Weekend Travelogue Post
Here’s a link to a professionally produced video documentary on the marshes of Agusan province in Mindanao. While my personal interest in the video is that it depicts elements which form part of the true historical backstory of my novel, No Way In, the reader may find it useful as an glimpse not only into Philippine geography, but its society.
As you can readily deduce, the narrator and producer of the video are different from the fishermen of the marsh, who are the subjects of the story. The film-makers are upper or upper-middle class Filipinos while the subjects of their video documentary are subsistence fishermen or farmers. Night and day. This is evident in two ways. First, the upper class people half-think in English, while the lower class people think in their own dialect.
But that is not the only division on display. One of the curious things about the Filipino society is that few of its inhabitants actually live in a unitary cultural world. This is most obvious in the the modern upper or upper middle class Filipino. Members of that social stratum literally cogitate in several languages. It is impossible for them to compose a single paragraph, let alone a series of paragraphs in a single language. They need one or more.
If you watch the video it is obvious how the narrator switches, effortlessly, between Tagalog and English, mixing the sentences and words as if there were no distinction between the two. This is not contrived. She is not translating for the camera. This is how narrator actually sounds in ordinary speech. People from this strata of society will actually find it difficult, perhaps impossible, to express themselves in a single language. Give them both and they are happy. Confine them to one and they would be completely at sea.
The actual language of the upper and upper-middle class Filipino is the union set of both a special kind of Tagalog and American English. Both vocabularies and both syntaxes are instantly available in every social situation and they are used almost interchangeably in the stream of consciousness. Taking either of them away is to deprive the speaker of half his power of expression.
The cultural context is similarly fragmented. It is a mistake to think that Filipinos are superficially Christian or superficially anything. Say rather that they’ve authentically lumbered themselves with more than one culture, sometimes three or more.
This is not true of the marsh folk. They might only have one and a half. And that makes them simpler. The casual viewer may miss the fact that the upper class visitors from Manila are almost as alien to the people of the marsh, as would be for example, a guy from Yakima, Washington. But if you listen closely, notice the people of the lake speak Cebuano while the visitors from Manila speak the imperial Tagalog of Luzon.
Not that it matters. The measure of social distance is trust. What really counts is whether you are a good guy or a bad guy. In the Philippines people judge foreignness by other criterion than difference in culture. It was once my business to wander among whatever tribe you can think of, and I was often taken for an Amerikano rather than a Manila visitor, and much else in between.
To my surprise, many of the uplanders saw the Filipino lowlander as carpetbaggers and landgrabber, and were far more trusting of the gringo, because all the gringos they had ever met were either priests, Peace Corps Volunteers or aid workers. They had never met a gang-banger from Chicago or an American politician. And from that limited sample they concluded that if you were a foreigner, you were probably better than a lowlander.
And that is what mattered. Handsome was as handsome did. Foreignness, in a country which has many languages and cultures, is mostly a matter of who you can trust.
But even after you know who you can trust, you have to figure out what someone is good for. The other piece of context which doesn’t come through explictly is the mechanical life of that marshland world. The intelligensia may think the globe runs on ideas, but actually it runs on WD-40 and duct tape. Practical skills rule.
Agusan del Sur, in which much of the footage was shot, was once a goldmine of timber and therefore an eminently practical place. There was a time when you could walk across the Agusan River, which was probably about 200 yards wide, on the logs that floated down it. Those days are no more. The forests were annihilated by the politicians, who figured the “national patrimony” was best managed through government and therefore handed the concessions to themselves. But while it lasted it was a world of heavy equipment operators, truck drivers , buckers and fellers and blue collar workers in general, if anyone ever wore a blue collar on a t-shirt. That, plus thousands of armed men.
