The passage of time...
Whilst I enjoy taking photographs it is not something I do particularly well...the only decent photographs I ever take are of beautiful or dramatic scenery, never of day to day life. However, since arriving in Manila I see so many scenes that I want to take pictures of, so many different scenes that make me think - it is the first city that has really happened to me in, driving around Manila brings on a thought overload.
Today I went with two collegues to Marikina City, the shoe capital of The Philippines. I started the trip with my nose in the Inquirer reading up on Garci's shenanigans yesterday, but after a few glances out of the window I realised I was in unfamiliar territory and as such better look where I was going.
The scenery was typical Manila; houses piled on top of each other, fast food restaurants, shops, shopping malls and overhead cables all spotted between jammed traffic moving at a snail's pace through the rainy city. However as we went further east the scenery became greener and once we had moved into Marikina city the streets became markedly cleaner and signage etc became more organised (when I questioned my colleagues it seems that Mayor of this city is married to the head of the MMDA (who also used to by Mayor of Marikina)), the whole city seems so much more disciplined than anywhere else in Manila - even the city website is well organised!
Whilst stopped at some traffic lights I looked over to the central reservation and there were two kids playing with two plastic cups full of soap suds, one of the children must have been about 5 or 6, the other about 11 or 12. Both children had old flip-flops on that must have been two or three sizes too big for them and very old and damaged clothes - the usual product of Manila's brutal streets. But with the soap suds they were having so much fun - rolling around in the suds, throwing them at each other, rubbing them in each others hair, all the while surrounded by cars sitting waiting to move on. Looking at the other cars with their passengers, they were all enthralled by the sight of these two kids messing around.
I have no idea if the kids were related but it struck me that one day, the older child will remember that time and no doubt smile...the younger child will probably not remember it.
It just reminded me of times that my brother and I would mess around on the beach or at bathtime, causing havoc - unfortunately my brother doesn't remember the times as he was too young, but I do, particularly when considering the passage of time -
Monday was my baby brother's 32nd birthday.
Today I went with two collegues to Marikina City, the shoe capital of The Philippines. I started the trip with my nose in the Inquirer reading up on Garci's shenanigans yesterday, but after a few glances out of the window I realised I was in unfamiliar territory and as such better look where I was going.
The scenery was typical Manila; houses piled on top of each other, fast food restaurants, shops, shopping malls and overhead cables all spotted between jammed traffic moving at a snail's pace through the rainy city. However as we went further east the scenery became greener and once we had moved into Marikina city the streets became markedly cleaner and signage etc became more organised (when I questioned my colleagues it seems that Mayor of this city is married to the head of the MMDA (who also used to by Mayor of Marikina)), the whole city seems so much more disciplined than anywhere else in Manila - even the city website is well organised!
Whilst stopped at some traffic lights I looked over to the central reservation and there were two kids playing with two plastic cups full of soap suds, one of the children must have been about 5 or 6, the other about 11 or 12. Both children had old flip-flops on that must have been two or three sizes too big for them and very old and damaged clothes - the usual product of Manila's brutal streets. But with the soap suds they were having so much fun - rolling around in the suds, throwing them at each other, rubbing them in each others hair, all the while surrounded by cars sitting waiting to move on. Looking at the other cars with their passengers, they were all enthralled by the sight of these two kids messing around.
I have no idea if the kids were related but it struck me that one day, the older child will remember that time and no doubt smile...the younger child will probably not remember it.
It just reminded me of times that my brother and I would mess around on the beach or at bathtime, causing havoc - unfortunately my brother doesn't remember the times as he was too young, but I do, particularly when considering the passage of time -
Monday was my baby brother's 32nd birthday.
posted by Madame Chiang at 10:52 pm
4 Comments:
Nice post. Marikina really is a model city which other mayors should give a better look at but they're too busy putting up more lamp posts and billboards (and railings with their initials on it).
I'm the youngest. I do remember playing in the rain and making mud pies with my sister and brothers. I wonder if they remember it...
Bayani is one of the most interesting players on the current political stage.
As I see it, the big question with him is whether a successful city mayor can repeat his achievements on the national stage. Bayani's record as head of MMDA is quite mixed -- when he came into the job he immediately made several traffic improvements (u-turns, that sort of thing) that greatly improved matters. Since then he has floundered a bit, though that is partly because of the weird overlapping responsibilities of MMDA and the 13 cities (I think it is 13) that make up Metro Manila. His campaign to rid the city of the "evils" of street vendors (I know where he was coming from, but surely there are more serious issues?) made him a lot of enemies among the masa. And as for his aesthetic sense (he is responsible for all the pink)...
Having said that, what I like about Bayani is that he has some sort of vision and he is an activist (he is not content to just sit there watching the country gradually deteriorate), The Philippines desperately needs those qualities, though whether he is the right person to provide them is an open question.
Torn - Well that explains the pink anyway...I thought maybe they had been given a boatload of free pink paint...aethetics not withstanding, if he can achieve that level of order organised in one city, then it would be great if he could achieve it elsewhere...unfortunately, no man is an island, and it seems that in Manila, everyone has to have a finger in every pie...
Frayed - speaking of billboards with names on it...we have been treated to a great new one at the Edsa/Shaw junction...with a larger than life picture of Mayor Gonazales, not being able to read Tagalog I can't see what it is for...
Whaddaya know Madame Chiang, I'm originally from Marikina but now based in Sydney. I had a copywriting stint in Hong Kong in the late 90s. Like you, my heart still yearns for HK. But this post on the shoe town made me really nostalgic.
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