Dreams
Dreams
Updated 02:24am (Mla time) Oct 14, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the October 14, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
SOME years ago, I spoke to a group of Filipino children in Hong Kong. It was in a part of town not unlike Manila’s Malate district, where a crowd promenaded and music slipped through, or blasted away from, dingy bars. The kids, who were in their late teens and early 20s, played in one of the bars and had earned a reputation for being the best band there, drawing no small amount of following each time they played. Their place had a good-sized crowd that night.
We got together during the break; a friend of mine who lived there had introduced me to them. They turned out to be children of Filipino musicians who had decided to settle in Hong Kong. The bar itself was owned by their parents. One thing the kids said at one point in our conversation, conducted at pretty high decibel levels with rock music playing in the background, struck me. They had been to Manila several times, they said, and had gone to the places where bands played. And they had been impressed by the musicianship. Each time they went there, they said, they felt like amateurs.
They had been composing their own songs, they said, and longed for the day when they could play them there. To get some recognition in Manila, even if they didn't get to reach the top of the heap-that was accomplishment enough. That was their ambition in (musical) life.
I remembered that conversation after being deluged with pictures of Jasmine Trias wherever I went this past week. I like the kid, but I don't know why she has been turned into the toast of local Tinseltown. She is charming and talented, but so is an army of full-blooded Filipino young men and women currently playing in dingy bars in Manila and the provinces. Particularly in performance, which is where the Filipino excels in (unfortunately, Filipino musicians have yet to excel in the composition part). Filipino popular music performers have gotten global attention and been deemed world-class. Not so their compositions. With the possible exception of "Anak," Original Pilipino Music gets to be played only largely to Filipino audiences abroad.
I don't know that we need another performer in our midst. But clearly Trias' appeal lies beyond her musical abilities. She has been mined for something else, and that is the Great Filipino Dream.
That Great Filipino Dream used to be the exclusive franchise of Nora Aunor. She was the biggest thing there was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and continued to have a strong fan base for decades (I know that she had the longest running TV show, "Superstar.") To this day, she continues to have a fanatical following, though a much-diminished one. The essay that recently won First Prize in the recent Palanca Awards (I was one of the judges), Wilfredo Pascual Jr.'s "Devotion," dealt precisely with that phenomenon. One urban poor resident had literally devoted her life to collecting every bit of paraphernalia of her idol.
Aunor, of course, captured the imagination of the masses for a couple of things. The first is that she came from a dirt-poor family, she herself spending her childhood running after trains to sell water to thirsty travelers. The second was that she had a great voice. Joseph Estrada's appeal lay in that he essayed movie characters that clawed out of poverty with pluck and fist. Aunor's appeal lay in that she was a real person who clawed out of poverty with pluck and voice. Those are the two things Filipinos pride themselves in, their ability to fight and their ability to sing. For millions of starving Filipinos, Aunor represented the, getting out of the rut through song. Many of her early movies dwelt on that theme.
Trias may just have stolen the crown from her, representing as she does the 21st-century Filipino Dream. That Filipino Dream consists of several things.
The first is living in America and preferably being an American citizen. That is what Trias does and is. Though she is as brown as Aunor and loves Filipino food as much as Aunor, she is an American citizen and speaks with an American accent. But nobody cares. The universal indifference to her nationality is patent in all the local write-ups, where no one describes her as American. For all her nationality and accent, she is deemed Filipino to the core.
(That is true as well, incidentally, of Alex Pagulayan, the billiards standout. Filipinos cheer for him wherever he goes, notwithstanding that his papers say he is not a Filipino but a Canadian. For most Filipinos, his being Canadian means nothing: He remains Filipino by heart.)
The second is making it big in America. That is an ambition that has eluded Filipinos, whether it be those living in America, who are citizenship-wise no longer Filipinos but Americans, or those living in the Philippines. This country has not lacked for artists and writers and professionals who have dreamt of making it big in the US, and failed. Some years ago, Lea Salonga achieved phenomenal success in that respect, shining in "Miss Saigon" and taking Disney by storm. She did become the toast of the town, too. But she didn't look as brown as Nora Aunor and wasn't as plebeian as Nora Aunor. She captured the middle class but not the “masa” [masses]. Trias has done both.
The last is making it big in America, or anywhere else in the world, through the one thing Filipinos are good at, or believe with religious fervor they are good at, which is singing. More than fist, voice has become the ticket Filipinos believe will get them through the trials and tribulations of life. Trias got near to bagging the "American Idol" trophy through it, and for most Filipinos that is more than good enough. It is the stuff of which their dreams are made.
Some, of course, will have other words for dreams. But let us leave that tomorrow, for when the sun breaks and reality creeps in.
