Japan: With the sunset comes a new dawn
(Call it by whatever name – religion or ideology – it is a universal truth: sacrifice and giving amid great odds is a product of a great society; A society that survives with dignity.)
Letter from Fukushima: A Vietnamese-Japanese police officer’s account
Editor’s note: This letter, written by a Vietnamese immigrant working in Fukishima as a policeman to a friend in Vietnam, is circulated on facebook among the Vietnamese Diaspora. It is an extraordinary testimony to the Japanese spirit and strength and dignity. And it’s an interesting slice of life near the epic center of Japan’s current crisis, the Fukushima’s nuclear power plant.
Brother, how are you and your family? These last few days everything was in chaos. If I close my eyes, I see dead bodies. If I open my eyes, I also see dead bodies. Each one of us have to work 20 hours a day. Yet I wish we had 48 hours in a day so that we can continue to go help rescue folks.
We are without water and electricity, and food ration is near zero. We barely manage to move refugees and there are new orders to move them elsewhere.
I am currently in Fukushima, about 25 kilometers away from the nuclear power plant. I have so much to tell you that if I could write it all down it would surely turn into a novel about human relationships and behavior during time of crisis.
The other day I ran into a Vietnamese American. His name is Toan and he is an engineer working at Fukushima 1 and he was wounded right at the beginning when the earthquake struck. With the chaos that ensued no one helped him communicate with his family. When I ran into him I contacted the US embassy and I have to admit that I admire the Americans’ swift action: they sent a helicopter immediately to the hospital and took him to their military base.
But the foreign students from Vietnam are not so lucky. I still have not received any news from them, and if there are exact names and addresses of where they work and so on, it would be easier to find out as to their fate. In Japan the police do not keep such exact data of residency the way they do in Vietnam and privacy law here makes it difficult to find them. I met a Japanese woman who worked with seven Vietnamese women who are here foreign students. Their work place is only 3 km from the ocean and she said that they don’t’ really understand Japanese and when they fled they followed her. But when she checked back they were gone. Now she didn’t know if they managed to survive. She remembers one woman’s name Nguyen thi Huyen (or Hien).
No representatives from the Vietnamese embassy have shown even though on the Vietnamese news on the internet they say that they are very concerned about Vietnamese citizens in Japan, all of it a lie.
Even us policemen are hungry and thirsty so can you imagine what those Vietnamese foreign students are going through? The worst things here right now are the cold, the hunger and thirst, the lack of water and electricity. The people here remain calm, and their sense of dignity and proper behavior are very good so things aren’t as bad as they could be. But given another week I can’t guarantee that things wont’ get to a point where there would no way we can provide proper protection and order. They are humans after all, and when hunger and thirst override dignity, well, they will do what they have to do. The government is trying to provide air supply, bringing in food and medicine but it’s like dropping a little salt into the ocean.
Brother, there are so many stories I want to tell you but there are so many that I don’t know how to write them. But there was a really moving incident. It involves a little Japanese boy and he taught an adult like me a lesson on how to behave as human being.
Last night, I was sent to a little grammar school to help a charity organization distribute food to the refugees. It was a long line the snaked this way and that and I saw a little boy around 9 years old. He was wearing a t-shirt and pair of shorts.
It was getting very cold and the boy was at the very end of the line. I was worried that by the time his turn came there wouldn’t be any food left. So I talked to him.
He said he was in the middle of PE at school when the earthquake happened. His father worked nearby and was driving to the school. He was on the third floor balcony and he saw the tsunami sweep his father’s car away. I asked him about his mother and he said his house is right by the beach, and that his mother and little sister probably didn’t make it. He turned his head and wiped his tears when I asked about his relatives.
The boy was shivering so I took off my police jacket and put it on him. That’s when my bag of food ration fell out. I picked it up and gave it to him. “When it comes to your turn, they might run out of food. So here’s my portion. I already ate. Why don’t you eat it.”
