creating an underwater explosion which kills all the sea life in the immediate vicinity. Many dead fish sink to the bottom, but some of the dead and stunned fish float to the top where they are easily skimmed off the surface.This is a common method used to capture tropical reef fish for aquariums.
To make matters worse, even more people are migrating away from economically depressed inland areas and toward coastal areas, increasing the number of people dependent on fishing.
Fish for sale at Dagupan market.
National Geographic has brought attention to the problem of overfishing in a short presentation which I highly recommend watching called “Still Waters”. The case they present is that commercial fishing operations of the rich countries are basically taking fish out of the mouths of subsistence fishermen in poor countries.
A banca re-purposed for tourism, complete with lifejackets and Hello Kitty sun shade.
Some fishermen have turned to tourism to make a living. We saw a couple bancas for rent, inlcuding one that would sit on the beach in front of Happy Ripples waiting for business. For about $1 per person they would take you out on the banca for an hour. In addition to the boat’s skipper, a small group of vendors would show up at the beach in front of the resort, patiently waiting and hoping to sell their handicrafts.
The way I usually make a video is that I shoot everything and hope that I can cut it together into some kind of story afterwards. There actually isn't a lot of planning involved. When interviewing people I might have scratched down four or five questions beforehand, and then sometimes I forget to bring my questions. And then there is quite a bit of time spent setting up the shot and getting people wired for the sound. So my subjects, Dr. Peter Blair, Betty Allan, and Danielle Delves, deserve a lot of thanks for their participation in this video. You accept a huge responsibility when someone entrusts you with their moving image. I can think of probably dozens of ways you can make someone look bad and far fewer ways to make them look good.
Katya did a lot of shooting during the day and when I was done with my case list we would look for someone and somewhere to interview. The operating room I worked in during the first week had amazing natural light. One wall was made up of frosted windows, so it was perfect to shoot in. We did our first interview with Dr. Blair there. Unfortunately, later on when we wanted to shoot in it the GYN team was operating in it. I really wanted to record all the interviews in the hospital because Baguio General is such an interesting facility, but it was difficult to find locations that were reasonably private. We also had serious issues with ambient noise, such as chatter and air conditioners.
The short clips are a small part of the interviews we recorded, and a lot of good material was left out. It is amazing what you can find out about someone in a formal interview, stuff that wouldn't come out in everyday conversation. I probably wouldn't have known how passionate Dr. Blair was about the problem of poverty (not only in the Philippines but in Canada as well) for instance, or the story Betty told about the kid with burns (that happened during a previous mission, by the way). One thing I learned is that people tell some of the best stories when the interview is over and camera has been turned off. Next time, I plan to keep the camera running after I've announced that we are done.
As far as the equipment we used, we had a Canon Vixia HF M31 camcorder, and a Canon Rebel T1i EOS 500D. The Rebel shoots HD at 1080p 20 fps, but focus is only manual in video mode. Katya also used her point and shoot Nikon which shoots in HD. We used a prime 50 mm 1.4f lens for the interviews, which works really well for shooting indoors with natural light, and a Zoom H1 portable digital voice recorder attached to a tiny lavalier mic for sound.
I’m not much into souvenir shopping. I do enjoy browsing gift shops but I don’t bring home a lot of gifts. For one thing, I don’t like haggling or the feeling of being ripped off. For another, in the age of globalization, there is very little that is truly unique that you can’t buy off the internet if you really want it. And when you do find something interesting, you can’t be sure if it was made by a local artisan or mass produced in Fujian, China. In Mexico, for instance, shop vendors would tell me that that their “Maya Calendars” were hand carved by their brother, when it was obviously made out of resin poured into a mold, and looked exactly like a hundred other calendars everyone else was selling. I don't understand how they were able to make any money when everyone else was selling the same stuff, probably purchased from the same Chinese manufacturer.
My father works for Holland America as a cruise ship doctor, and my parents have spent a lot of time cruising around the world. My mother said that in the ports in the Caribbean the gift shops would be selling the same gifts and jewelry that were being sold in Alaska. It’s as if the cruise ship companies or their affiliates built these quaint little towns from the ground up, complete with a Pizza Hut and KFC, just so that the tourists would have a place to get off the boat and shop. None of the products for sale are actually locally made and there is no sign of any thriving indigenous culture.
What makes a good souvenir anyway? Do you look for something useful, creative, skillfully made, or entertaining? I imagine that people value uniqueness and a connection to the country they are visiting, and preferably something made by local artisans. It’s good to know that your purchase supports the local people and industry. For instance, I was a little disappointed when I bought a stuffed toy lizard in Maui for my daughter, only to find out later that it was made in Seattle. The degree of difficulty in the acquisition of an object is important too; it kind of deflates the excitement when you realize that the perfect gift item you found in a tiny store in the mountains of the Philippines is readily available at the Cost Plus World Market import store close to home. You can thank globalization for making souvenir shopping a little more challenging.
