Wander Girl

by Tweet Sering

  Copyright © Tweet Sering 2004

  First published in print by Summit Publishing Co., Inc.

  Cover design by Dang Sering

  ePub design and production by Flipside team

  eISBN 978-971-9942-35-1

  This e-book edition published 2012

  by Flipside Digital Content Company, Inc.

  Quezon City, Philippines

  www.flipsidecontent.com

  For Jof, Dang, Jeanny, Nena, Mae, Nicole, Mabi, Gayle, Erin and all the passionately footloose femmes everywhere

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you: Mom and Pops, for sharing with your five children your love for travel; Marky, for being my best friend and enabler where my dreams and overall happiness are concerned; Marge Melendez-Albito, for your enduring friendship and for the beautiful cover illustration of this book’s first print edition; Lisa Gokongwei, Myrza Sison, Auieeie Mangubat, Irene Bercasio and Tara Sering of Summit Books, for having the vision that made that first edition possible; Anthony De Luna, Honeylein de Peralta, Kristine Marie Reynaldo, Grace Dayrit, Adam David, and the wonderfully dedicated and talented team at Flipside Digital for making this edition possible.

  And thank you, Mad, for showing up.

  wanderlust (won’der-lust’) n. A strong, persistent urge to travel.

  —Revised Edition, Riverside Webster’s Dictionary

  The person susceptible to “wanderlust” is not so much addicted to movement as committed to transformation.

  —Pico Iyer, from “Why We Travel”

  Hannah put down the last page of the manuscript. Then she looked at me with an expression I had never seen on her before.

  “Ate, are you sure?” she asked softly.

  “It’s that bad?” I asked, my heart constricting.

  “No, no,” she said quickly. “I love it. Sagad sa buto, eh.”

  “I know...”

  Then, as though reading my thoughts, my wise-beyond-her-years, 24-year-old little sister said, “But it’s the only kind of writing that matters.”

  Thank you, Hannah, I’m glad to have pleased you. Finally.

  Her impish face broke into a wide grin; her eyes literally sparkled. “‘Eto na yon,” she said. “Game!”

  The Author

  Hilda Gallares has had a long and fruitful career in the travel industry. She worked as a sales representative for a travel agency, then for an airline, first as a sales representative before moving on as account manager. She was also editor-in-chief of the airline’s in-house newsletter, ‘The Wandering ‘I’. She is the founder of Wander Girl Guidebooks, the Philippines’ only publisher of travel guides designed for women.

  This Book

  From the Publisher

  Hello, Wander Girls!

  It’s been three years since we came out with our first book, Your Friendly Neighbors: The Fun, Fabulous Filipina’s Guide to Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Since then, you have continuously patronized our titles, as evidenced by the fact that we’re still here!

  The past three years have seen more of you taking trips—with friends, family, partners (and even by yourselves!)—and discovering the beauty within and outside our country. In the process, you have made Wander Girl Guidebooks synonymous with Pinay adventure.

  And we couldn’t be happier! This is the reason Wander Girl Guidebooks exists—to encourage you to journey into the unknown and to open more Filipina eyes to the wonders of her world.

  As a third year anniversary gift, we urge you to take a different kind of journey—to embark on what we believe is your most important one: the journey into your own heart. It is a territory many of us take for granted, its landscape unfamiliar and hazy to us. If we only knew the wonders that it holds and the directions it may take us, we would never let anyone—including ourselves—misuse and abuse it.

  May this account of one woman’s brave journey within inspire you to do the same.

  Have a great read!

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Facts About Hilda’s Heart

  Pre-Adolescent History

  Early Helenic Influence

  First Contact with the West

  Years of Oppression

  Rise of Anti-Pinoy Sentiment

  Fall of the Old Order

  French Rule

  Other Foreign Involvement

  British Colonialism

  Birth of an Independent State

  Special Bonus Section: Bangkok

  Introduction

  Seven years ago, if some psychic had even remotely suggested that I would become the person I am today, I would have given her a neutral, non-threatening look so as not to give away my mounting distrust, and would have surreptitiously reached for the phone to punch in the numbers for security. For only the worst kind of twisted mind (hello, Hannibal!) could have looked at my circumstances during those years and predicted that I would one day find happiness, fulfillment, love—that I would get everything I wanted in life. It was just totally out-of-whack.