The boy took my food and bowed. I thought he would eat it right away but not at all. He took the bag of food and went up where the line end and put it where all the food was waiting to be distributed. I was really shocked. I asked him why he didn’t eat it and instead add it to the food.
He answered: “Because I see a lot more people hungrier than I am. If I put it there then they would distribute the food equally.”
When I heard that I turned away so that people didn’t see me cry. It was so moving. Who knew a 9 year old in 3rd grade can teach me a lesson on how to be a human being in a time of great suffering? A powerful lesson on sacrifice and giving. A society that can a produce a nine year old who understands about sacrifice for the greater good has got to be a great society, a great people.
It reminds me of a phrase that I learned in school on capitalist theories from old man Fuwa [Tetsuzo], Chairman of Japanese Communist Party: “If Marx comes back to life, he will have to add a phrase to his book, Capital, and that’s ‘Communist ideology is only successful in Japan.’
Well, a few lines to send you and your family my warm wishes. The hours of my shift has begun again.
Ha Minh Thanh
The way we are
I woke up today harking back to my youth in a remote farming village in the Philippines where I grew up. The village has the sea on one side and the hills on the other. There are some parts of the village where the hills slide into the seashore.
I often watched the turquoise sea from those hills while greasing four carabaos – indigenous Asian farm animals used for plowing rice fields – when schools closed during the summer vacation. The wide open seas often made me dream of neon lights in the cities that I used to see in the movies.
Like most lucky dreamers, I had made my dreams come true and have had a taste of night life under those neon lights, only to find out later that those neon lights are symptoms of hurried and harried lives. I found out that life in the city is not a fairy tale where the denizens live happily ever after.
While harking back to my youth in the farm, I remember the saying by an anonymous author: “Man is a fool, when it is hot he wants it cool, when it is cool he wants it hot, always wanting what is not.” That’s a nice way of describing our discontent with what we are and what we have.
Our discontent prompted us to invent tools way back in ancient times that historians marked as the dawn of civilization. That dawn ushered in the industrial revolution that has complicated our lives. Those who feel or starting to feel the pressures of the fast city life will find this story very familiar.
Whenever I think of my youth in the farm, I miss the swarm of fireflies that used to wrap the trees in our backyard and long for the rustic life that I had left behind.
Visit Salt of Life
This nun is a babaylan
Celebrating March as Women’s Month, activist nun Mother Mary John Mananzan, Prioress of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters in Manila, says she is a present-day babaylan whose roles she would want to share with other Filipino women who wish to change the Philippine society. Babaylan, a Visayan word that means priestess, had played important roles during the pre-colonial period.
Speaking at the book launching of Babaylan: Filipinos and the Call of the Indigenous edited by Leny Strobel in Manila recently, the spritely nun discloses her personal life where her mother’s virtues in the family and her community, and that of the Benedictive sisters’ way of life inside and outside the convent, led her to believe that “God must be a Mother” whilst integrating feminism with her faith.
Speaking contemporaneously, she enumerates the four babaylan roles that physically vanished to oblivion, but not quite, during colonialism in the 16th and 17th centuries: that of a warrior, teacher, healer and visionary. Sister MJ, as women, nuns and people in her circle call her as a term of endearment, relates her own story to explain the four roles that babaylans have been playing until today.
As a warrior, she has become a political activist when she first joined the La Tondena wine factory workers’ strike for just wages upon her coming home after her six-year study in Europe where she earned her Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1975. Other nuns and priests organized themselves by telephone brigade and immediately went out of the streets, her baptism of fire in the parliament of the streets against Martial Law.
She explains: “ We started talking about integral salvation. There is no soul that is saved without the body. So if there are obstacles to the well-being of the persons , if we are what we call Christians who are taking seriously Jesus’s message, then we had to be there.”
