#Filipino Travel

[toandfrodigitalmarketing-blog]

"Bridging Dreams: Recognizing Sitio Hamindang's Dedicated Students"

Our 2024 Outreach Program in Sitio Hamindang, Hagan, Bongabong, Oriental Mindoro on July 7, 2024, was a wonderful success!

Watch the highlights here:

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 60: 19th Century III and Earlier

These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.

This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct grouping.

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration.

[mankadavi]

Travellers Families and Cast

[notedchampagne]

i have no breakfast wont beautiful women all mourn for me

[amordelaluna]

Went to SF pride '24

[lorraineofcominantes]

How do you come home to a place that no longer exists?

I got lost in the sauce of Heinrix nostalgia and ended up worldbuilding a whole planet.

The moment Heinrix stepped on Dargonus, he had been struck by a sense of nostalgia so powerful it would have brought a lesser man to tears. 

Okay, apparently someone does wonder what's going through my head with this fic. For me and for them, here we go.

From Talavera, With Love is momma's most self-indulgent fic yet. And I have Heinrix's Starseeker longfic nostalgia to thank for it. What does it mean to want to go home to a place that you can never go back to? Not just physically, but the idea that that home may have changed and is no longer your home because that home exists in the past. A.k.a the diaspora whiplash of reverse culture shock and Nick Joaquin's lamentations in the Woman with Two Navels.

Sometime between June - August, I got completely overtaken by Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo brainworms while obsessively playing and taking screenshots of WH 40k Rogue Trader. In Noli Me Tangere, a young man returns from Europe only to discover that his father is dead after his political enemies conspire to imprison him for challenging the abuses of Dominican friars (Hello Rogue Trader surprise ascension, hello Kunrad oust plot, hello Ecclesiarchy drama with Incendia Chorda) and he spends the entirety of the novel trying to do an Iconoclast playthrough in a game that demands he play Dogmatic. In the end, he is labeled a heretic and has to escape. Fast forward to El Filibusterismo, the opening chapter is on a fucking ship that is used to show the division between the Upper Decks (Upper class society) and the Lower Decks (Voidborn, hello!).

Which is how ya girl ended up here.

The Love Letters to the Philippines

The Maw and the Embocadero: The Maw is equated with the Strait of San Bernardino, one of the most treacherous passages of the Manila-Acapulco galleon route.

Folk Catholicism and variances on the Imperial Cult: Calligos Winterscale's lucky charm, the Talaveran (Guisorn III) cult to Sta. Rosalina de la Soledad who is associated with sea-faring because of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad de Porta Vaga, the Lady of the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade who is the patroness of Cavite, a region that used to be a Spanish military base and the shipyard that produced most of the galleons for this route.

The cult of St. Drusus v. Sta. Rosalina: The age old rivalry between the Dominicans and Jesuits in Manila. The conflict between local "Filipino" priests (at a time when Filipino really meant insulare, a Spaniard born in the colonies. Rana and Heinrix, if we want a real 1:1, would count as insulare) and peninsular priests after the opening of the Suez Canal. More below.

Geography: The high sierras of Talavera are a nod to the Alhambra (This city is a bride whose husband is the hill), The Sierra Madre of Mexico, and the Sierra Madre of Luzon, the island home to the Tagalogs. A lot of the place names in FTWL's Dargonus are chosen based on whether they exist in Spain, Mexico, and the Philippines.

The Temerian phoenix: Initially a silly reference to Ibong Adarna's mystical bird of Piedras Platas. By chapter 8, equated with Calligos Winterscale. A wild beautiful bird that is forced to become a feral beast for bloodsports. Also, just the irony in cockfighting being one of the surviving pieces of native cultures in a lot of colonized places even though it's a sport that kills.

A Mixed Bag

What does it mean to be one of ours?: Tagalogs keep it simple. If you are born there and raised there, you're one of theirs. If you assimilate fully, you can belong too. Rana genuinely thinks Kunrad should be Rogue Trader, despite him stepping away because of the Life Changing Commorragh and Epitaph fieldtrip, because he is Dargonus native born and raised and she writes Abelard off for the same reason. None of the conflicts in FTWL are linked to race (that's for the Drukhari and Aeldari), but to cultural assimilation. Nick Joaquin's Question of Heroes is a window to a point in time when being part of a people moved from "we look like each other" to "we share the same culture". A lot of Filipino ethnic groups apply this logic quite consistently. When in Rome, do as the Romans do and if you do not do as the Romans do, do not call yourself a Roman. Gaining your local "punto"/accent is a "Wow, you finally assimilated!" between the many Tagalog regions, just to name an example. Tagalogs can also be... quite xenophobic for the same reasons. The whole "Sandara Park is more Filipino than Vanessa Hudgens" national agreement after the latter was made a tourism ambassador.

