Silay, the Paris of Negros

It goes without saying that the Philippines have something for everyone. Whether you’re looking for shandy in a can, beans in a dessert, the world’s largest presidential doll collection or just an enthusiastic renewal of your gun licence, you can find it all here. Some days I wake up and the plethora of options freak me out a little. Some days I just end up staying in bed.

Not so last Sunday, when German volunteer, Elaine, and myself decided to explore Silay, the self-proclaimed “Paris of Negros”. Keen for a day of high European culture, breathtaking architecture, history, music and romance in the French quarter, we consulted the German Lonely Planet for guidance, downed a quick can shandy at the monster mart for some Dutch courage and headed off to Robinsons Mall to hook up with our contiki tour aka Baby Bong Jeepney the Fourth.

“Rock n’ roll, gay Paris here we come,” said Elaine as we found a seat, only to be confronted with a wall of sound that sounded very much like the speakers beneath us shattering into a thousand pieces. Sandwiched between fellow passengers, who sporadically broke into tears as strange frequencies tore at their eardrums, I tried to explain to the driver that even at 120 dB, there’s a world of difference between Air French Band, and Air Supply, Australian band.

Hay naku. Turn that s^&% off.

Luckily, it was all worth it when we made it to Paris, whoops I mean Silay. We de-jeepneyed at the church, where San Juan flipped us a peace sign that seemed to say “Je ne sais pas mais je suis tres Francais”. Around the corner we were confronted by a typical example of French cultural imperialism, where a “no to cha cha" sign served to remind us of their passionate hatred for Latin American dance.

In a leisurely mood, Elaine and I decided to wander the streets for a little, taking in the atmosphere even while the ringing notes of Air Supply bled from our ear canals. Very soon we were lost in a gorgeous French barangay setting, where passing minstrels belted out Hotel California on improvised karaoke machines and street mimes tried to run us over in their trisikads.

We decided to ask for directions at Pepsi's Sari Sari Carrefour, where we attracted a crowd of Parisian-Filipinos who wanted us to take their pictures. We obliged for a couple of minutes, before hitching a ride with a trisikad mime who, completely dedicated to silence, would respond to neither French, English, German, Latin, Visayan, Tagalog nor Ilonggo. Most hilariously, he also insisted on miming a sense of direction. While Elaine and I cleared the last few minutes of digital memory from our cameras, we were taken on a very convincing journey to nowhere, past several French Caribou idly chewing their cuds whilst being hit with batons. So masterful was our driver’s illusion, that when we pulled up at the local tire shop for a smoko we almost believed we were looking at the Eiffel Tower.

Lucky for us, divine support was close at hand. Just as the sticker on the cabin window said, Santo Nino stepped in to assist us in our wants, which at that moment was getting the hell out of the forty degree heat and into a bit of shade. At the Bernardino Jalandoni Ancestral House we found some cool respite, as well as the low down on Silay’s very own Joan d’Arc, the ever fragrant San Diego de Alcala.

San Diego de Alcala

Diego was not just any only Diego. Diego was a man of many talents: hermit, gardener, healer, grower of miraculous grapes and heroic victim of gangrene. I am sure he would have led the Spanish in combat had there been an appropriate occasion to do so. As it so happens, there wasn’t and so he did the next best thing by dying peacefully and leaving a fragrant corpse. The story of Diego’s life ends aromatically when, tragically contracting skin rot just like Shane on Home and Away, he:

Willingly and happily handed himself over to God... Diego’s body did not undergo decomposition and still emitted a pleasant odour after death. His uncorrupted body is now still enshrined in the Cathedral of Alcala, Spain.

Our guide wasn’t too fussed by Diego’s story, preferring instead to take us through Filipino history, grittily depicted in ken dolls. Elaine and I were suitably impressed, commenting time and again that “the dolls look like real Filipinos”. From Cory’s oversized afro, to Ninoy’s blood splattered face and Imelda’s glittering shoe collection, the sense of “wow, now I know what it must have been like to start my own ill-conceived coup d’etat” was ever present.