As a teacher, the pre-colonial babaylan had the knowledge of heaven, earth and the spirits that reside in the environment. She was intimate with the spirit world and can connect humans with them. The nun discloses that the babaylan’s “sense of transcendence” can lead to individual change and social transformation eventually. The nun relates her experience as an educator and Dean of College at St. Scholastica. While she was aboard a Cathay Pacific flight to Manila, a stewardess she does not remember approached her. It turns out she is the nun’s former student at St. Scholastica’s College. “I was one of your first graduates in Women’s Studies. And I tell you no pilot can make hanky-panky with me,” the stewardess told her.
The healer in the nun’s babaylan self speaks of liberating theology and spirituality. The healing transcends the boundaries of religion. She thinks that God put all the virtuous teachings in all the religions on earth that she describes as “gems.”
The babaylan as a visionary envisions women’s empowerment. Actualizing that vision means lobbying laws against sexual violence, among others, the nun sees. 30
Being Sixty and Sassy
By Girlie Villariba
Today think of the 100th year of women’s liberation and share a story. Why ? More than a billion women are not quite liberated but can enjoy some freedom. With an audacious attitude similar to that of the heroines of the turn of the century, women can plan revolutions, in small and big ways.
Yesterday, Ed and I went to have dinner with a dreamer-storyteller. She has been planning for 20 years to access a fund that will make poverty history, at least that is my take on her stories and the reason I listen.
After listening to her story and finishing a delicious japanese dish of tofu and salmon, I went on to a thread of planning my own story. I wish to start regreening and “revegitating “mountains. There is Mt. Boso Boso in Antipolo yearning for trees to save the watershed serving metropolitan Manila. There is Mt. Pinatubo which the Aeta communities are revitalizing to save Central Luzon from further impoverishment.
I asked Ed “If we have a 100 million pesos this year, can we reforest and plant rice on 15,000 hectares?” “Ed replied ” If the communities are organized and empowered.”
I immediately tapped my cortices/heart and imagined sixty people’s organizations going up the two mountains and planting rice, root crops, vegetables and fruit trees. I also started (in my head and heart )seeing a thousand women writing emails, blogging and sending sms to many volunteers all over Luzon to help organize schedules of teaming up with the Aetas and Dumagats. Suddenly the tools and directories in WordPress, Facebook, Yahoo, Gmail and the websites these women create will compete for attention. Maybe, just maybe we will reach a million more women and men every month and the buzz for regreening will be like waves of human hands tilling the soil, planting,watering mountains. Is this all possible?
Today, I believe so. Wombs create life. With all the life inside us women, let’s do it. Mabuhay tayong lahat!
Salamat po, Pilipina ako
Ni Gloria Esguerra Melencio
Ipinaghele ako sa duyan ng dalawang babaing walang pangalan– isang Bisaya, ang aking ina; at isang Ilokana, ang aking lola. Dala ni Nanay ang kulturang masayahin at mapagmahal ng mga Bisaya; dala ni Mamang ang kulturang masipag at matapang ng mga Ilokano. Nakatutuwa. Dala ko sa puso at pagkatao ko ang kanilang magkaiba ngunit magkaugnay na mga kultura.
Pinatutulog ako ni Nanay sa kanyang awiting “may tanaman nga marampag” (may halamang malago) o sa kuwento ng Bundok Mandiwing na sa panaginip ko lang matatagpuan (may tunay palang Bundok Amandiwing, pinakamataas na bundok sa Leyte na matatagpuan sa bayan ng Dagami). Pinaliliguan ako ni Mamang at nilalagyan ng sabila ang aking buhok. Nakikipaglaro siya sa akin ng sungka. Siya rin ang nagturo sa aking magbasa at magsulat.
Sila ang mga babaing mula sa hilaga at timog na humubog sa aking pagkaPilipina sa kasalukuyang panahon.
Katolika-sarado (nakakandado pa) si Nanay. Isa siyang mamaratbat (pinuno sa pagdarasal) sa sinilangan niyang bayan sa Palo. Karaniwang sinusundo siya upang mamuno sa pagdarasal sa namatay na kamag-anak o kababayang nakatira sa malalayong liblib na pook. Namumuno siya sa pangangadi (pagdarasal) sa wikang Waray. Kabisado niya ang mahabang litanya ng dasal na maindayog-pasiday (patula) niyang binibigkas na sinasagot naman ng mga taong (parasabat) dumadalo at nakikiramay sa namatayan.
