satc 1

"(F)ashion must have a cultural meaning and should define one's identity." -Barge Ramos

It was the closest thing to sex I could experience in SoHo: a sex shop. Ate P. and I were curating the different toys for sale when I got a call from C.: she was coming from her book club, could we meet outside the theater, instead of her place?

For the movie premiere, C. and I had agreed to dress like the characters: I decided to wear jeans, a gingham shirt, and a regimental tie, urban wear for the tropics. Ate P. left the shop to check if her husband had already arrived in the restaurant, leaving me to look for a hidden door in the basement mentioned in my guidebook.

"OK, L b waiting in Big Chill UES," I texted back, while trying on a Jay Kos blazer that seemed to have been left behind. I then made a brief escape through the hole (I would return the blazer later that night).

When I was in UPIS, first grade, I had wanted to be an actor- I joined different school plays through the years, finding that I understood reality better by playing roles. It was the same that night: making believe allowed me to have a better understanding of C.'s relationships with her admirers. She's a princess, I thought. If they could see that, they wouldn't be so intimidated.

If I made the evening perfect for the princess, its magic would envelop her ever after.

We enjoyed the movie and, afterwards, as we walked to a bar to drink cosmos and toast women's empowerment, C. asked about the flowers inside the footlong hotdog bag- a deconstructed bouquet- I had given her.

"Did you notice the Eiffel Tower bag of Carrie in the movie?" I asked. "She has the Eiffel Tower and you have..."

C.'s face lit up. We had become part of the film- or did the film become part of us? Either way, she was ready to face her Mr. Big.

(I looked at my watch- I was ready to take off the warm blazer.)

no neckties

Ah! It's almost the end of summer: time to find a private island, replenish my creative juices, and write.

This is the picture I first used for my profile in Friendster when I joined it in 2003. Many people have asked me where it was taken. Boracay? Palawan?

No. This was way up north, in Pagudpud, which I heard about from Charlon, a role model in sales. What struck me about him was his ability to strike a conversation with anyone in the beach in Mindoro. It seems that our culture has made virtues out of modesty and self-deprecation: so Charlon, who overflowed with positive words and confidence, was like a fresh sea breeze. From him I learned that selling is not about insincerity, which is easily detected, selling is a transference of feeling.

"You don't have to spend a lot of money to see beauty," he said, "just go to Pagudpud."

It wasn't just sales talk.

When I finally saw the color of the waters of Pagudpud- a shade of aqua I couldn't believe existed and that my camera wasn't quite able to capture- I had to agree. Wow.


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Thanks to Sitti for "Para sa Akin."

etiquette

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people. -1 Peter 2:9 (King James Bible)

I experienced a Don Quixote moment when I met Laurent Frideres, the prince of Luxembourg.

Luxembourg is the only remaining sovereign Grand Duchy in the world, which means that in the eyes of most people Laurent cannot really be a prince in rank nor power, but his lush Oxbridge accent with its perfectly enunciated vowels and clipped consonants, his reserve, and even just the rakish way he stands while taking a picture make him so.

I thought of Laurent while researching on protocol for the recent visit of the King of Swaziland and his 13th wife to the Philippines. Here's one question: when a Filipino citizen (say, Sarah Gonzales in Caregiver) meets royal personages, is it correct to give physical obeisance to them by bowing or curtsying?

No, it is not. Under the laws of our land, sovereignty resides in us as a people. Bending the knee is the traditional gesture of an inferior to a superior: hence, we may kneel before God or whatever we worship. The curtsy is a form of the gesture of adoring a sovereign; other kingdoms have their subjects touch their foreheads to the ground or kiss the ground as royalty passes. As a democracy, we follow the lead of the historian Callisthenes and his fellow Greeks, who rejected Alexander the Great's proposal that his subjects prostrate themselves before him. Historically, this matter was settled twice: in 1521, by Lapu-Lapu during the battle of Mactan and again, in 1896, by revolutionaries who fought to free our land from subjugation to the Spanish crown.

What then is the proper way for Filipinos to treat royalty? We do so with the dignity and respect we naturally show to heads of state and other foreign officials, that is, by shaking their hand.