Personally, I found the brief history of the Filipino flag the most fascinating part of the exhibit. Its evolution from KKK to skull and cross bones, to the recognizable emblem we all know and love today was a real eye-opener. Any old idiot can design a flag, but it takes an ingenious Filipino to see an outlaw’s good idea and use it to inspire a nation.

The guide then carefully explained the nature of the house.

“The staircase. German. The roof, nice German one too. The walls, they’re from Hamburg. This nice jug. It’s from Bacolod. Very nice jug too, originally from Berlin.”

“Vive la France!” Said Elaine in German.

The Bakeshop

The next stop was the local French bakeshop, with the very cosmopolitan name of “El Ideal”.

And it was ideal, (if you use the term as loosely as I do). Chowing down on a parisian halo halo, reflecting that the ube paste and beans really were at the cutting edge of fusion French cuisine, my only care in the world was the strange odour emanating from the kitchen each time the door opened. It was quintessentially Eau de Philippines ie. the stench of rancid, three day old fat just crying out for a bit of Diego’s corpse to freshen the air. I’m sure if they could bottle it the Pentagon’s chemical warfare arm would be more than interested.

In the jeepney home I added that to my list of things to ponder, as the afternoon storm finally caught up with us, revealing in flashes of lighting crazy street signs by the roadside.

“Don’t stick your elbow out too far or it may go home in another car.” Warned one.

(If only, I’m outta here, my two-timing elbow thought resentfully.)

“Drive slowly, see Negros. Drive fast, see our jail.” Suggested another.

The jail, I thought, what an "ideal" plan. I’ll save that one for next weekend.

Goodbye Fraaackles, Hello Bubbles

It’s a terrible feeling when the beautician administering your facial gasps in horror. Especially when the gasp is followed by a string of panicked Ilonggo, wherein the only words you can understand are:

“Fraaackles and wrankles! Oh ma’am, oh my, oh dear.”

The visit to Salon U-Ropa was far from the relaxing experience I had hoped for. Mind you, having your pores extracted one at a time by an over-diligent pinoy beauty graduate using a pair of crude metal tongs and a sharpened spike has never been a walk in the park. Eight months in the Philippines have taught me that beauty is pain though, and pain beauty. That is all I know and all I need to know: throbbing discomfort invariably yields devastatingly sexy results.

On this occasion however, the shock of the assistant was quite beyond anything I had expected or mentally prepared for. It was an unbridled and genuine lament for the state of my wrinkly, freckled skin: a pain so consuming that I wanted to weep for the years of abuse I had knowingly perpetrated.

“Melfade ma’am, gusto mo ang melfade?” A sense of urgency had overtaken the conversation. I tried to respond but a squeak was all that would surface.

“Hay naku! Huo, sige, palihog. Gusto ko...” Quick, I thought, before I get any older or uglier.

Admittedly, I didn’t know what I was buying, but at three dollars I figured I couldn’t go wrong. Fifteen minutes later, upright and enjoying the rushing high caused by fumes from the pure alcohol unguent the assistant had just removed from my face, I was introduced to MELFADE.

Let me paint the picture: Two smiling, nodding assistants in white beauty technician coats reverently turn and jointly place a mysterious indigo block in a taut plastic wrapper on the counter. The block is devoid of any words saving seven very important capitalised letters.

“MELFADE. Twice a day ma’am. Wala fraackles,” the taller one purrs quite seriously.

With MELFADE in my bag I felt strangely confident on the way home.

Elizabeth Gets Burned – Some Relevant Background

I don’t usually put anything on my face without knowing exactly what it is. I was literally burned in Mrs Hennessey’s year seven science class when, fulfilling my dual role as resident smart ass and village idiot, I grabbed a piece of metal from the lab bench and proclaimed to all within earshot “Hey look everyone! The zinc’s on my face now. No more sunburn!” A searing sensation in my cheeks, producing a smell not unlike that of raw steak when it first hits the grill, had alerted me to the hydrochloric acid on the metal surface long before my class mates could even laugh mercilessly.