May iba’t ibang uri ng dasal na pinamumunuan si Nanay. Tinatawag ito ng mga mamaratbat na Santo Rosario (Holy Rosary), panghinutas (pahimakas), dasal sa patay (tresayo), at ika-cuarenta nga dias (ika-40 araw ng kamatayan).
Ayon sa Diccionario Bisaya-Espanol Para Las Provincias de Samar y Leyte ni Padre Antonio Sanchez noong 1895, nangangahulugang “de patay” ang salitang “mamaratyon,” bagay na nag-uugnay sa pamamaratbat sa pagpapahimakas sa patay. Binigyang-kahulugan din sa diksyunaryo ang “pamaratbat” bilang “ paulit-ulit na pagsagot sa dasal” (akin ang salin).
Matatandang babae ang karamihan sa mga mamaratbat o pamaratbat na nagsasalin nito sa bawat henerasyon ng kanyang panahon. May mga lalaki ring mamaratbat ngunit mabibilang lamang ito sa daliri. Wala pa akong nakikitang lalaking mamaratbat sa aking pakikipanayam sa Samar at Leyte sa loob ng isang taon.
Tinanong ko si Nanay minsan kung bakit siya namumuno sa dasal. Ganito ang tugon niya sa akin: “Para kunta mabuligan ko pagtabok an kalag han tawon.” ( Upang matulungan kong tumawid ang kawawang kaluluwa [mula marahil sa mundo ng mga buhay patungo sa mundo ng mga patay] – akin ang dagdag.)
Naging aktibidad ng buong komunidad ang ritwal ng pagdarasal kung saan nagkikita-kita ang magkakamag-anak, magkakaibigan at magkakapitbahay upang damayan at pagaangin ang pagdadalamhati ng mga nabubuhay. Kaya marahil may salitang dalamhati sa Tagalog: dalawang hati sa anumang mabigat na pakiramdam na dalahin ng nagluluksa ang isang hati; at aakuing dalahin naman ng nakikiramay ang isa pang hati.
Naghahanda ng pagkain ang nagpapadasal sa mga mamaratbat at sabay-sabay na nagkakainan pagkatapos ang mga dumalo sa padasal. Gumagaan ang pakiramdam ng namatayan. Ipinagbabawal ng mga Waray ang pag-awit at pagsayaw habang nasa burol ng patay. Ginagawa lamang ang pag-awit at pagsayaw sa mga piyesta, kaarawan at anumang piging na walang patay.
Mananalaysay ng kasaysayan si Nanay. Kilala niya ang mga ninuno ng mga namatayan. May listahan siya ng mga pangalan ng mga namatay na kamag-anak na iniisa-isa niyang tinatawag sa litanya ng pamatbat. Nakagugulat malamang nababanggit ang pangalan ng matandang Bancao, pinuno ng pag-aalsa ng mga Bisaya laban sa mga conquistadores noong ika-17 dantaon sa dasal ni Nanay at iba pang mamaratbat na narinig kong nagdasal sa iba’t ibang bayan ng Samar at Leyte.
May malakas namang impluwensya ang Simbahang Aglipayan sa pagiging Katoliko ni Mamang. Mga Carbonel-Novicio-Lagasca ang angkang pinagmulan ni Mamang sa La Union at Pangasinan. May mga malalapit kaming kamag-anak na paring Aglipayan, lalaki at babae, na may mataas na kamalayang pampulitika. Bagaman at matagal nang nangyari ang Pag-aalsang Novicio (1884) sa Pangasinan kung saan nilabanan ang mga opisyal sa pamahalaan dahil sa mataas na buwis at iba pa, marahil dito nagmumula ang pagiging mapanlaban ni Mamang sa mga umiral na sistema sa kanyang lipunang ginalawan.
