Jicama – and the Art of Fart

Photo from Market Manila.

“Now there are three kinds of fart,” I began. “The first is called Loud and Proud. That’s the kind you don’t want to emit while inside the elevator. The second kind is called Silent but Deadly, which of course offers you the best opportunity to accuse others of what you yourself have done. The third and final one is the kind you wouldn’t want to ever expel, voluntarily or not, whether by yourself or in the presence of other people, no matter where you are, be it out in the open or in some closed space.

“It’s called Wet and Wild.”

At this, two pairs of the whitest lips on earth flung open. Mine were just as white. In any case, during that aimless lovely chat I was having with our two housekeepers, Lisa and Ambay, both from Tuguegarao City in Cagayan, I enjoyed my contributions to the conversation as much as they did theirs.

Everyone but the three of us had left the table after dinner when Lisa produced from the fridge a huge, unpeeled singkamas – popularly known as “jicama” in foreign soil: a creamy white, fibrous, juicy plant, the edible roots of which are slightly sweet and mostly tasteless.

Now, we all know that tropical fruits are one of the most compelling attractions in the Philippines. The range is endless, and we can talk about it another time, but for now one has to understand that if one ever runs out of things to do in the Philippines, which is highly unlikely, he or she can always try a tropical fruit or two. Like this singkamas thing. In the Philippines, shopping? Don’t miss the local fruit markets.

Lisa pounded the singkamas against the mat-less dinner table like an ancient gavel. “Anybody wanna piece of this?” she asked. Ah – Loud and Proud.

In countries with climates warm enough for its cultivation – countries such as China and others in Southeast Asia – singkamas is usually eaten raw. Not much was different in the “jicaman” tradition for the three of us Northerners (with common provinces in Cagayan, that is) – except that after peeling, slicing, and dicing the spherical root and then pouring table salt on the singkamas, we soon immersed it in a deep pool of vinegar. (A certified way of making one’s tummy boil and one’s, um, bowels loosen.) Apple cider would be best, but we only had a fifteen-peso glass bottle of Datu Puti white vinegar in the kitchen.

Tonight, in a trance nevertheless best described as mouth-watering, we watched the soft thin slices of an already very moist plant swim and dance in our respective bowls, absorbing as much acetic acid in the vinegar as “jicamanly” possible.

The first slice – eaten with the utilization of a silver teaspoon so we could drink a bit of the, ahem, vin aigre liqueur – was, as always, the most exquisite of all. It was perfectly salty, and sour in the most extreme, most gratifying pleasure. All the possible salivary glands were then at work. No one dared speak prematurely, certainly not among the three of us veterans, because the taste of singkamas dipped in Datu Puti vinegar always lingered in the most sensitive surfaces of the human tongue; made fiery downward passage through the winding tunnel of the esophagus; pierced violently through diaphragm to reach the stomach; and finally, provoked the intestines in a manner not unlike digging too deep to find molten lava. Ah – Silent but Deadly.

The discourse on the art of fart began sometime between our sipping one too many teaspoonfuls and craving for yet one more (“I swear this is the last!”). Ambay shared that during her early childhood days, their father would recklessly discharge intestinal gas despite the humility of their abode in the province.

“The whole family would get out of the house, all of us covering our noses,” she said. “Only Papa remained inside, probably enjoying the remnants of his after-dinner evening breeze.”

Lisa, slicing the last pieces from what remained of our shared singkamas, recounted: “There was one time when my boyfriend visited the house. I remember that mother was there to welcome him. Then I appeared, all twee and happy, when all of a sudden I felt this growl in my stomach. ‘What’s wrong?’ my boyfriend asked. I ignored him and scurried into my bedroom and locked the door. That’s when I finally farted, farted furiously and with all my might.”

“I fart all the time when I’m in an elevator on my way to meetings,” I told them. “But come this midnight don’t let me see you two spend too much time in the bathroom. Hot gas can be controlled by anyone with a persevering stomach, but this here,” raising my last slice, trickles of vinegar rolling down my thumb and index finger, “this here is all water.”

