June 26, 2020 at 7:58 pm (Family, Filipino Writers, Philippine History, Places, Relatives, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Bacolod, historical fiction, history, novel, The Philippines, work-in-progress, World War II
Further in self’s novel about the World War II occupation of the city of Bacolod in the central Philippines (72k words so far):
Don Geronimo entered Honorato’s room just as his eldest son was about to get dressed. It was eight o’clock.
“The Japanese are here,” he said.
Honorato said nothing.
There was a group of them, some in uniform, some in civilian clothing. They had told Don Geronimo they were there to put the Daku Balay under the protection of the Imperial Japanese Army. “We are forbidden to leave the premises without permission. Go through the kitchen. Moses is waiting for you by the side gate.”
The Daku Balay, Burgos Street, Bacolod City: It was used by the Japanese High Command during World War II. Self’s grandfather sent her uncle to the mountains. Her father, only 12 at the time, stayed home.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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January 2, 2020 at 5:58 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Family, Food and Drink, fpj-photo-challenge, Holidays, Links, Lists, Niece, Places, postaday, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: art, Bacolod, Christmas, Cork, Cornwall, Events, Filipino food, Fowey, Ireland, London, memories, Menlo Park, Oxford, Prague, Redwood City, restaurants, The Philippines, Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Great theme!
In 2019, self traveled the world. Her life triangulated between home in Redwood City, California, to England and Ireland, to the Philippines. Side trip to Prague with her niece, Irene!
Here goes, all the images that mattered most to self in 2019, arranged from most recent — December 2019 — to the earliest, January 2019: Starting with her home in Redwood City in early December; to London’s Blackfriar station; to Manggapuri Villa in Don Salvador Benedicto, Negros Occidental, Philippines; to Prague; to Oxford University’s Exam School for Alice Oswald’s first reading as Oxford’s first woman Poet in Residence; to Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park; to the Main House of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig; to the fire pit in Manggapuri Villas; to the Daku Balay in Bacolod City, the Philippines; to self’s bedroom; to the Blue Room in Café Paradiso in Cork, Ireland; to Fowey in Cornwall; to Courthouse Square, Redwood City; to the cover of last winter’s issue of Prairie Schooner, which included her story Things She Can Take
Prague, May 2019
Waiting for the Alice Oswald lecture to begin, 13 November 2019
Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Republic of Ireland, last week of October
Manggapuri Villas: September 2019
Daku Balay, 50 Burgos Street, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, The Philippines
Self’s headboard in Redwood City, CA: Made in the Philippines
Paradiso, Cork, May 2019: She bought the Converse sneakers in London a few weeks earlier. Now they are scuffed and smudged, everywhere.
Stay tuned.
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December 14, 2019 at 8:51 pm (Dearest Mum, Family, Holidays, Pianos, Relatives)
Tags: Bacolod, Half Moon Bay, Manila, memories, nostalgia, Redwood City, Saturday, The Philippines, Ying
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September 25, 2019 at 11:23 pm (destinations, Family, Links, Niece, Philippine History, Places, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling)
Tags: Bacolod, Corregidor, Don Salvador Benedicto, festivals, memorial, memories, nostalgia, Philippine History, Redwood City, The Philippines, World War II
Week 179 of the Tuesday Photo Challenge is STONE (“Turn to something a bit more permanent.”)
Self went searching among her recent photos for examples of stone.
First, the fire pit at Manggapuri Villas, Purok Pagdanon, Don Salvador Benedicto, in the Philippine province of Negros Occidental (Dear Departed Dad’s home province). Just beyond, shrouded in mist, the still-active Canlaon Volcano. Don Salvador Benedicto is about an hour-and-a-half drive from Bacolod City:
Manggapuri Villas: September 2019
Next, a photo of Courthouse Square, just prior to the Annual Redwood City Salsa Festival:
Courthouse Square Before the Annual Redwood City Salsa Festival, Saturday, 21 September
Finally, a statue of General Douglas MacArthur on the Philippine island of Corregidor (That’s self standing with son and his cousin Georgina, 20 years ago. She found the photo when she was cleaning out the closets recently):
Georgina, Andrew and Self on the Island of Corregidor, at the Mouth of Manila Bay
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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September 19, 2019 at 4:47 pm (destinations, Family, Food and Drink, Links, Places, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling)
Tags: Bacolod, happiness, memories, restaurants, The Philippines
Thanks to a Photo a Week Challenge prompt: SOMETHING NEW.
And self did do something new: She went home.
Not only did she go home, she went one better and returned to her Dear Departed Dad’s home island of Negros Occidental.
She stayed with cousins.
