Posts filed under 'Philippines'

Translation Tuesday: Two Sketches from Vicente Rama’s Portrait

Why not separate a couple who always fight like cats and dogs? Even twins who stick together at the womb are separated at birth.

This Translation Tuesday, we are thrilled to bring to you two sketches from Vicente Rama translated from the Binisayâ by Alton Melvar M Dapanas. Join our Editor-at-large for the Philippines, as they show us through the literary and linguistic histories of a writer widely considered as the Father of Cebu City.

“The following dinalídalí (sketches or vignettes) are taken from Larawan [Portrait], a collection of sugilanon (short stories) and dinalídalí written by fictionist Vicente Rama (1887-1956) published in 1921 by The Cebu Press. In Portrait, realism and radio drama sentimentality, sometimes street humour, Christian didacticism, and folklore, backdropped with the ethos of working-class ruralscape, are prevalent, symptomatic of late 19th to early 20th century Philippine fiction in Binisayâ, Tagalog, and other local languages. To National Artist for Literature and Cebuano Studies scholar Resil B Mojares, this comes as no surprise “considering the contact Filipino writers had with Romantic literature through Spanish and American intermediaries.” Rama himself wrote from within a particular tradition in Philippine literature in Binisayâ: the dinalídalí, in itself comparable to the binirisbiris and pinadalagan (sometimes spelled pinadagan, or the Spanish instantanea and rafaga), “short account[s of] spontaneous and hurried quality” which subversively proliferated in vernacular publications even at the imposition of American literature and the English language in the public educational system after the Philippine-American War. Most sugilanon and dinalídalí from Rama’s Portrait started as serialised prose pieces from Kauswagan [Progress] and the bilingual Nueva Fuerza/Bag-ong Kusog [New Force], both periodicals he himself edited, the latter, he owned. 

My impetus behind translating Rama is grounded on two rationales. First, it has been 100 years since the publication of Portrait. The second reason is geopolitical. “Few works in Cebuano [or Binisayâ],” according to Mojares, “have been translated into other languages, whether foreign or Philippine. This is essentially a problem of power: Cebuano has historically been relegated to a position subordinate to Spanish, English, and Tagalog. The concentration of state power and media resources in a Tagalog-speaking primate region and the promotion of Tagalog as ‘base’ for the national [Filipino] language, or as the national language itself, have marginalized regional languages like Cebuano. As a consequence, the development of Cebuano has been stunted.”

Perhaps the primary challenge in translating Rama is that his Binisayâ is distant from mine not only in terms of the temporal (a century apart) but also in the geopolitical (my native tongue is a different dialect within Binisayâ; his is contentiously considered ‘the standard’). His Binisayâ—in its contemporary form a language already heavily influenced by, and possibly the language spoken by the ‘natives’ who had first contact with, the former Iberian colonisers—is also interlaced with the conventions of mechanics and punctuation from Spanish which are no longer used. A product of his own time, Rama’s moral compass is also very different from mine. While “Ang mga mahadlokon” [The cowards] paints a homophobic and effeminophobic picture of two unmarried—possibly queer-coded for gay—men living together as chicken-hearted village idiots, the fictional universe of “Divorcio” [Divorce] is where victim-blaming coupled, as always, with misogyny, is normalised. So beyond textual concerns, my act of translating Rama was also a sort of my confronting of the perpetual elephant in the room in several works within Philippine literature in Binisayâ from a century ago and even that which pervades until today. Such is propagated by paleo/conservative circles of old, (predominantly) male writers who are remnants—or, I daresay, residues—not only of this particular aesthetics, but also of this sociopolitical alt-Right conservativism which, with misplaced regionalism in the mix, has enabled and is still complicit to Philippine authoritarian fascistic regimes.”

—Alton Melvar M Dapanas 

The Cowards 

It was 3:30 at Sunday dawn, the day of the mass at church. Ating and Tuloy both rose from bed and got on their feet. 

“Let’s go, Tuloy. It’s time for church.”

“I know. I even called you up earlier.” 

And so the two went down the stairs. I should say that these two bachelors are known in town for being chicken-hearted so not a day goes by without them doing things together. As they trek through the dimness of the road, they realized they’re being followed. With the loud footsteps behind them, Tuloy felt the chill. He poked Ating and whispered, “Check out who’s behind us.” 

“Ah, not me,” Ating pleaded.

And so on they went while holding each other’s hands tight. When they stop, the one behind them stopped as well. When they run, the one behind them ran as well.

“We’re going to die, Tuloy!” Ating mumbled.