It was a world of tradesmen. Perhaps that’s true of the world in general. If you really want to know what makes the Philippines tick over, it isn’t the world of the video producers. It’s the universe of people who know how to run the two stroke boat engines, punt their way through the marshes, fish for eel and field strip an M-16. They’ve kept things humming for thousands of years. Thus the other division that you have to look for in the video is who paddles and who rides.
One of the advantages of gringos until recently is that they knew how to paddle. The poor people in the Philippines will only rarely ask an upper class countryman to fix an engine. But they might ask a gringo, back when there were gringos.
Although Mindanao was never a major battlefield, there were some Japanese forces on the Island. One person I knew doesn’t know whether he was born in 1944 or 1945 because his parents were on the run from the Japanese army and they lost track of the months. In one scene in the video, a guide pulls a skull from out of the ground, suggesting that it belonged to a member of the Imperial Japanese Army. I would not be surprised if it did. Many of the sons of Nippon which came to those Islands never returned. The idea that Pacific Theater consisted of combat on tiny coral atolls is a persistent one, but Luzon and Mindanao are completely different kettle of fish. Did the IJA think they could occupy that geography? What were they thinking?
If you watch carefully you’ll notice the video producers are quite surprised to see the “forest”. For example the narrators are moving through the “wonderland” and worrying about the mud, you wonder why. Anybody who has moved through logged over forest, or dense brushland will testify that the route depicted was pretty easy going. In really dense tropical forest you can’t see six feet and to move a mile is the work of a day.
I think Vietnam veterans will know what I mean.
Still, that is nitpicking. The directors did a good job, and have recorded a both a physical and cultural world that is whole in a way that defies stereotypes. The inhabitants of that universe are not derivative. They can be authentically something in a complex kind of way; deeply Western even when they are not, familiar yet not familiar. Reality is complex, as all reality is. Speaking of which, I recently read that Rick Rescorla of We Were Soldiers fame, and later security chief for the financial services firm Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter at the World Trade Center, was originally Cornish and died under all his many flags. He’s an example of complex reality that is simple.
At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 struck World Trade Center Tower 1. Rescorla, following his evacuation plans, ignored building officials’ advice to stay put and began the orderly evacuation of Morgan Stanley’s 2,700 employees on twenty floors of World Trade Center Tower 2, and 1,000 employees in WTC 5. Rescorla reminded everyone to “…be proud to be an American …everyone will be talking about you tomorrow”, and sang God Bless America and other military and Cornish songs over his bullhorn to help evacuees stay calm as they left the building, including an adaptation of the song “Men of Harlech”:
Men of Cornwall stop your dreaming;
Can’t you see their spearpoints gleaming?
See their warriors’ pennants streaming
To this battlefield.
Men of Cornwall stand ye steady;
It cannot be ever said ye
for the battle were not ready;
Stand and never yield!
There’s something comforting in the knowledge he went out that way. For the truth is there’s only one flag all true men live under. It goes by many names, but it is always one and the same.
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
Well, Wretchard, you sucked me in — I intended to just see enough of the video to see what you were talking about, and ended up watching the whole thing.
It is very interesting to see the educated class’ use of language. I’d previously thought that I’d need to learn basic Tagalog to visit the country, but now suspect that “immediate Tagalog” and English might serve.
The video shows a beautiful land and a beautiful people.
For the truth is there’s only one flag all true men live under.
You have articulated a profound truth here.
Perhaps this is why so many peoples from all corners of this world have found it an honor to fight under the British or American flags, or a dozen others. Honor recognizes honor.
The English-mix language is interesting, if it’s stable it qualifies as a “creole”. The rules seem to include more nouns in English, things local in Tagalog, things complex in English, things emotional in Tagalog.
But I wonder, is there such mixture in the written, printed form?
Amazing to see pigs and dogs in floating habitats, one doesn’t even want to speculate about the hygiene involved (into the water, along with what else), but I wonder at the absence of cell phones, is that selective film-making? This is mere miles from “civilization”, I gather, when it seems the most backward parts of India already have cell service, and customers. No doubt a lack of solid ground hampers antenna placement.