  Consider: At 22, I was the only one of three daughters still living at home, feeling as though my sisters had left me to deal with my parents’ weirdness by myself. Helen, the eldest, a flight attendant, had just moved to her own apartment in Mandaluyong; Hannah, the youngest, a fine arts student, to her freshman dorm at the university.

  Don’t get me wrong—my situation was nothing like Beth’s (remember Little Women), the sickly of four sisters and the one left at home with their parents as the others sought adventure. Instead of a father who had bravely gone off to fight for his country, I had a dad who, in the throes of mid-life (what my mom also called “male menopause”), battled a punching bag by day and an upright bass by night. Somehow, he had gotten it into his 45-year-old head that he no longer wished to be CEO of the country’s biggest publisher of trade books and that it was time he heeded his real calling: to be a jazz musician and...a boxer.

  As though that weren’t enough of a blow, he delivered the deadly uppercut: he had invested all his savings (“His entire retirement fund!” my mom wailed. “And he has no other savings, that man!”) into a new jazz bar he and his best friend, Tito Johnny, were setting up. They called it The Bourbon Blues. But instead of a mother who exuded Marmee-like wisdom and calm, which was what was called for in this situation, I had a mom whose standard response to every crisis was to blame the Devil. Himself.

  “He is tempting Dad into a life of irresponsibility and carelessness, that’s why we have to double our efforts at praying,” she pleaded.

  By that, she meant going to church almost as often as going to the restroom, and reciting under her breath— almost every hour on the hour—just about every novena known to the Roman Catholic Christendom, thus rendering her lips in a state of perpetual motion that many (including myself, at one point) had mistaken for a permanent muscle spasm.

  And while most people my age were starting their careers at big companies—meeting with colleagues within their age bracket, trying out new restaurants for lunch, and going out for coffee breaks at cool cafes as one jolly bunch— I was working for my mom’s travel agency, had middle-aged, married women for officemates, brought baon from home that my mom and I shared on her desk during lunch break, and was strongly advised against developing a caffeine habit by my boss/mom.

  “There’s melon milk in the ref,” she’d say, without looking up from her manager’s desk, whenever I’d try to slip past her and out the front door for the nearest Starbucks. My officemates, all of whom I addressed as tita, would give me sympathetic looks as I would plod back to my depressing, standard-issue gray cubicle. What made it worse was the thought that at that very moment, my best friend, Lulu, was living out our shared dream of traipsing the world as an international flight attendant. Meanwhile, I trie
d to content myself with vicarious travel care of the itineraries I prepared for our clients.

  The irony of my position wasn’t lost on me: as a travel counselor—the expert in travel—I advised my clients on where to go, how to get there, what stops shouldn’t be missed or what spots to pass up, and yet I hadn’t gone to any of those places myself. I know I would’ve been less compelled to stay on at the agency had my mind not kept reverting back to one afternoon tea break with my mom.

  Being the well-mannered, discreet woman that she was, my mom didn’t think it proper to speak even to her closest friends of the amount of tossing and turning she’d been doing at night over her husband’s recent—what was it, pagwawala? But since she really had to get things off her chest, she turned to me as her default confidant. “He’s nagwawala, noh?” she said for the 567th time that day, gingerly lifting the teacup to her lips. “Why kaya?”

  Then my mom spilled her guts to me: how, now that my dad wasn’t earning anymore, we were subsisting on the travel agency’s earnings, which was measly compared to what it usually raked in in previous years. The travel industry had been one of the hardest hit by the Asian Crisis, and has been on a steady downward spin since then.