The Hate Comments for the Philippines

Language: Talavera as a rediscovered Imperial world develops its own language. Heinrix's derogatory attitude to Dargonian creole (brought over by the first Lady von Valancius) is a nod to Filipino native hispanophone attitudes towards the Ermitense, Caviteno, and Zamboangueno creoles.

Calligos' sideye at Dargonian culture: Calligos is a native of the Koronus Expanse and so is Incendia... but so are the natives of the von Valancius protectorate. That said, they have a varyingly hostile relationship with Dargonus, a nod to how "indigenous" in the Philippines doesn't mean "native", it means you come from a culture that has never been Catholicized or hispanized.

Rana's side eye at Incendia's insistence on adopting a more familiar and widespread cult and culture: "When Manila sneezes, the Philippines catches cold." or so Joaquin writes. Rana's resistance to Incendia is a combination of personal trauma and a mash-up of the rest of the Philippines' resentment of "Imperial Manila" (The Tagalog, catholic, hispanized culturally and politically centered ethnic group), the complicated relationship between Folk Catholicism and the Vatican.

The Dinner Party: Incendia argues that Sta. Rosalina's cult and Dargonian culture are too foreign and not well-known to subjects outside of Dargonus. Rana argues that St. Drusus and Calixian culture (Incendia's camp) are just as foreign to the Koronus Expanse as she is. A nod to the demonization of hispanic creole cultures in the Philippines in the wake of 70s... after the Philippines wholeheartedly embraced Americanization. This isn't even about colonization, this is about loss of identity. There are a ton of unused "Filipino" words that came out of the nationalist movements of the late 1900s that were meant to replace loan words that were naturally adopted into local languages. The removal of Spanish from the curriculum while English is retained. The portrayals of colonization in history books as "bad colonizer and good colonizer" (as if there is such a thing LMAO) by comparing Spain to America, with the argument that the former was far far worse and could never be "ours". Never mind, of course, that after 300 years of colonization and the Filipino panuelo birthing the Manton de Manila (a Chinese creation based on the former and spread world-wide through the galleon routes coming out of Manila), the creolized cultures of the Philippines are a conversation between native culture and Spanish/Mexican culture, or that a lot of the Virgins of the Philippines absorbed ancient worship practices for older gods, or that the friars --- so often the villains of this story --- are responsible for the preservation of the Baybayin script and local languages (Why does the Philippines not speak Spanish? Aside from resistance to Old World disease, the friars who were wary of Muslim influence creeping up from the south in Mindanao just LEARNED the local languages and went crazy because that's what happens when you're fresh out of the Reconquista and your new colony, which is litered with sultanates, is discovered in the mid 1500s).

So, how do you come home to a place that no longer exists? FTWL Heinrix refuses to embrace change much like the "nationalists" who insist on creating an exoticized orientalism lite pastiche of Filipino cultures (much to the annoyance of actual IPs), clinging to a vision of distant Talavera (Guisorn III) that only exists for him. He mourns it while Rana celebrates a rebirth of it on Dargonus where Talaveran culture has creolized with the local Koronus Expanse culture. For Calligos, who has never had a real home or family, coming home is adopting a home and he embraces the cultures of the Rykad system in their entirety.

[sleepydhanie]

Imagine Filipino!reader waking up in the past

them having to adjust in the new environment

Having to wear barong/saya

Getting addressed as binibini/ginoo

Having strict rules and have to act base on the past behaviours of people there

Filipino!reader having to act very gentlemanly/ladylike to the binibini/ginoo's and avoided having even a slight skin/eye contact with any other binibini/ginoo's.one wrong move and they'll get married

Filipino!reader trying to learn and understand fan languag

Filipino!reader having to speak with very much formalities and understand some poetic things or riddle like words people say back in the days

Will they find their way back home or will they find romance?

Alperes:*grabs readers wrist and pulled them by the waist*

Filipino!reader:!!!

Alperes:"inaaresto kita sa pagnanakaw..."

(you are under arrest...)