Katya and I expected that some of the best shopping would be at the Baguio City Market. A sprawling and labyrinthine area, it is hard to tell where the market begins and ends. Countless small shops are hidden off dark narrow pathways. With the exception of the meat section, the fish section, and the fruit and veggies section, they all seem to be selling the same things: canned goods, local peanut brittle, woven purses, native textiles, brooms, wooden carvings, penis ashtrays, and of course the filipino barrel man.
The filipino barrel man is one of the most famous souvenir items from the Philippines. It is small carved wooden figure of a man standing inside a barrel. If you pull the barrel up, his oversized penis springs out, fully erect! Like the giant wooden fork and spoon wall hangings, it is unquestionably filipino.
I’ve been searching the internet about the history of the barrel man, and unfortunately there is very little written about him. He originates in the Cordillera highlands around Baguio, but can be found all over the Philippines, even in high end gift shops in Manila around Ford Santiago, as well as the International Terminal of Ninoy Aquino International Airport. He is assumed to be an Igarot man. The carving is crude and lacks details, however, and you couldn't tell he is Igarot from his clothing -- he’s naked! It is only clear that the man has long hair and is wearing a head band.
The asking price for the barrel man in Baguio is about 100 pesos, which is a great deal, considering that at the gift shop in Intramuros in Manila it is selling for 360 pesos (but since everything in that shop was permanently half off, they were really asking 180 pesos). That is only for the smallest sized barrel man. They come in various sizes and the larger sizes go for more. I found a large barrel man for sale on eBay for as much as 74.99 USD (“Buy It Now”). Maybe this puts the value of the barrel man into the proper perspective. Or it only shows that the only people selling anything on eBay these days are opportunistic resellers.
Barrel men video by supergreen34 (not mine).
All of the modern barrel men look exactly the same, which suggests that they are all made in the same factory, or maybe in a few factories under the same management. But I was able to find a number of different iterations of the barrel man for sale searching for "vintage filipino barrel men" online. In one, the figure is more realistic and the features are more refined. Another one looked very old. The figure was highly stylized, and only abstractly resembled a human form. Unlike the modern version, the arms of the figure do not spring out, but are folded across the chest. The wood is dark, almost black, and there are white designs painted on the barrel. Could this be an early version, perhaps a prototype, one of the very first filipino barrel men?
Another interesting item we found was the cane toad purse. It is the body of a real toad that has been tanned and fashioned into a small purse, usually with a zipper across the chest and an added shoulder strap. It’s a unique accessory, complete with plastic googly eyes where the real ones used to be.The cane toad is not native to the Philippines but was brought there in 1930 to control pests in the sugarcane fields. It subsequently became the most ubiquitous amphibian in the islands. So these cane toad purses definitely could be made locally. I am suspicious though because identical cane toad purses are being made at The Toad Factory in Australia.
Other unique items are small purses made out of recycled juice containers (made by the Womens Multipurpose Coop in Baguio), the famous Baguio peanut brittle, and wooden hand-shaped chairs. By “hand-shaped” I don’t mean “shaped by hand”, but rather “shaped like a hand”. The hand-shaped chair design I suspect is not native, but instead was inspired by the surrealist Mexican artist Pedro Freideberg, who first started making hand-shaped chairs in 1962.
The other item I thought was uniquely filipino is the hand-carved highly polished wooden penis ashtray. When I was a kid decades ago, I saw them in Baguio at the gift shops around Mines View Park. There were tables covered with rows and rows of them, many more than you see these days and out front where passers-by could easily see them. It is something that you don’t easily forget. I had assumed that they were a sacred fertility symbol of the Igarot, the mountain people, central to their animist religion. I didn’t even know they were ashtrays!
Apparently you can buy wooden penis ashtrays in Bali that look exactly like the filipino ones. What surprises me is that the penis ashtray is a well-known Bali souvenir. So what is the provenance of the penis ashtray? Did it originate in Indonesia or the Philippines? The fact that I’m asking the question means that the value of the penis ashtray as a souvenir has been hopelessly degraded. It is no longer uniquely connected to a particular people or place. Years ago the penis ashtray meme must have made its way from one tourist destination to another, and a local artisan thought, “I can make this and these stupid foreigners will buy it!” Now it's just a funny ashtray mass-produced for tourists, devoid of any cultural significance. They might as well be selling them in gift shops in Mexico or the Caribbean.
We were lucky to be in Baguio at the time of the start of the annual flower festival, known as Panagbenga. “Panagbenga” is a Kankanaey term that means "a season of blossoming, a time for flowering". The month-long festival was created as a way for the city to rise up from the devastation of the 1990 Luzon earthquake. It starts with a parade of elementary school kids that runs through Session Road downtown and ends in a street dancing competition at the Athletic Bowl. The children come from all over the region, riding in on jeepneys. The staging area happened to be on South Drive, right next to Ating Tahanan. We were advised that no taxis would be running in the morning, and to leave for work early that day because the street would be crowded. Everyone wanted some extra time to enjoy the spectacle in the staging area anyway. Katya and I decided to take the entire day off to see the opening parade and festivities in Burnham Park downtown.
To see my Panagbenga photo album on Facebook, click here.