  “OK lang sana if Hannah weren’t still in school. That’s four years to go and I have to put food on the table.” Her sigh was heavy and defeated. “Help mommy, ha, Hilda? I wished Helen would help us out here. But she’d rather be a flight attendant...OK na rin siguro. So it’s really just you and me in this agency.” With that, at age 22, I basically took on the duties and responsibilities of my dad as one-half head of the family.

  On top of all that (or should I say, on top of me?), I had a boyfriend whose idea of sex was counting out loud along to his thrusts—all the way to 250!—whether or not I climaxed. Gabe had been captain of the varsity swim team in college and needed to prove, via our encounters, that he was still in perfect shape.

  Saturday nights, while Gabe’s parents were at their prayer meeting and he’d sent his teenage brother away with gimmick money so we’d have the bedroom to ourselves, I would sound my well-practiced cry of absolute surrender on the 50th count in the vain hope that he’d cut it out already so I could go home and hang out with Hannah, who’d be home for the weekend, and with Helen, if she didn’t have a flight. But he would merely peer at me, without breaking count.

  “Hooh! That’s not real, noh?”

  “It is kaya,” I’d snap, but without much conviction, while attempting to maintain the same moan level until I lost my concentration and gagged.

  “Haha, bisto!”

  From all angles, ours was a juvenile relationship. We fought over the smallest things, like ordering the same food at a restaurant (Me: “Tsk! Sana you got something else para may variety,”; Gabe: “Eh, bakit ako? I always order lechon kawali. Gaya-gaya ka lang naman, eh”). But I liked Gabe. He was comfortable to be around, like old, threadbare t-shirts you wear to bed. So I just tried as best I could to turn what we had into something resembling an adult relationship, beginning with the sex. But efforts like gifting him with Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, dog-eared on the pertinent pages, and saying I would really prefer having those things done to me sometimes, only frustrated me further. I had to face the fact, two years into the relationship, that Gabe wasn’t the world’s biggest fan of books. The only way that he was ever going to get around to reading Henry Miller is if I pulled it out from under his pile of soiled briefs, highlighted passages with a magic marker, shoved it under his nose and growled like a bitch in heat, “I said, READ, potah!”

  Lousy sex life or not, breaking up with him was not an option. Not yet, anyway. My martyr sensibilities told me two years was too soon to give up on someone. Besides, who would I watch the occasional movie with? I had all but given up my high school and college friends, all of whom were denizens of an exciting, grown-up world that I wasn’t part of. Everyone seemed to be in advertising and marketing; they were copywriters, junior account executives, assistant brand managers. Meeting with them for after-office drinks had become increasingly excruciating—I realized I had nothing to contribute to the sparkling conversation except to ask for the gambas to be passed this way, please.

  Unconsciously, I began walking with a slight stoop, as though a cruel world had dealt my spine a crushing blow that I couldn’t recover from. I was angst personified. I was completely decimated. I had no hope, no joy...nothing.

  That was seven years ago. I’m now a few months shy of my 30th birthday and lately, I find myself needing to remember that sad, lost 22-year-old girl if only to remind myself how far I’ve come.

  I haven’t become a millionaire (not yet, anyway), I haven’t won an Oscar (although I camped in front of the TV and cheered for Sofia Coppola), I haven’t discovered the cure for breast cancer (though I wish I had, so keep doing those monthly breast self-exams), but I have survived my 20s. And that, for me, is something to crow about.

  I have a nice little apartment in a good part of town, with a huge window that looks out onto Manila Bay. In the mornings, when the smog has cleared, I stare out into the sea and wonder, knowing what I already know, what my 30s are going to be like. And for the first time, I’m not so scared. I am actually looking forward to them (bring it on!).

  Consider this the story of someone who has lived to tell. Because, I’m telling you, when you’ve survived your 20s intact, you can take absolutely anything.