“Don’t say a word! Just pray,” was Tuloy’s reply. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “Anatomy of a Servant” by Allan N. Derain

“If you could only see me now, Mother,” she said to the only photograph stuck to the frame of her mirror.

In this week’s Translation Tuesday, a young woman’s sense of self-worth is prey to the forces of contemporary domestic servitude in Allan Derain’s “Anatomy of a Servant”. What begins as an endearing epistolary abruptly shifts to the perspective of our narrator, Asunta, as she seeks to build a better life for herself. The servant’s body becomes the target of dehumanization on the basis of class, gender, and nationality, until Asunta’s consciousness comes to internalize these repeated acts of violence as “necessary” and even “deserved”. Across these three short sections, Derain explores the classed anxieties of a dutiful daughter who longs for a brighter, freer future, though who also longs for home.


I. Empty-Headed

May 4, 2004

My Dear Asunta,

Before anything else, how is my good daughter? I hope you’re doing well. Are you eating on time? If you’re wondering, don’t worry about us. Marissa will be in high school the following school year. Your sister is looking for cash, so she now mans Tonga’s store. The money you have sent is enough, but we know that you are saving for something important. More people are asking me to sew, now that school is about to start.

You wrote in your last letter that the old man you attended to has already passed away. Does that mean that you can now come back home? Our fiesta will begin next week. I am part of the dancing group who will perform the Alembong in the parade. Don’t worry, and I’ll send you a picture so that it’ll be as if you were here in the fiesta . . .

This was what she always did: gazing out the window early in the morning. It was only yesterday she received the letter but by now, she had already read it countless of times as she faced the window. She glanced at her watch. She had thirty more minutes left to have the world to herself. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “Bestiary” by Mike L. Bigornia

And for the first time, she felt throbbing from inside her chest.

In this week’s Translation Tuesday, a wish bestows the meaning of life in this allegorical prose poem by Mike L. Bigornia, excerpted from his award-winning collection, Dark Prose. A Diwata, a divine spirit of precolonial Filipino theology, grants a wish to the World of Beings, which includes the moon, the stars, the stone, and the wind. But the river wishes for something unusual—and she might not be the only one making the request. “Bestiary” is a thoughtful modern-day creation fable about the primacy of human intimacy. 

This was the one and fateful hour. Though the Diwata be gracious, this was set to happen for the first and final time in the World of Beings.

Every being could make a wish to the Diwata but only once. Each granting of a wish lasts an entire night. So each wish should be of value; each fulfillment enough to stand the test of time.

That night, the Diwata went around the woods and listened to the wishes of the beings.

The moon made a wish and the Diwata giggled. The stone made a wish and it nodded. The wind made a wish and it puffed its cheeks. The stars made a wish and its eyes shone.

Until it saw the anxious river. “What is your wish, Beloved Child?”

“I want to know the meaning of life, Diwata. I believe I would find it once you give me breath.” The Diwata looked back, as if it had remembered something and gazed at the distance. But only for a moment. After, it smiled and turned back toward its companion.

Before the Diwata vanished, all the beings had made their wish. And before midnight, the river had now transformed to a beautiful maiden. Her complexion unblemished, fresh. Her hair flowed lavishly like waves. Under tonight’s unbelievable light from the clouds, her body seemed to glide through the woods.

What rare features, what rare sight! By her charm that surpasses the jasmine and the ilang-ilang, the cicadas resounded, the owls aroused in half-sleep, the civet made to sing. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “Miss Chapati Queens” by Bino A. Realuyo

"Her accent sounds like it comes from the deepest part of a rock."

“Miss Chapati Queens” is part of a fiction manuscript titled The F.L.I.P Show, an interconnected collection of stories about the Filipino American community on the East Coast. The Philippines is an archipelago of 175 languages and/or dialects. Most of us are at least bilingual.  In my household alone, five major Filipino languages, including English, are spoken.  As a former colony of the United States, the Philippines has been using English as a lingua franca—the language of power, and of the media and the government—for over a hundred years, further complicating its multilingual tradition.

Although set in Queens, “Miss Chapati Queens” explores Filipino multilingualism. The protagonist, Rosario, is half-Indian, half-Filipino but grew up with a Filipino mother, and thus understands and speaks Tagalog. Her voyage into becoming more “Indian” coincides with her decision to join a beauty contest called Miss Chapati Queens. There are almost four million Filipinos in the U.S., some of whom are of mixed heritage, like the character in this story.  These households reflect the multilingual backgrounds of the Filipino people.  I speak English, Filipino (Tagalog), and Spanish, but understand Bicolano and Chabacano (language of my maternal heritage from Zamboanga City, a former Spanish port).   READ MORE…