memoirs of a student in manila

JOHN CARLO TAPIZ

Memoirs of Student in Manila By: P. Jacinto (A pen name
of Jose Rizal)
This is the student memoirs or reminiscences of Jose Rizal. He wrote it
from 1879 to 1881 from the ages of 17 to 20. The English translation is by
the Jose Rizal national centennial commission. It is taken from the book
Jose Rizal: Life works and writings of genius, writer, scientist and national
hero by Gregorio F. Zaide and Sonia M. Zaide (Metro Manila national book
store publishers).
CHAPTER 1: My Birth – Early Years
Jose Rizal was born in Calamba on 19 of June 1861 between eleven
midnight, a few days before full a moon. It was Wednesday and Rizlas
mother almost passed away giving birth to Jose Rizal because of his
huge head had she not vowed to the virgin of antipolo to take rizal to her
sanctuary by the way of pilgrimage.
• The education that he received since his early infancies was perhaps what
has shaped his habits like a jar that retains the odor of the body that it first
held.

• Rizal had a nurse named Aya who loved him very much and in order to make
him take supper (which he had on the terrace on moonlit nights.) frighted
him with the sudden apparitions of some formidable Asuang (ghosts), of a
frightful Nuno or Parce-nobis as she used to call an imaginary being similar
to the Bu of the Europeans.
Rizal had nine sisters and one brother. His father had given them educational
commensurate with their small fortune and through thrift he was able to build
a stone house, and bought another to erect a little nipa house in the middle of
their orchard under the shade of banana trees and others.
Their mother would make them recite the rosary all together. Afterwards
they would go to the terrace or to some window from which the moon can
be seen and his nurse would tell stories, sometimes mournful, sometimes
gay.
When he was four years old, he lost his little sister (Concha) and then for
the first time Rizal shed tears caused by loved and grief for until then he
had shed them only because of his stubbornness that his loving proving
mother so well knew how to correct. She taught him how to read, she
taught him how to stammer the humble prayers that he addressed
fervently to God and now that he was a young man, ah where is that
simplicity that innocence of his early days?
RIZAL’S FAMILY FRANCISCO MERCADO
(1818-1898) TEODORA ALONSO (1827-1913)
Father of Jose Rizal Mother of Jose Rizal
SATURNINA RIZAL (1850-1913) Eldest child of the
Rizal- Alonzo marriage.
PACIANO RIZAL (1851-1930) only brother of Jose Rizal
and the second child.
NARCISA RIZAL (1852-1939) The third child.
OLYMPIA RIZAL (1855-1887) The fourth child.
LUCIA RIZAL (1857-1919) The fifth child.
MARIA RIZAL (1859-1945) The sixth child.
JOSE RIZAL (1861- 1896) The second son and the seventh child.
CONCEPCION RIZAL (1862-1865) The eight child. Died at the age
of three.
JOSEFA RIZAL (1865-1945) The ninth child.
TRINIDAD RIZAL (1868- 1951) The tenth child.
SOLEDAD RIZAL (1870-1929) The youngest child
In his own town Rizal learned how to write and his father who looked after his
education paid an old man (who had been his classmate) to give him the first lessons in
Latin and he stayed at their house. After five months he died almost having foretold his
death when he was still in good health. He remembered that he came to manila with his
father after the birth of the third girl (Trinidad) who followed him, and it was on 6 of
June 1868. They boarded a casco a very heavy craft. He had never gone through the
lake of La Laguna consciously and the first time.
• Taytay, Antipolo, Manila, Santa Ana where they visited his eldest sister (Saturnina) who
was at that time a boarding student at La Concordia. He returned to his town and stayed in
it until 1870, the first year that marked his separation from his family.

• This is what he remembered of those times that figure in the forefront of his life like the
dawn of the day. Alas when shall the night come to shelter him so that he may rest in deep
slumber? God knows it! In the meantime, now that he is in the spring of life separated
from the beings whom he loved most in the world, now that sad, he wrote these pages.
Let us leave providence to act, and let us give time to time awaiting from the will of God
the future, good or bad, so that with this he may succeed to expiate his sins.
• P. Jacinto was the first name of used by Rizal in his writings. His other pen
names were Laong-Laan and Dimas Alang.
• Filipinos, Spaniards and Chinese venerated the Virgin of Antipolo since Spanish
colonial days. The month of May is the time of pilgrimage to her shrine. She is
also called Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage, the patron saint of travelers.
One legend says her image saved the shipwreck the crew of a ship that bore her
from Acapulco to Manila many years ago.
• The name Diana, goddess of the moon and of hunting.
• Casco is a Philippine River craft made of wood used for passengers and freight.
The catig is the vessel.
• A well-known boarding school for girls, the sisters of charity administered La
Concordia College. It was founded in 1868 by Margarita Roxas de Ayala, a
wealthy Filipino woman, who gave her country home called La Concordia in Sta
Ana, Manila to the school and hence its popular designation. Its official name is
Colegio de la Immaculada Concepcion.
• Rizal Avenue, named for the national hero absorbed this old street. At that point
its name was dropped.