  Facts About Hilda’s Heart

  Pre-Adolescent History

  To really know your heart, to know what it beats for and why—why it likes a particular thing and rejects others, why it thrives in certain atmospheres and shrivels in some, why the hell it gravitates towards the same unworthy assholes and unsatisfying relationships—you have to start your journey from the very beginning: childhood. Yikes. This point in our lives is crawling with clues it’s scary.

  I was born the second of three daughters. Helen is two years older than me, Hannah five years younger. To this day, my mom accounts for the wide age gap between me and my youngest sister by saying God decided to give her and my dad another child at that moment in their marriage, although Helen and I beg to differ. Hannah, our air-tight theory goes, is really the fruit of a let’s-give-this-crumbling-marriage-a-second-chance romp that my parents had in Italy for their eighth year anniversary.

  “Whatever you say,” our mom would laughingly concede whenever we’d corner her about it these days.

  But I digress. This section is really about Helen and my hero-worship for that sister.

  The stark difference between Helen’s and my physical features is such a cliché it’s so not funny. For instance, when we’d tell people we were sisters, they would stare first at one face and then at the other, trying to spot the similarities that supported the claim. Helen’s features—fair skin, brown hair, heart-shaped face, almond eyes framed by long, dark lashes, and a small, pink mouth—were the sort that had relatives and family friends crying out their pleasure at the sight of her, hugging her too tight and pinching her cheeks too hard. Unwanted attention, as far as Helen was concerned. Their cries startled her, the hugs left her gasping for air and the pinches left a painful sting that lingered long after the red marks disappeared.

  My earliest memory of Helen was of her in constant distress. She was always crying, always asking for “Mommy!” And I would sit on the floor amongst our toys, mesmerized by her exposed vibrating tonsils as she bawled and sniffled and carelessly wiped snot with the back of her hand, leaving traces of it on her cheek. It was an almost violent protest to anyone, except our mom, who attempted a pinch.

  I was spared this same adult abuse because of two things: first, as earlier stated, I look nothing like Helen. I have sharp, cat-like eyes; an oval face; thick lips; black hair and olive skin. In short, so not tisay. Second (and this information my mom supplied, confirmed by various relatives), Helen would not let anyone near me. As soon as I was born, she took it upon herself to act as my protector. She would stand guard b
y my crib, point a stick that had been severed from its broom at an incoming intruder, and demand in a deep, ominous voice she had picked up from too many morning cartoon shows, “Who. Goes. There?”

  My mom assures me that my sister could sure beat the crap out of a person. She had an assassin’s instinct for what body parts to go for: she cracked the stick hard across the shins repeatedly and showed no mercy. Interestingly, it was a violent streak that only surfaced when it came to me, the way most mothers in the animal kingdom turn into stark, raving-mad monsters when faced with a threat to their young. Somehow my sister couldn’t muster the same energy when it came to protecting herself. So while she screamed and cried in a stranger’s arms, the tears abruptly stopped like the switching off of a faucet when she felt I was under possible stress. Then she’d morph into a tiny predecessor of a blood-hungry Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. I guess she figured that since I couldn’t scream and cry out the words “Mommy” just yet, I needed someone to keep those up-to-no-good adults at bay.

  Everyone found my sister’s protectiveness of me quite endearing. “Ateng-ate talaga” they’d say, but they would all be wise enough to keep away from the force field we seemed to draw around ourselves. For my part, I simply assumed that that was what older sisters do. In turn, I gave my sister my full devotion and unabashed adulation. Because that, I assumed, was what younger sisters were born to do.

  Early Helenic Influence

  Helen was, literally, the center of my universe. I can’t recall a moment in our childhood when she wasn’t in my line of sight. We did everything together: practiced our speech and reading with Sesame Street, feigned sleep during the requisite afternoon naps, started an ice candy business one summer that we ended up sucking to bankruptcy within two days, picked out Nancy Drew books at the bookstore as gifts from our parents during each other’s birthdays, learned to swim in our neighbor’s pool, and wrestled the remote control from our dad when he insisted on watching another boxing match.