Seems to be a shortage of hi-res images at Google Maps for the area:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Agusan+swamp,+mindanao+&hl=en&ll=8.311337,125.998678&spn=0.015308,0.018132&sll=7.629331,124.321289&sspn=3.924732,4.641724&hq=Agusan+swamp,&hnear=Mindanao&t=h&z=16
Speaking of which – a floating forest? That’s the first time I’d heard of that!
Humans are adaptable, we live in every environment on this planet, but I think it must be my descent from the apes, I still tend to like the savannah best, mostly dry plains, rolling hills to modest mountains when you want them and to supply some water for modest lakes and rivers, down to the sea.
What could be like Agusan in the US? Well, backwoods Louisiana, I suppose, swamplands in Florida, and a little banjo music from Deliverance, but maybe this one ends better.
I think Rick was known to sing quite a bit in Vietnam, also.
Cornwall really got hammered with flooding. Lots of graphic pics in article below, some showing geese enjoying their expanded range among the shops and homes.
75 flood warnings and 150 flood alerts in place across the UK and a severe flood warning has been issued in south Devon and eastern parts of Cornwall
The South West was expected to face the worst of the weather today after already experiencing heavy rain yesterday afternoon with 1.6in falling in just half an hour in Somerset.
A spokeswoman for the Met Office said almost 1.6in had fallen between 10pm and 4am in Trengwainton, Cornwall.
Network Rail said flooding at Totnes in Devon caused CrossCountry and First Great Western services between Plymouth and Exeter St Davids, both in Devon, to be delayed by up to 60 minutes.
Thousands of motor racing fans heading to the F1 British Grand Prix have been warned not to attend the Silverstone race track in Northamptonshire today after the deluge left car parks unusable and caused major traffic jams near the circuit yesterday.
Hundreds of fans sat for hours stuck in long queues of traffic waiting to enter the sodden car parks yesterday as rain hammered down.
Far from the glamorous image that is often associated with the sport, men and women were forced to don their wellies – some even went barefoot – to circumnavigate the flooded fields and paths around the course.
In scenes reminiscent of the recent Isle of Wight festival, traffic queues and cars abandoned in sodden muddy fields were brightened up by those digging deep to maintain their determined British spirit.
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3. Josh -
I don’t find either the presence in poor areas in India or the lack here of cellphones to be surprising.
Seems to fit the cultures, conditions, and population densities.
Man stranded in desert builds motorcycle out of his broken car
Picture is priceless.
According to Merriam-Webster, ingenuity can be defined as “skill or cleverness in devising or combining” or “cleverness or aptness of design or contrivance.”
We’d say that’s an apt description of a Frenchman named Emile who reportedly found himself stranded in the deserts of Northwest Africa after breaking a frame rail and a suspension swingarm underneath his Citroën 2CV.
What to do? Why, disassemble the broken hulk and build yourself a motorcycle from its pile of parts, of course!
A few years back Smithsonian had an article about a rare B-17E that had been found in the remote wilds of New Guinea. It had crashed in 1942 but was mostly intact. Some Americans mounted an effort to retrieve it, take it back to the USA and restore it.
The bomber had lay there for over 60 years but moving it brought opposition from some of the locals. Said one, “The village nearest that bomber does not even have a name. If the bomber had stayed the village would have a name now.”
I am not sure what it says about the locals that they have not bothered to name their village, but what says more is that some think their future should be based on an airplane built in Seattle that they had nothing whatsoever to do with in any capacity.
The required fees and fines were paid and the appropriate palms greased, but the government there seems to have had second thoughts and at last report the B-17 had been dismantled and was awaiting dockside for further bureaucratic lubrication to be provided, or something.