Istrikta at mahigpit si Mamang sa kanyang mga panuntunan sa buhay bagay na kinamumuhian ko, ngunit siyang napapakinabangan ko sa pagharap sa mga pansarili kong suliranin. Palagay ko, nababalanse ng pagiging mapagmahal at malambot na katangian ni Nanay ang pagiging mapanlaban at matigas na katangian ni Mamang sa aking kalooban at pagkatao. Ang pinagsamang mga katangian nilang dalawa marahil ang dahilan kung bakit nakukuha kong pumanatag at kumilos nang mabilis sa panahon ng krisis.
Iginapang ni Mamang ang aking pag-aaral sa panahong nagkasakit at sumuko na sa hirap ang aking ama. Ugali ng mga Ilokanong unahin munang papag-aralin ang mga anak na lalaki, sumunod na lamang ang mga babae kung may matitira pang pampaaral. O kaya naman, ipataan sa ama at mga anak na lalaki ang mga hita at dibdib ng manok, gayundin ang bahaging malaman sa isda. Samantalang pakpak at paa ng manok o ulo at buntot na bahagi ng isda ang sa ina at mga anak na babae. Kadalasang gulay at sabaw na lamang ang masayang pinaghahati-hatian ng mga babae. (Isa ito marahil sa mga dahilan kung bakit higit na mahaba ang buhay ng babae kaysa sa lalaki sa Pilipinas).
Ngunit sinuong lahat ito ni Mamang at binali ang di-nakasulat na makalalaking tradisyong Ilokano. Pinag-aral niya ako sa Maynila sa paniniwalang may kinabukasan ako sa lungsod kaysa sa probinsya. Hinihintay niya ako sa aming balkonahe pag-uwi ko sa gabi habang nakabantay sa itinira niyang dinengdeng, inihaw na isda at mainit na kanin sa mesa. Matama siyang nagbabantay dahil baka maunahan ako ng mga kapatid kong lalaki o ng lalaking pusa sa aking dapat na hapunan.
Wala sina Mamang at Nanay sa nakasulat na kasaysayan tulad ng nakararaming babaing Pilipina. Mabuti-buti na nga lang na nababanggit ang mga babaeng nasa mataas at gitnang saray ng lipunang Ilokano tulad nina Gabriela Silang at Leona Florentino. Iyon nga lamang, laging nakadikit sa pangalan nila ang higit na sikat nilang asawa o anak. Ganito ang paglalarawan palagi sa kanila: Gabriela Silang, biyuda ni Diego Silang; Leona Florentino, makata at ina ni Isabelo delos Reyes.
Kasama sina Mamang at Nanay sa kulang sa kalahati ng populasyon ng Pilipinas. Sila ang nagpapainog sa lipunang Pilipino sa pamamagitan ng pangangalaga sa mga anak, paglilinis ng bahay, paglalaba ng damit ng pamilya, pagluluto at marami pang gawaing-bahay. Sina Mamang at Nanay ang nagpapagaan at nagbibigay ng kahulugan sa buhay ng bayan.
Ibinabahagi ko ang salaysay na ito sa iba pang Pilipinang may katulad ko ring kasaysayan.
(Pahabol: Lagi kong inilalagay ang apelyido ng aking asawa sa dulo ng aking pangalan. Hinahayaan niya akong magsulat ng mga katulad nitong pangkasaysayang lathalain kahit na nakatambak ang hugasan sa lababo o hindi malinisan ang aming tahanan. Tumutulong rin naman siya sa mga gawaing-bahay. Pinanatili ko rin ang ibinigay na apelyido ng aking ama sa gitna ng aking pangalan dahil permanente niyang ibinigay ito sa akin sa bisa ng batas. Sina Mamang at Nanay ang nagbigay ng aking unang pangalan; si Mamang ang nagmungkahi, pumayag naman si Nanay. Ito ang nagpapaalala sa akin ng kaugaliang pagpapangalan ng mga ina sa kanilang mga anak noong hindi pa dumarayo ang mga mananakop sa Pilipinas.)