Goodbye summer, hello fire trees!

As much as I love summer, I love it more when it draws to a close. Besides the end to the scorching temperature in this side of the equator, it also means fire tree season!

Fire trees (or flame trees, Delonix regia) is a flowering tree that grows in many tropical parts of the world, like the Philippines. Truth be told, I only began to notice it and its bright red-orange blooms when I was in college, where the university I attended and the other university I would pass by in my commute from Manila to Quezon City, both had these trees in relative abundance. By the time school would start in June, they would already be proudly displaying their cheery color amidst a blanket of green.

The same month though is also the start of the rainy season, and those bright blooms find themselves scattered on the ground not for long. But for a few weeks, we get to see them put a delightful display. And it never fails to make me smile.

Once, I wondered out loud why people didn’t plant more of them in the city, line streets with them. Just imagine how pretty it would be! A friend who grew up in a farm then told me that they are notorious for harboring higad (those itchy, hairy caterpillars) and fire ants. She had an unpleasant experience with them and obviously didn’t share my enthusiasm for fire trees. I guess any visions of hanami-like (cherry blossom viewing) activities were out of the question.

But potential higad-infestation notwithstanding, I still try to go out of my way to look at fire trees. Years ago in UP Diliman, I once chanced upon A. Roces Street when its fire trees were almost all abloom. It was late in the afternoon, the street was almost empty, and there were these trees just putting a sort of  bright, happy punctuation to an ordinary day.

I took a stroll down there again last Sunday. The fire trees had not yet all bloomed (or maybe they had and I missed them) but I still saw some of the flowers clinging to their branches.

Bikers along A. Roces Street and under a fire tree

Keep blooming, you can do it! Imagine when more of them are bright red orange

Heading out, along University Ave

Bye, fire tree, until next year

Hey, stage sister...

Reblogged from Itinerary:

• 

Woke up to this and of course must share with the world (i.e., world of four readers, including fat cat):

"The kikiams and humans here live in a space where broken hearts mean alcohol and women, where getting off on porn is what’s normal, where the beerhouse exists for real, prostitutes included. Here the objectification of the woman’s body is taken to a level that isn’t uncomfortable, because it’s on a level that lets it speak: the women here might be dancing but they are speaking too, laughing at the manner in which they’ve got the Pinoy macho—men and…

Read more… 198 more words

This is from my sister's blog. Doing my duties as a fellow 'stage sister' for our younger brother who's behind local comic book Kubori Kikiam, which is about a trio of talking kikiams, who are crude and funny as hell.

My prayers and sympathy go to the Japanese

Here’s an insightful New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof on Japan’s stoicism, civility, and collective resilience. (Below is an excerpt)

There’s a common Japanese word, “gaman,” that doesn’t really have an English equivalent, but is something like “toughing it out”…

This stoicism is built into the Japanese language. People always say “shikata ga nai” – it can’t be helped. And one of the most common things to say to someone else is “ganbatte kudasai” – tough it out, be strong. Natural disasters are seen as part of Japan’s “unmei,” or fate – a term that is written by combining the characters for movement and life…

Uncomplaining, collective resilience is steeped into the Japanese soul.

A day to remember Rizal

It is Rizal Day today in the Philippines. The death anniversary of the country’s national hero Jose Rizal, a patriot and advocate for reforms in the country during the Spanish colonial times. A quick bio on Rizal: Unlike the armed Philippine revolutionaries before him, he used the pen as his weapon, writing many works criticizing the Spanish colonial authorities. The most prominent were his two novels, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo (required reading for all Filipino students), which were critical of the Spanish friars and the other abuses of the colonizers and the Church. Spanish authorities got mad, arrested him for inciting revolution, and after a military trial, executed him in 1896. That execution, many believe, was the main catalyst for the Philippine Revolution. Nice going Spanish colonizers.

The entrance of Fort Santiago

Rizal was imprisoned in Fort Santiago, one of the oldest fortifications in Manila. It’s one of the historic sites in the Philippine capital and funny, irreverent tour guide Carlos Celdran includes it in his Walk This Way: Tour of Intramuros (a must-do if you’re visiting Manila). I just don’t think going inside the Rizal Shrine is part of the tour, so if you’re going to tour around this part of Manila yourself, walk further into the house-turned-museum where Rizal spent his last night, step inside the “Contemplation Room” where some of Rizal’s writings are engraved on the wall, and peek into his cell, where he wrote his last poem, Mi Ultimo Adios (My Last Farewell). He was 35 when he died.

A peek into Rizal’s “cell”

I got mail. Snail mail.

No, unfortunately it wasn’t a letter with Keanu Reeves attached to it, but it was still exciting to receive something from the post.