Talk about jungle, a few hundred feet down the street from my house is a stretch of undeveloped land, maybe 300 ft by 100 ft. Parts of it are underwater following heavy rains. If you found yourself in the middle of that you’d have difficulty figuring out which way the road was. It’s easy to see that in places like the Philippines the machete was not a tool for trimming your shrubbery but one for being able to walk 20 ft.
My wife is from the Texas – Mexico border and when she speaks with her family it is in Spanglish. I have tried to follow, to figure out the “rules”, but there are none. Whatever expression or phrase that best communicates the thought is used. And the conversation proceeds in that language seemlessly until the next junction where an idea, expression or thought comes up in the other language. This can happen several times within the same paragraph of thought and even sentence. It is really fascinating to watch and listen to. And I am envious of the intimate knowledge of both languages required to converse in that manner. I’ll close the way she hangs up the phone after speaking to her sister, “Bueno-Bye”.
” … how the narrator switches, effortlessly, between Tagalog and English, mixing the sentences and words as if there were no distinction between the two.”
Here in these parts it’s known as ”Tex-Mex” or sometimes ”Spanglish”. Mex-Ams in Texas do this all the time if they are in certain social classes and/or generations. Funny thing is I’ve volunteered at a clinic for working poor for almost ten years, most of the patients being Mexican with some Central Americans and others. I’ve always spoken pretty good Spanish and it’s gotten better due to working there but, about the fifth year I noticed I was starting to use Tex-Mex without meaning to.
In my case it seems to be using whatever word pops into my mouth first but sometimes I consciously pick a word in English if I don’t know the Spanish—this latter I don’t consider true Tex-Mex. At the age of 71 I doubt I’m thinking in two languages, as discussed in today’s topic, and I can’t say what’s going on in the brains of others. The bilingual clinic employees, all bilingual Mex-Ams, do the same thing all the time.
but I wonder at the absence of cell phones, is that selective film-making? This is mere miles from “civilization”, I gather, when it seems the most backward parts of India already have cell service,
Don’t take cell service for granted. There are parts of California, within 60 miles of San Francisco and 30 miles of Santa Cruz, with null signals for cellphones. You need some well-heeled cellaphone company to get the permits and do the work to build and operate a dense enough network of cell towers wherever you want to use that pocket luxury.
Last year, I was able to visit south Madagascar in an area in the middle of the ‘thorny forest’. I observed the universality of cell phones even among subsistence farmers.
I observed one man coming up to another and asking, “Would you please put this number into the phone?” He was illiterate but able to use the phone. Another observation: When Malagasy exchange phone numbers, they give the numbers in French although they are speaking Malagasy and Malagasy has perfectly good numbers. Apparently, all school mathematics are in French and the education system has replaced normal use of Malagasy numbers with French.
Any speaker of 2 languages will often find that there are words in one language not present in another but very useful. Malagasy has two different words for we/us one including the person being spoken to and the other not-including. Several English jokes center on that distinction (Tonto: “What you mean “we”, white man?” or “You got a mouse in your pocket?”).
Sometimes its just a matter of what topic has the vocabulary needed right now.
My dad was a navy junior officer during World War II, stationed on Cebu in 1945. He told me that the locals spoke “Visayan.” Is that the same as Cebuano?
While working with veterans of the Provisional Tank Group I learned that their bivouac near Clark Field was situated near an aboriginal village whose inhabitants spoke a distinct and primitive dialect (Igorot, perhaps?) unrelated to Tagalog or anything else. When the tankers were off duty they often visited this village to enjoy the hospitality and good humor of those people. On the morning of December 8 (December 7 in Hawaii) after receiving word of the attack on Pearl Harbor they moved their tanks into positions at the edge of Clark Field’s runway; a few hour later they were battling strafing Japanese fighters with their turret-mounted .30-caliber MGs after enemy bombers had effectively obliterated the force of P-40s and B-17s based at Clark. In the evening they withdraw their tanks preparatory to moving up to the Lingayen Gulf area, where they would form the rear guard for the Northern Luzon Force when it retrograded into Bataan. Before moving out, some of the tankers visited the village to say their goodbyes. They found that the chief had rallied his warriors and, armed with bows and arrows, were prowling the area, chanting battle cries in their Stone Age tongue and vowing to shoot down any low-flying Japanese fighters.