Updated 02:24am (Mla time) Oct 14, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the October 14, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
SOME years ago, I spoke to a group of Filipino children in Hong Kong. It was in a part of town not unlike Manila’s Malate district, where a crowd promenaded and music slipped through, or blasted away from, dingy bars. The kids, who were in their late teens and early 20s, played in one of the bars and had earned a reputation for being the best band there, drawing no small amount of following each time they played. Their place had a good-sized crowd that night.
We got together during the break; a friend of mine who lived there had introduced me to them. They turned out to be children of Filipino musicians who had decided to settle in Hong Kong. The bar itself was owned by their parents. One thing the kids said at one point in our conversation, conducted at pretty high decibel levels with rock music playing in the background, struck me. They had been to Manila several times, they said, and had gone to the places where bands played. And they had been impressed by the musicianship. Each time they went there, they said, they felt like amateurs.
They had been composing their own songs, they said, and longed for the day when they could play them there. To get some recognition in Manila, even if they didn't get to reach the top of the heap-that was accomplishment enough. That was their ambition in (musical) life.
I remembered that conversation after being deluged with pictures of Jasmine Trias wherever I went this past week. I like the kid, but I don't know why she has been turned into the toast of local Tinseltown. She is charming and talented, but so is an army of full-blooded Filipino young men and women currently playing in dingy bars in Manila and the provinces. Particularly in performance, which is where the Filipino excels in (unfortunately, Filipino musicians have yet to excel in the composition part). Filipino popular music performers have gotten global attention and been deemed world-class. Not so their compositions. With the possible exception of "Anak," Original Pilipino Music gets to be played only largely to Filipino audiences abroad.
I don't know that we need another performer in our midst. But clearly Trias' appeal lies beyond her musical abilities. She has been mined for something else, and that is the Great Filipino Dream.
That Great Filipino Dream used to be the exclusive franchise of Nora Aunor. She was the biggest thing there was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and continued to have a strong fan base for decades (I know that she had the longest running TV show, "Superstar.") To this day, she continues to have a fanatical following, though a much-diminished one. The essay that recently won First Prize in the recent Palanca Awards (I was one of the judges), Wilfredo Pascual Jr.'s "Devotion," dealt precisely with that phenomenon. One urban poor resident had literally devoted her life to collecting every bit of paraphernalia of her idol.
Aunor, of course, captured the imagination of the masses for a couple of things. The first is that she came from a dirt-poor family, she herself spending her childhood running after trains to sell water to thirsty travelers. The second was that she had a great voice. Joseph Estrada's appeal lay in that he essayed movie characters that clawed out of poverty with pluck and fist. Aunor's appeal lay in that she was a real person who clawed out of poverty with pluck and voice. Those are the two things Filipinos pride themselves in, their ability to fight and their ability to sing. For millions of starving Filipinos, Aunor represented the, getting out of the rut through song. Many of her early movies dwelt on that theme.
Trias may just have stolen the crown from her, representing as she does the 21st-century Filipino Dream. That Filipino Dream consists of several things.
The first is living in America and preferably being an American citizen. That is what Trias does and is. Though she is as brown as Aunor and loves Filipino food as much as Aunor, she is an American citizen and speaks with an American accent. But nobody cares. The universal indifference to her nationality is patent in all the local write-ups, where no one describes her as American. For all her nationality and accent, she is deemed Filipino to the core.
(That is true as well, incidentally, of Alex Pagulayan, the billiards standout. Filipinos cheer for him wherever he goes, notwithstanding that his papers say he is not a Filipino but a Canadian. For most Filipinos, his being Canadian means nothing: He remains Filipino by heart.)
The second is making it big in America. That is an ambition that has eluded Filipinos, whether it be those living in America, who are citizenship-wise no longer Filipinos but Americans, or those living in the Philippines. This country has not lacked for artists and writers and professionals who have dreamt of making it big in the US, and failed. Some years ago, Lea Salonga achieved phenomenal success in that respect, shining in "Miss Saigon" and taking Disney by storm. She did become the toast of the town, too. But she didn't look as brown as Nora Aunor and wasn't as plebeian as Nora Aunor. She captured the middle class but not the “masa” [masses]. Trias has done both.
The last is making it big in America, or anywhere else in the world, through the one thing Filipinos are good at, or believe with religious fervor they are good at, which is singing. More than fist, voice has become the ticket Filipinos believe will get them through the trials and tribulations of life. Trias got near to bagging the "American Idol" trophy through it, and for most Filipinos that is more than good enough. It is the stuff of which their dreams are made.
Some, of course, will have other words for dreams. But let us leave that tomorrow, for when the sun breaks and reality creeps in.
posted by Dante at 2:24 AM
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