After a stint in the nurse’s office with an ice pack on either cheek, I’d vowed never to be so reckless with acid ever again. Regardless of whether I have kept that promise or not, I felt some research on the subject of MELFADE was certainly required.

MELFADE – The Research

MELFADE stands for “melanin fade”. Melanin is the pigment in fraackles, the one that makes them go dark when you reject a vampirific lifestyle to recklessly hang out in the sunlight for 27 years. (Whoops, naughty me.)

A classic example of what happens when MELFADE meets melanin is Michael Jackson’s face.

Given that research is for boring losers who spend too much time at university anyway, chimpanzees and Neverland, here we come.

The Great Beauty Experiment

I’ve been MELFADing for about a week now, and have noticed some definite results. Firstly, my bathroom sink has turned bright red, except for the bit where the MELFADE sits, which has gone stark white and wrinkly.

I went snorkeling at an old ship wreck on Saturday and a fish tried to eat my face, although it was really only a nibble. I’m not sure if this was related to my use of MELFADE or not, but it could well be.

Likewise, an old lady on the bus to Sipalay sat erotically close to me for several hours. I think she might also have been attracted to my ethereal MELFADE whiteness. Either that, or she was just trying to avoid the balut vendor who had cozily positioned his armpit in her face.

My freckles are still in fine form, if not enhanced by last weekend’s two hours of snorkeling on a remote Filipino island somewhere off the coast of Negros and the fact that MELFADE actually works better on skin that doesn’t have melanin in it.

Lastly, I’d like to note that I haven’t as yet engendered a deep and lasting relationship with a great ape. This is probably because, unlike Michael Jackson and Diane Fossey, I don’t know any great apes well enough to take it to the next level. But on the bright side, there’s always next week.

And that’s the great thing about life, I guess: you just never know where it might take you. If humans disappoint you there’s always a lonely chimpanzee out there somewhere.

Revolutionary Pashes and Dashes

Well music lovers and easy listening fans, it’s on. Air Supply awareness month is here, and grass root events to date have been both challenging and inspiring. As Bacoleno radio prepares itself for 1990 - for Snap, Sinead O’Connor, C&C music factory, REM, Betty Boo and Jesus Jones - there’s a collective sigh of relief, even as steps like running man are breaking out on dance floors right here, right now and engendering a new generation of heart seizures and weak knees in groovers everywhere.

It hasn’t been an easy ride, mind you. From a personal point of view, having to revisit the early nineties has been a grueling process of re-self-discovery and embarrassment. While psychedelic baby doll dresses teamed with chunky peace sign chokers do look better with my cleavage these days, getting drunk in the park with the local riff-raff is certainly a little more problematic.

This is mainly because the local riff-raff is the provincial contingent of the New People’s Army, meaning that the majority of pash n’ dashes have ended up in the back of a truck in secret jungle enclaves well beyond city limits. While I have never been against kidnapping as a legitimate form of courtship, unfortunately these activities contravene program requirements that state I should give the Australian Embassy at least a week’s notice before I go anywhere. Despite having argued this point with my captors time and again, their position is that teenage amours are simply too fickle to plan a week in advance. I am inclined to agree with them.

Stills taken from recent video released by NPA headquarters

Perseverance is beginning to pay off. Most importantly, after a strict regime of jogging to “Lost In Love” back to city limits each morning, despite the hideous brain pain engendered by such cerebral abuse, I am now capable of playing this enduring Air Supply favorite on my acoustic guitar.

In the meantime, the process of uber-hipping this piece of crap for 2006 continues. Anyone who can suggest a means of uber-hipping the line “Reach for the stars and I’ll show you a plan” that isn't “Buy me a gin and I’ll show you my can” is urged to contact me asap.