7th Floor, Belles Artes Condominiums, Galo cor. GV & Sons Street
She saw, for the first time in six years, the house where her Dear Departed Dad grew up, the Daku Balay:
Daku Balay, 50 Burgos Street, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, The Philippines
In Bacolod, she had the most delicious pizza! Here, smoked bangus pizza and basil pizza:
Café Oscar, Galo Street (Ground Floor, Belles Artes Building), Bacolod City
Great trip.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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June 17, 2019 at 4:06 pm (Family, Links, Philippine History, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Bacolod, memoir, memories, Mondays, The Philippines, work-in-progress, World War II
Below, page 1 of a very, very old work-in-progress. Self was clearing her closets when she stumbled across the hard copy yesterday.
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY, DEAR DEPARTED DAD.
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October 17, 2018 at 11:45 am (Artists and Writers, Filipino Writers, Places, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, artists residency, Bacolod, historical novel, The Philippines, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, war novel, work-in-progress, World War II
Self’s novel is set on the island of Negros, in the central Philippines, at the start of the Japanese Occupation during World War II. Honorato, an hacendero‘s son, and Moses, the enkargado, are ordered to the mountains by Honorato’s father.
Self is bringing it, people. Just bringing it. Right now, her manuscript stands at 247 pages.
The next day the forest rears up before them, indescribably dense. It takes them a mere hour to reach the first line of trees. Upon entering, they find themselves under a thick canopy of foliage, the light fading to a cathedral dimness. Birds and an occasional monkey frolic overhead.
Moses leads the way, hacking the heavy vines and tree branches that block their path. Soon, his back is soaked with sweat. Honorato watches silently as the enkargado removes his shirt. The older man’s back is ribbed and corded and hard-looking, with small scars pocking the surface, from what past injury Honorato can only guess.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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September 25, 2018 at 5:52 am (Books, Conversations, Personal Bookshelf)
Tags: advice, Bacolod, indulgences, memories, Mondays, Robert Greene, The Philippines
An emotional response to a situation is the single greatest barrier to power, a mistake that will cost you a lot more than any temporary satisfaction you might gain by expressing your feelings. — Robert Greene
Plus, from one of her old journals:
- Today I had a massage . . . lol
Written, of course, in Bacolod. In Bacolod, self was always so mellow. She was never angry. A one-hour massage averaged 500 pesos, about $9. She had daily massage, over there. Heck, she could even have had two massages daily, if she felt like it. All the masahistas had strong, unerring hands. They seemed to know by instinct. Only once did self ever have a bad message in Bacolod: the woman just moved her hands skimmingly over the skin, didn’t really knead it. Ugh, self felt she’d spent a full hour just being tickled.
One night, during a massage, self kept hearing the distant, popping sounds of what she thought were gunshots. It made her so uneasy. The masahista said it was Firecrackers. Oh, it was New Year’s Eve? It had completely slipped self’s mind.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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September 23, 2018 at 7:20 am (Conversations, Philippine History, Sundays, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Bacolod, historical fiction, novel, work-in-progress, World War II
It was mid-April. Honorato was sent to the mountains. He had just turned 18.
His parents worried because he was tall, because he was good-looking, because he was the eldest and bore his family’s hopes on his slender shoulders. So, hide, his father told him. Get as far away from here as you can.
How long must I stay in the mountains, Honorato asked.
As long as the Hapon are here, his father said. And don’t try to come back, not until the war is over. We will get word to you, somehow.
It was still dark when the enkargado knocked softly on the door of Honorato’s room. “‘Toto,” he called softly. “Time to get up.”
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September 11, 2018 at 4:35 am (Books, Family, Memoirs, Philippine History, Relatives, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Bacolod, memories, The Philippines, work-in-progress, World War II
- All the time, my stepfather was shaking and swearing, because call-up letters were flying around like birds.
This evening self suddenly thinks about her World War II novel (244 pages) and realizes it has no heart. The only thing it describes is how an 18-year-old is sent into the mountains with the enkargado.
When Bacolod was occupied, self’s Dear Departed Dad was 12. The Japanese High Command chose the biggest house in Bacolod to commandeer. Which at the time was Dear Departed Dad’s family’s house.
It had a winding staircase made of imported Carrara marble! With a working Otis elevator! Of course the occupiers must have marveled about how that house had come to be, in such a small island in the center of the Philippines.
Must have been pretty tense, right? When self knew her grandfather, he was an old man in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the neck down. He was always that way, always a sublime paralytic in her memory. It wasn’t until six years ago that self learned that her grandfather suffered the stroke during the Occupation.
There’s a war story self’s Dear Departed Dad told her about how, one day, everyone in Bacolod was made to line up around the Plaza. There was a prisoner seated in the middle of the Plaza and he was beaten pretty badly. The guards wanted him to point out his accomplices. Right when two of my father’s uncles passed in front of the prisoner, his guards gave him a particularly vicious beating. And his arm came up and he pointed, without thought. And he was pointing at one of my father’s uncles. Who was immediately taken away and never seen again.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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