George Orwell (Eric Blair) said that playing the role destroyed the Imperialist, see “Shooting an Elephant.” Then again he could have been wrong.
The assumption of safety by the middle class is what stands out. That is their strength, it allows them to attempt and achieve and is usually justified. It is also their weakness. It enables the Liberal failure to evaluate risks and can lead to disaster.
Rick Rescorla was the best. As long as we can produce or attract men like that there is hope for the future. Just the knowledge that such men exist makes the “men without chests” apoplectic. We should name schools parks and ships after him.
What he would have heard on Cebu was Cebuano, which is the major “Visayan” dialect. There are others, like Waray, spoken in Samar, and Ilongo, spoken on Iloilo. What you hear in the video is principally Cebuano.
The aborigines around Clark Field (and Olongapo) are some variant of the aeta, who are small and negroid in appearance. Many of these communities got an artificial extension on cultural life because they lived, by arrangement, on US military installations, which protected them from lowland incursion. You couldn’t for example, turn an aeta village into a shopping center or residential subdivision while it was part of the Subic naval reservation.
With the withdrawal of the bases, the tribal lands lost their special status; they’ve been resettled, moved out and it will not be long until they are gone. In the travelogue video, you will notice that many of the inhabitants of the lake are not “Visayan”, but Manobo; again another indigenous people.
Even before the Magellan arrived the Philippines was in the process of being overrun by a number of lowland Malayan cultures, some of which were Islamic. They were in the process of pushing all these many tribes into the uplands where in time, they would be marginalized and ultimately driven to cultural extinction. In reality, the “evil foreign invader” for the indigenous people of the Philippines has always worn a Malay face. I hope this explains why being mistaken for an amerikano is sometimes a plus in the uplands. It means you are not the ancient enemy. The amerikano will visit, leave some money and go away, maybe build a mission school or two. The lowlander will stay and take the land. Of course this is not what they teach in many universities, but then those universities are staffed with lowlanders.
Most of the smaller tribes are ultimately doomed. Maybe even Cebuano is doomed by Tagalog, but Tagalog itself has long been doomed, at least in its linguistic purity, by Spanish and English.
For better or for worse, the Philippines is now evolving into a definite culture. In the process everyone will win some and lose some. The purists on every side are fighting a losing battle. The old Malayan script, the ancient Gods are dead. People are largely Christian and sincerely so, or at least in that degree of sincerity you will find anywhere. They are heirs to many cultures, so mixed that they are unaware of it themselves.
It that a tragedy? You can’t preserve the past. The aetas want their Iphones too, just as they already want the electric fan and the DVD player. But if you can’t preserve the past, you can at least remember it. Perhaps that is the function it plays in the human story. Memory is what we have to defend us from time; so that the things we love may still enfold us in their caresses long after we’ve moved on, waiting patiently at eventide in a secret garden for our visits, until we ourselves can no longer find the way.
My dad was a navy junior officer during World War II, stationed on Cebu in 1945. He told me that the locals spoke “Visayan.” Is that the same as Cebuano?
My family roots are in Butuan, Agusan del Norte. They speak Visayan (sounds like “Bisayan”) and it is really, in fact, Cebuano. Some speak only Visayan, some speak Visayan and Tagalog, and some have English too. It depends how far they went in school, or whether they relocated to Manila (or San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, a suburb of Quezon City, same difference). The ones who moved have children who have graduated or are attending college, which is one way out of grinding poverty, but it requires a great number of sacrifices by the parents. One family member who graduated college runs a call center, and was tapped by the Chinese to teach English there until the thing with the Spratley Islands heated up. Another way out of poverty is to become an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) in places like Dubai, where one family member works (and she must by necessity live a double life, being gay). The Philippines is a place where many families are separated by a kind of Diaspora, like the Jews, which is the only solution to the chronic poverty. The root of that poverty is the endemic corruption which rots through every layer of Filipino society, and the root of that corruption is chronic poverty. So we have a catch-22, a trap, a self-sustaining dysfunction.
