Colonial mentality

By: Lora Noreen S. Domingo - @inquirerdotnet

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:02 AM September 07, 2014

The first time my mother served us brown rice instead of white, I lost my
appetite. I imagined the rice, brown like feces, infested by flies. It tasted all right,
not sweet but still palatable. It was just the color that made me imagine
disgusting things.

Later I realized that the rice we always ate was not harvested white. It had to be
refined, separating the bran from the grain, stripping off its natural brown color
and, unfortunately, its substance, until it comes out white—as though pure and
clean and, in my six-year-old words, “pretty.” But it is no longer very healthy to
eat.

Such is the Filipino’s fascination for anything white—from rice to snow to a fair
complexion. Colonial mentality is the historian’s term for it, instilled in
children’s minds, passed on through generations like a gene. It’s as if it can no
longer be removed from our body composition, and can only be recessive. Even
if we have raised our own flag and recited our vows for our country, Filipinos are
still flat-nosed, fair-complexioned people speaking broken English.

Eighty percent of a Filipino woman’s expenses concern various whitening

products. She continues to fall for the moneymaking scams involving these
products that come in sets. For better results, use whitening soap together with
lotion. For even better results, use lotion with cream. For best results, use with
scrub. Even women who earn barely enough to feed a family of 12 back home
would cut out a couple of hundreds to buy themselves the right to call
themselves “beautiful.”
I would be a hypocrite if I said I haven’t been trying to look American. It
started when I was in grade school. It was always worth the trouble to sneak
into my mother’s room, make off with her foundation and compact powder, and
bring these with me to school. If I wore the stuff daily and looked white, I
would become one of the nominees for muse and get noticed by the class’
Prince Charming. But my hands, which were trained to hold crayons and make
unruly and forceful strokes, merely made me look like a white kid, not an
American.
It was only when I began to study at the Philippine High School for the Arts
that I became aware of outstanding Filipino artists like Levi Celerio, Ramon
Obusan, Jose Joya and Leandro Locsin.

With the perspective of a young student artist, I realized how much more
amazing it is to listen to classical music than to pop songs by those who sound
good only on auto-tune and whose repetitive lyrics scream only about partying,
losing oneself, and making love tonight.
Yet, the media feature only the success of foreign artists who are 1/32 Filipino
and don’t know a single Filipino word.
Being Filipino is more than just the race we belong to. We don’t need to have
body tattoos like those of the lumad . But the culture that our ancestors have
struggled to keep should be nurtured and seen in the way we talk and speak, in
the things we are interested in. Whatever happened to the kundiman?
Whatever happened to the novels about the silent protest of Filipinos under
Spanish power? As in the eyes of high school students with short attention
spans, “Noli Me Tangere” has turned from a handy novel to a textbook
dreading to be read.
In a country whose economy depends on foreign tourists and investors and the
false understanding of “development,” what are more accessible to a regular
Filipino are malls that display overpriced goods from the West. The Filipiniana
section of National Bookstore is heartbreaking, filled with Filipino teenagers’
erotic adventures and authors who are
driven to write only by their vanity. If these are what the bookstores can offer
as the face of Philippine literature, then the Philippines would be such a flop!

Where are the books of our national artists? Or of my personal favorite,

Ambeth Ocampo, who makes Philippine history easy to read but substantial?
The rich invest in what’s “in” instead of supporting indigenous people whose
embroidered art would make a heart skip a beat, with every woven pattern
made with sweat and pure dedication to the Creator of all things in the
universe. In what other country would you see a heart so pure reflected in the
culture?
Manila boys and girls don’t need to live with our indigenous people to be
considered Filipinos. That would be false nationalism. They were born and
raised in the boisterous cacophony of car horns and traffic whistles and lulled
to sleep by electropop music and strobe lights.
Not that I want the government to ban any foreign influence, because this
influence can do us some good. Japan is one of the most developed countries in
the world, yet it started small. During the Meiji empire, the members of the
Japanese government were sent to the West to learn how to run a government.
They listened well as they were taught, adapting the military reforms of the
German, American and British governments, but they did not allow themselves
to be dependent allies of these governments. They applied what they had
learned to their own country, strengthening the military, until they were strong
enough to conquer others. They defeated China and Russia, which were even
bigger countries than they were at that time.
But the Japanese could not have done it without love for their then ailing
country. When they were sent to the West to study, the comfort of an
established government could lure them to never return. But they all returned
home, and not only did Japan become as good as the countries that taught it,
but it was also able to create something of its own.
When some of my classmates went to China to perform a Philippine folk dance,
they laughed at the Chinese for their signs written in incorrect English, like
“We Welcome To Come Back Again.” But did they ever see a beggar perform
a folk story in the Philippines like the poor Chinese man they saw in the bus?
Yes, in the Philippines, even drivers who have not been to college can speak
better English than a Chinese businessman. But the richest company presidents
in the Philippines are foreigners in their own country. They need their own
drivers because they fear getting tricked by public utility drivers. They’d
choose to be clad in American suits in this warm weather rather than a
cool barong because they think it is for the bakya Filipinos.
The Chinese beggar performing in the bus had nothing but improvised music
materials. But you know what else he had? He knew the story of two boastful
crickets who were trying to see who between them was more powerful. In the
end, a large toad silenced their argument by eating them both.
Despite the permanent scars of colonialism in Philippine history, it provides a
privilege to our culture. For a culture which is a mix of many other cultures is
as interesting as a new species bred from horse and zebra.
But more than imitation, there should be synergy between and among these
cultures. We have learned enough after centuries of colonization. It is time we
stood on our own feet. Let us patronize and create our own culture: poems,
songs and dances that retell the stories of the Philippines’ oppression and its
journey to freedom. Is that not something worth telling and listening to? Does
that not make you more than proud to be Filipino?
Lora Noreen S. Domingo, 15, is in Grade 9 at the Philippine High School for
the Arts.

Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/78220/colonial-

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