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October 2002 Article
Feeling Homesick
All right, I'll admit it. I am feeling just a wee bit homesick for the motherland. I haven't been back in two years. So my family and I are planning a vacation in the P.I. by year's end. I am very anxious. My husband is amused because he recalls how years back I was "dying to get out of Manila." While this is true, I have to remind him that I was in my twenties then and suffering from a severe case of wanderlust. Not to mention the same feeling of hopelessness that now infects many other disgruntled young kababayans (countrymen), who in a recent survey said that given a chance they would like to live abroad.
To say that the grass is greener on the other side of the Philippine Islands would, sadly, be saying the truth especially referring to the economic and socio-political situation over there. Everyone wants a chance for a better life. The poorer classes want to leave the Philippines out of desperation (to find jobs), while the privileged few want to leave out of boredom. Hopeless and bored. Not a pretty picture of Inang Bayan (motherland). Unfortunately, I feel this is true and has been for a while.
Reading the Philippine papers online doesn't help change this view. The headlines scream corruption, crime and poverty. Nothing's changed. Nothing, it seems, has improved. What's worse is the leaders look like a crazy circus show - with politicians and showbiz folk becoming one and the same, more and more, each day.
So, why the heck am I homesick? For the same reasons you probably are: my family - my parents, brother and sister, my titos, titas and cousins still all live there; the food - garlic rice and tapa, mangga't bagoong, pandesal in the morning; the local arts and music scene; and of course, the laid-back atmosphere.
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I'd like to share some websites I visit to quell these feelings of homesickness.
Here are the links. For great laughs, log onto: http://fractalcow.com/rex/index.html it is a collaboration between my buddy artist/web designer Dino Ignacio and Fil-Am comedian Rex Navarette. Let's just say it involves a domestic helper named Maritess and Superman. Some interesting webzines run by young Filipinos are: www.maarte.org (an arts webzine), www.pinoylife.com (out of Southern California), hawhaw.dekarabaw.com (the site of Fil-Am artist Ibalik). For more Asian, as opposed to strictly Filipino, flavors, check out: www.generationrice.com (edited by Cia in New York City) and www.thosebrowneyes.com (edited by Marvin, in Sydney, Australia). To keep in touch with the Pinoy comics scene, log onto: www.alanguilan.com and to see what's happening in the Pinoy music scene there's www.philmusic.com. To keep wired to Philippine news, check out www.inq7.net and www.philstar.com. *
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