Filipino!reader:"ha?inosente ako wala akong ninakaw na kahit ano man yon,mali kayo Ng bintang"

(what?....i-i didn't do anything,I'm innocent)

Alperes:"sandali Di pa ako tapos magsalita, inaaresto kita sa pagnanakaw Ng asking puso,bilang parusa dapat mong gampanan ang responsibilidad na Ito SA pamamagitan Ng pagiging kabiyak...*grin*

(let me finish,you are under arrest for stealing my heart,and the punishment of it is that you should take responsibility for it and become my other half)

Filipino! reader:"...ang corny mo naman..."

(you are so corny)

★★★

Alperes:"ikaw ay may angking kagandahan na Hindi ko makikita kanino man.ikaw ay parang araw na nakakabulag ngunit ayaw Kong ibaling ang tingin ko,ang aking atensyon ay pagmamahal ay nasa sayo Lang aking binibini"

(your beauty stands out the most among the others,you are like the sun that is so blinding yet I cannot avert to look away,my love and attention is only yours to receive)

Filipino!reader:"*tucks her hair*...luh,pereng tenge nemen to hehe"

(You're so stupid)

[I tried my best to translate tanga in my understanding]

"hmm ano ho?"

(hmm pardon?)

"!!!...ay esti... maraming salamat ako ay nagagalak SA iyong sinabi ginoo napatibok mo lalo ang aking puso"

(ah I mean...thank you my lord, you've made my heart flutter even more)

"*chuckled*...tunay ngang iba Ka SA mga binibining aking nakasalamuha,ikaw ay marahuyo binibini"

(you truly do stand out among the rest of the ladies I've interacted with,you are enchanting my lady)

Ps.i tried my best to translate them specially the tanga one

[anexperimentallife]

Oh yeah, can you believe all this food for a little over five bucks USD? (300 PHP)

I was up anyway (because too sick to sleep), but caught the manong taho (the guy who walks around town selling taho) when he went by yesterday morning, only to discover he had a LOT more than just taho that day, and I wanted to wake @thesurestthing up with a pleasant surprise.

That's two adult and one baby sized taho (soft tofu with tiny tapioca pearls and sweet syrup. You mix it up and drink it with a straw-- we always ask for half syrup bc otherwise it's too sweet for us), two big leche flans, and a bunch of kutsinta (one of many kinds of glutinous rice cakes--Zoey and I are not fans, but @geniussheepworld likes them).

[not-poignant]

Character Ask Game, 20 for Temsen?

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

In The Nascent Diplomat it's the entirety of the Ohlo Ohlo clan.

Literally everyone comes second to them.

And in Underline the Black I don't think Temsen has any best friends, and I'm not sure who an ideal would be, because he doesn't really want to be super close to anyone.

If they exist, I'm not sure we've met them yet! You know it's probably Marikit though, lol.

~

From the character meme!

[renzybrooo]

kelseymerritt

[sucking-her-vajayjay]

Holy week 2024 was memorable ☀️⛱️🥵

[astrxealis]

dear gods i adore horror tbh but i am way too sensitive to it

[typicalsimswhore]

I started learning Tagalog this month!!! Here's what I learned this WEEK (from memory):

1-10: isa, dalawa, tatlo, apat, lima, anim, pito, walo, siyam, sampu.

Length: mahabá

To work: makawórk, magtrabaho

I like: Gusto ko

Wing: pakpák

Animal: hayop, animál

Bird: ibon

Chicken: manok

Dog: aso

Cat: pusa

Fish: isdá

Pig: baboy

Cow: baka

Horse: kabayo

Mouse: daga

I'm planning on starting w/ the essentials of Tagalog and formal conversation before moving on to a more modern Filipino 😋

(might even pick up Hiligaynon)

[wishful-grad-student]

"You smell like the sun," my mother would say to me when I was a child playing on a balmy summer day. But how can a person smell like the sun? The sun is far away and did not emit a smell. As I grew, I could understand. I could smell the sun. The warmth catching on my skin and hair, the humidity covering me from head to toes. My people smell of the sun. The bringer of light and life. We thrive and celebrate in the sun's golden rays as it blesses our skin with a golden hue.

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

Thinking of summers in the homeland. Our traditional architecture brings me so much warmth. Built to withstand the heat and rain. I hope to see it soon.

[marielenaloves]

Cebu, Philippines 2017

[junewasilewski]

Gorgeous grapes growing in our garden 🍇 Only planted this last year so really chuffed.