A friend of mine married a lady from the Panama Canal Zone. That area has its own culture, distinct from the rest of Panama. The people there speak English, many with nearly impenetrable Spanish accents, but they often can’t speak Spanish.
Back in the 60’s the Cubans sent teams into the jungles of Panama with the idea of fomenting Communist revolution among the people there and thus disrupting the canal operations. They ran smack dab into the tribes that live in the jungle outside of the Canal Zone, who are favorably disposed toward the U.S. but very hostile to outsiders. The Cubans had to be rescued by the U.S.
I was told by a friend who was stationed at Clark during the Vietnam War, flying C-130’s to Vietnam, that once he was in a BX at the base and one of the Aeta came in, picked a few things off the shelves, and left without paying. Because of the assistance they gave U.S. forces in WWII the word had been put out to let them shop for free. Apparently they did not abuse the privilege, but then all they wanted was chewing gum and tobacco and similar items anyway.
Another friend of mine went through the survival training course held at Clark at the 60’s. One of the Aeta, a well spoken man, gave them instruction, including use of a machete. He invited one of the beefier members of the course to try to cut down a small tree. After the guy had exhausted himself hacking away on the tree the little instructor went over and took it down in about two quick swipes.
Richard,
Thanks for mentioning Rick Rescorla. Whenever I think of the term “hero,” his name is the first one that comes to mind. The second is Audie Murphy. Those two were MEN.
I’ll take any film close to its source material- especially compared to the junk from National Geographic lately, which are transparent attacks on agriculture and anything un-cosmopolitan. At least it was made by actual inhabitants, even if they are clueless and uppity. Historically that’s who has the time and money to make films, so it’s hard to avoid exhibiting natives and even straight voyeurism.
“For better or for worse, the Philippines is now evolving into a definite culture. In the process everyone will win some and lose some. The purists on every side are fighting a losing battle.”
In Alaska they made a reality show out of “helping” Eskimos, also produced by the insidious Geographic Society. All of that training and equipment just to keep booze under control, which the outsiders produce in the first place. Are the free trailers and power stations appreciated? Sure, but are they still Eskimos then? Why even stay there, aside from the cultural barriers of resettling somewhere… It seems “gifts from the Gods” brings temporary comfort — they cause only envy and chaos over time. (The worst gift being knowledge, which Satan forced Eve into studying.)
“Back in the 60’s the Cubans sent teams into the jungles of Panama with the idea of fomenting Communist revolution among the people there and thus disrupting the canal operations … The Cubans had to be rescued by the U.S.”
I heard that the air force sent in a modified C-130 with vertical rockets attached! Ah wait, that was the Iranian ruse… I’d guess that the Cuban show was roughly the same deal though.
Wow. They are going back-and-forth between English and Tagalog, and in midsentence no less. That’s fascinating.
My wife is Philippino and when talking to her friends and relatives, it’s just as described. Back and forth between English and Tagolog, picking indivdual words and phrases from each. She also subscribes to two Phillippino cable TV channels, and they are pretty much the same.
Interesting, she almost never accidentally uses Tagalog when speaking to me and our adult children and grandchildren (none of whom speak Tagolog).
Not sure if it’s true, but it has always seemed to me that she is consciously selecting the word and language that best expresses her thoughts. Seems like a fairly neat trick to me.
5. Doug -
Could someone who knows French please translate the little box describing the Weird Orange Boxing Glove Thingy at the rear of the “Motorcycle?”
Some kind of taped-up protection for something, I think.