Ah – Wet and Wild.

*** Attractions Philippines editor’s note: Want to share your own thoughts and stories on things to do in the Philippines, places to see, fruits to eat, cities and provinces to visit? Just E-mail us at Attractions.Philippines at Gmail dot com or send us a Twitter tweet via @attractionsPI. Thanks for visiting Attractions Philippines!

Verse in the Metro

Photo from the Berso sa Metro Facebook Page.

Have you taken Manila’s Light Rail Transit recently (LRT)? Well, we all should – if only to wax poetic during the ride.

The Instituto Cervantes de Manila, led by Director Jose Rodriguez, and the Light Rail Transit Authority have collaborated to install posters inside the carriages of the train, posters that contain celebrated Spanish-language poems by such writers as national hero Jose Rizal, Jesús Balmori, Claro M. Recto, José Palma, and Fernando Maria Guerrero; Spanish poets Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega, García Lorca, Antonio Machado, Luis Cernuda, Luis Rosales, Miguel Hernández and Gil de Biedma; and Latin American writers Pablo Neruda and César Vallejo.

The poems, of course, have Filipino translations. So we can stop ogling at strangers and start memorizing lines that ought to have been familiar to us long ago.

This new promotional campaign, entitled “Berso Sa Metro (Verse in the Metro)”, was launched recently to encourage reading among Filipino commuters, as well as to strengthen the ties between Spain and the Philippines, two countries that share a common past that spanned more than 300 years. It’s also a new – albeit simple – cultural attraction in the Philippines, a country that still has plenty of traces of colonial rule and Spanish heritage.

“With almost one million commuters riding the train every day, it provides a great opportunity for the reading campaign to reach as many people as possible,” Rodriguez said.

While the LRT has usually been cited for overflow of passengers, the poems should give people something new and positive to talk about. It’s certainly one of the most unique attractions in the Philippines.

Instituto Cervantes is the cultural arm of the Spanish government that promotes and teaches the Spanish language and culture. It is the largest Spanish teaching organization worldwide, with more than seventy centers in four continents. With its collection of classic and contemporary Spanish art, literature, movies, and music, the Instituto library has become an important agent in promoting the Spanish language in the Philippines and is an indispensable source for those who are interested in Spanish and Latin American cultures.

Bohemian Boats

We found ourselves in the middle of the water in the middle of the day in the middle of the season. The mid-afternoon sun roasted us like muttons, to quote a little John Steinbeck, and we were melting like the cheese on yesterday’s pizza. Summer has officially made a blistering entrance. We were right in the middle of it.

“Let’s swim,” Marte Perez suggested.

A lovely, affable woman of whose age I shall diplomatically refuse to take an estimate, Marte dove from her husband Rolly’s pocket yacht straight into the cold waters of Taal Lake in Talisay, Batangas. Nykko Santos, a photographer friend, made a louder splash: a thunderous beckoning, it seemed, to someone who had no intention of swimming (or, to be more precise, of having his fear of the waters exposed).

But how, in my representation of a local sports magazine and of Attractions Philippines, could I have declined? “No” was not the correct answer. So I dove clumsily, although I was trembling before I even hit the waters.

Petrified, I tried to swim and take note of what was happening around me. In an event dubbed as the “Summer Messabout,” held in a Philippine beach resort called Taal Lake Yacht Club, the Philippine Home Boatbuilders Yacht Club (PHBYC) paraded a flotilla of homemade sailboats and motorboats: of different sizes, lengths (from 8 to 22 feet), and personalities. The tarpaulin sails danced with the breeze and saturated the vaporous backdrop with colors. Taal Volcano was a beauty to behold, too: a faraway mound full of textures, imaginings and mysteries.