For a simple refresher on world etiquette, read Social Skills: A Modern Guide to Global Living by John Robert Powers Manila (Php 450).

romance

Tricia celebrated her birthday a couple of days ago and I had the chance to reflect on our friendship and feel gratitude for what I think now was her greatest gift to me: the gift of romance. Different people seem to have different ideas of what romance is. It isn't romansa, which suggests acts preceding physical intimacy, neither is it pagsuyo (courtship) nor pagibig (love). During mass, I thought of this definition of romance: a self-induced high that you share with someone else. Perhaps pagsinta is its closest translation.

What was wonderful about our friendship- and this has been the template for my relationships with other women- was that while together we basked in the glow of passion, we directed its flames to others rather than one another: our friendship through the years was never consumed by conflagration.

In Middle School, she explained to me the meaning of the Gallic phrase, "Je suis amoureux comme un fou de toi." It's an extravagant way of saying I love you: literally, it means I am like a fool in love with you. Since we used French to write top-secret notes to each other, these words are branded on my heart.

When we saw each other again after more than a decade apart, we had barely finished hugging in front of City Lights when she said we would spend the day in Napa Valley. I seldom drink wine, Wine Country was a couple of hours away, yet Trish instinctively knew that this was a day the romantic in me would always remember. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.


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Thanks to Basil Valdez for the song Paalam.

camote bread

The shortage in cheap rice has been an opportunity for many of us to reexamine our diets and look for alternative staples. On Labor Day, I took Ate Nene and Kuya Mario to Café by the Ruins in Baguio City to have camote bread with fish roe pâté- ang sarap! The recipe for camote bread is here.

More healthy and affordable Filipino vegetarian recipes are here.

yoga

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When the student is ready, the teacher appears. -Old Indian adage

There were a number of new activities I resolved to try out this year and one of them is yoga. I view it as an exercise for the development of flexibility and improvement of posture, though longtime yogis emphasize that it is primarily a spiritual practice, one that leads to a profound understanding of our existence. Some authorities believe that yoga originated in the Indus Valley as far back as 3300- 1700 B.C. I joined a tantra yoga school in which a mantra is used together with the asanas or postures. The Sanskrit mantra in the recording is "Baba nam kevalam," and means "Love is the essence of all things."

One of my interesting discoveries is the difference between breathing in the Japanese martial arts and in yoga. In aikido, we are taught to inhale slowly through the nose and exhale through the mouth- the exhalation corresponds to the exertion of energy or ki. In yoga, we are taught to inhale and exhale only through the nose, forcing one to slow down. It took me several sessions to adjust and realize yet again that there is no one correct way of doing things, that there are many paths for even the most basic activities such as breathing.

As regards the mental attitude developed, aikido teaches one to blend with external forces, to become one with the adversary; I've read that tantra yoga eventually leads one to a kind of union with the universe, but I've noticed that at my beginner's stage I've simply become more self-aware and perhaps assertive on a gut level. Physically, I've found that with the stretching of the different parts of the body- and perhaps the vigorous massage given by one dada after the class- my backache has disappeared.

trust

One of the surprising things I discovered about business is how it is founded on trust. In law school, I had read so many cases of breach of contract that I had assumed there was an element of coercion or fear in the enforcement of agreements, that business operates on mistrust. In the best business relationships I have, however, written contracts are mere formalities: someone trusts you to deliver a product or a service, and you trust that person to pay you in return.

In April 2006, I was tasked by one of the shareholders of Makati Medical Center (that's her golden shoe in the picture) to create a PowerPoint marketing presentation with simple animation for a global sharing center she was setting up in Makati. Prior to signing our agreement, I had met her once in Oakwood for about an hour after being introduced by W., who I had met in a conference that same day. They didn't ask for my CV or portfolio, they just wanted me to begin making the presentation right away!

For this project, I formed a team comprised of photographer Ric Lopez and graphic artist A.P., both of whom were former colleagues in Living News, and writer Gabby Lee, who was part of my production team for Dr. Custodio's biography. I had confidence in my team, even if we were working in different geographical locations and communicating by email most of the time.

The only kink in the process was when work on the animation caused us to be late in submitting the PowerPoint by a couple of minutes. I was chastised by our client and I learned that in the global services marketplace, submitting deliverables on time is paramount. Nonetheless, our client was able to fly to the US the following day with her marketing presentation and all members of our project team got paid. The greatest fulfillment for me was seeing the success of our virtual collaboration and contributing to the growth of a multi-billion dollar BPO industry in the Philippines.