While you’re at it, go ahead and translate the other two tiny descriptive boxes also, please.
Maybe this croc which was caught recently–came from the same swamp as the one in the video.
Anyhow it made the Guiness Book of records.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_20984617/guinness-crocodile-philippines-is-largest-captivity
Thanks W for this delightful glimpse into a world so few of us would ever discover, let alone explore. So glad I read your viewing notes beforehand. Now to encourage my grandchildren to invest some viewing time sans pop stars into their search for real wisdom.
Good essay.
The under reported story in the Philippines is that the non elite who are ambitious work overseas or emigrate, and this includes a lot of farmers/shopkeepers whose kids earn more in Saudi than here. If they got rid of corruption, there is a potential “tiger economy” here; with the Manila elites running things, alas, the best hope is to be an engineer in Saudi, a caretaker in the UK or a factory worker in Japan…
The OFW phenomenum is changing society, but there are other forces, including education and the “protestantization” of religion (even among Catholic groups)…a more charismatic religion that stresses hard work and prosperity as part of religion.
As for Taglish, it is not a creole because the grammar and words are just inserted into Tagalog, and it too is evolving…
Doug at #20: Since I’ve never posted before, I’ll translate, somewhat idiomatically,just the “orange boxing glove thingy”. If that works out, I’ll follow up w/ the other two.
The seat was constructed from the end piece of the rear bumper,covered in felt taken from the dashboard,and held together by orange tape, all to a rather pleasant visual effect.
Gotta love the comment about the pretty effect of the orange tape. How French! By the way,FWIW,I’m not French.
That’s correct Tio Edong, the Manila elites are in the way. What the overseas worker phenomenon has done, in conjunction with the Internet is that it’s given the lower middle and lower classes a way to outflank their ridiculous restrictions.
Who uses the post office any more? Or applies for a phone with PLDT? They matter less and less.
Back in the day the elites used the “colonialism” card to shout aspiring individuals down. But that doesn’t work too well any more. And since many poor people have seen the world in person or on DVD, their ability to overawe the rubes has correspondingly declined. So they’ll have to make it on merit or fall by the wayside.
OK, I guess that I’m no longer a Belmont Club virgin. That wasn’t so bad.
Middle box: I ain’t much of an auto mechanic, so I’m not positive of how the word “tambour” is being used in this context. It can mean either turbine or drum brake. I’ll assume the former.
Turbine(or brake drum) on the right is rendered immoveable so that the differential delivers all of its force to the one on the left.
Right box: The front wheel,used for steering, is the only one having a suspension system.
Wretchard -
I have to observe to you that in my time, Tagalog, English, Spanish and any of the 33 dialects were normally spoken straight in pure form largely unhybridized by the indiscriminate interweaving of “other” alien words, phrases or clauses except where no English word, for example, had a translatable equivalent in Tagalog, or where the llike word or phrase had naturally evolved with its sister dialect in the regional linguis
Wretchard -
I have to observe to you that in my time, Tagalog, English, Spanish and any of the 33 dialects were normally spoken in pure straight form largely unhybridized by the indiscriminate interweaving of “other” alien words, phrases or clauses except where no English word, for example, had a translatable equivalent in Tagalog, or where the llike word or phrase had naturally evolved with its sister dialect in the regional linguistic group.
In my school days, we were forbidden to speak Tagalog, but by then time I left UP and the islands, the opposite was policy was coming into play….. Marcos had started his”nationalism” drive to mandate the nationwide discourse in Pilipino (I.e., Tagalog) only, and hence commenced the further splintering of the Filipino mentality and culture.
Even JoMa, with whom I was one of the original signatories to KM, almost wholly waged his initial deceptive campaigns in English … It was only by the time of my younger brother, who was put in Muntinglupa by our “cousin Imelda” for three years, that it became de rigeur to rally the people in pure, classical Pilipino.
Clearly, things went downhill from there, like everything else in these past “lost” decades.