Other PHBYC members, meanwhile, built a canoe on site – at Commodore Peter Capotosto’s Philippine beach resort – to show visitors how easy and practical the process was. Armed with pre-cut panels, epoxy, hammers, screwdrivers, power drills, a paint brush, and basic carpentry skills, the group built the 15-foot Moth in just six hours. (It was one-legged multimedia artist Cherrie Pinpin’s first canoe, but everyone took turns paddling the new boat around Taal Lake.)

Then – the back of my head resting on the pillows of water – I gazed at the vast, cloudless sky. Suddenly a single bird flew across the view. It prompted me to muse upon what Kenneth Grahame once wrote: “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing half so much worth doing as messing about in boats.”

It was to be the epitaph for the death of my fears.

I was first to climb back on deck; Rolly followed suit. We enjoyed a wine-less conversation about his life in sailing and the prologue to that. He was from the northern province of Tuguegarao, Cagayan; attended Ateneo de Manila; studied English literature in college; photographed professionally for seven years then ran his own theater company.

“Ahoy! Ahoy!” we afterwards yelled at those who happened to sail nearby. Also at those who were on the shores of the Philippine beach resort. Roy Espiritu and Louie and Cheryl and Mario Garcia and Cherrie and Felix and Ben and Kuton – I don’t want to miss any names here – all of them waved at us as though we were friends either long-lost or newly-made. But did it matter? Was I not feeling the oats best described as bohemian? For as the sun began to set and the blue sky faded into orange, I seemed to have settled in a kind of camaraderie where I felt no storm could come. And I heard the delicate waves of the lake echo exactly where we were.

Home.

*** Attractions Philippines editor’s note: The PHBYC was formed in 2006. The boat building craft compelled the founders and members to create a web-based forum at www.pinoyboats.org, which has become PHBYC’s central point of contact. Being the country’s first virtual yacht club, the group has quickly dispelled some of the myths about boating – that it is only for the rich (building can cost just as much as a regular mobile phone!), that sailing is a difficult skill to learn (members attest that it’s way easier than riding a bike), and that water sports are very dangerous. (“It’s very safe,” said Rolly. “You’ve simply got to respect the water.”)

Sunset in Manila

Let us begin the first-ever post on Attractions Philippines by talking quickly about Manila.

Every day in the capital city of the Philippines, there is something new to see. Something quite out of the ordinary. Something that can be classified as far more than just one of the many Philippine attractions. The ironic thing? It’s something so regular, too.

Something like the Manila sunset.

In Ilustrado, Filipino expatriate Miguel Syjuco’s acclaimed debut novel, one is offered a brief description of the sunset in Manila: “Over the bay, the sunset is starting, the famous sunset, like none anywhere else. Skeptics attribute its colors to pollution. Over there’s the land, the great gray sprawl of eleven million people living on top of each other… fourteen cities and three municipalities, skyscrapers and shanties, tumbling beyond Kilometer Zero and the heart of every Filipino, the city that gave the metro its name.”

One cannot say that he has been to the Philippines, or lived in it, or known it, without having his breath taken at least once by this pretty sight. This goes for locals and foreigners alike. It is truly one of the most popular – not to mention, important – Philippine attractions.

“Oh my goodness,” expatriates must have said, “It’s just like a screensaver!”

In the afternoons, typically in the lovely time between five o’clock and sunset, hundreds flock to the boardwalk of Roxas Boulevard, all of them eager to watch the sun dipping cautiously behind Bataan peninsula on the horizon that is, at first, gold, then dark orange, then purple. Tourists, both domestic and foreign, brandish their cameras; artists set up their easels and sit on stools to paint the vista. Anything to capture the moment, it seems. Of course, the moment is not complete without a glimpse of the tiny white dinghy slicing through the glassy waters of Manila Bay.

Government ordinance may have taken away Roxas Boulevard’s sunset-view music bars, al fresco cafes, and street performances. And ridiculous taxes may have been imposed on the enjoyment of other attractions.

Fortunately, this screensaver – this picturesque afternoon view that has come to embody the tropical beauty of the rest of the Philippine attractions – cannot be touched.