Wander Girl

by Tweet Sering

  If this were a scene in Clueless, this would be the part where Alicia Silverstone abruptly stops by the circular driveway fountain, turns towards the camera and exclaims in surprise and wonderment: “Oh my God! I love Josh!” And the music soars and the water fountain behind her bursts into technicolor.

  Oh my God! I thought. I think I now know what I want to do!

  My heart was beating so wildly, like I was being chased down a narrow alley by a mob of angry bulls (not that I had been to Pamplona, but how else would those crazy people feel during their festival’s strange custom?). Although I wanted to buy the book right then and there, I couldn’t (Third World nga, eh!). I would have to wait for sweldo day and even then, would have to scrimp on other expenses like lunch (baon action!), have only two beers at Gweilos, and maybe skip a few movies, but it was worth it. For the first time in my life, I was beginning to feel I wasn’t all that lost.

  Here was my grand plan: using my travel benefits at the airline, I would go to equally Third World places where products and services were still relatively cheap. Then, I would go around, sample their restaurants and other entertainment areas, be on the lookout for peculiarities that might be interesting to Filipinas like myself, stay at cheap but clean lodging areas, and know where all the cheap shopping places were.

  I knew, from my own sisters, mom, and girlfriends that Filipinas are mad about shopping. But with the advent of the ukay-ukay phenomenon, they have also become shrewd and wouldn’t even think of buying Prada or Gucci or Calvin Klein at their original prices. Pagtatawanan ka lang. “Tanga!” they’d say. I got my original Earl Jeans low-risers for 60 pesos at Anonas because I was, you know, feeling extravagant.

  After six months of writing sales letters, preparing the airline’s rate sheet, identifying our sales targets and arranging parties to introduce our new products to travel agents, I finally earned permanent-employee status. I had been such a hard worker—often volunteering to do extra work that sometimes wasn’t even part of my mandate—that when I asked to avail of both my free travel benefit and leave credits, Bea and Millet just didn’t have the heart to say no. And carrying my own copy of Lonely Planet’s Guide to South East Asia on a Shoestring, I set off for Vietnam.

  Helen came along on that first trip for my project. She needed to get away from her paramour for a while, as she was getting tired of “this shit.” (Lulu would have come, too, had she not been coerced by her mom to accompany her to Lourdes, France, instead. Her brother had quit law school—“On his fourth year, the moron!”—had sold the Land Cruiser, and they suspected he had gone into drugs with some law school classmates. Tito Carlos was running for re-election— for congressman, at that point—and their camp was afraid his son’s drug issue might be brought up against him during the campaign. Only the intercession of the miraculous Lady of Lourdes could save her brother now, Tita Nita said. And Lulu had to come along, he was her brother, after all; plus, she was named after the Virgin—“As if that would earn points for her cause! He’s killing me! That goddamn asshole is killing me!”)

  Vietnam, I was astounded to discover, is a beautiful country. No wonder, of all the countries in Southeast Asia, it was the one place the French chose to colonize—a fact that earned it even more points from me. (Though I had long gotten over Matthieu, convinced I had done the right thing, I would forever think very well of the French; in that sense, Matthieu, as well as Philippe, had been a great ambassador of his country.)

  The landscape of Vietnam is a lot like the Philippines with its beautiful sand beaches and lush forests. But what really got me was the warm, deferential, and kind Vietnamese people—I fell totally in love with them. What was it, I wondered, that made them this way, despite the horror they’ve had to endure through years of war? What was it in their character that made them so trusting still—after all they’ve seen—that it sometimes bordered on the naive?

  Helen and I went around Ho Chi Minh, took the train up to Danang (and a 30-minute cab ride from there to graceful, historic Hoi An, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site), another train ride up to Hanoi, then flew to Bangkok and back to Manila.

  We were both aware that this trip, unlike others we had taken, either together or separately, was different. We didn’t keep to a set itinerary handed to us, and were, instead, discovering things on our own. We were more open to surprises now. We each even had flings with other travelers—hers a Belgian, mine (surprise!) a Frenchman.

  I returned home with three notebooks full of things I had seen and experienced, and for two years thereafter, I occupied myself with working at the airline, traveling all over Cambodia, then up and down Thailand, hopping on boats, buses, tuk-tuks, eating their cuisine, shopping for their wares and noting all of this down in many more notebooks. Since travel, for me, wasn’t complete without the obligatory fling that made a trip all the more exciting, I engaged in several romances that I limited to all-out kissing (Mahirap nang magbaon ng sakit) with a half-Kiwi-half-Croat, a Canadian, an Australian...

  And just when I was beginning to feel that my wanderlust was turning me into a wander slut, I met Chris. Kind, funny, non-smoker, open-minded, passionate about his work and, being British, naturally thought his countrymen to be the world’s best lyricists.

  British Colonialism

  It happened in Manila. One Friday at Gweilos, Stephen, my senior account manager friend, brought along his new expat clients. They were British and Swedish, both male; one was 32, the other 34.

  “Help me entertain them, okay?” he whispered to the group in general as the two men came up behind him.

  Introductions were made; the chestnut-haired, brown-eyed, athletic-looking Brit was named Chris and the dark-brown-curly-haired, aqua-eyed, lanky Swede, Jakob.

  By then I was 26 years old, working on the final stretch of my guidebook to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It still had no name, no publisher, no editor. It had nothing going for it but my obsession. I would spend all my extra time ironing out the kinks, e-mailing the many contacts I had made there for updates, and thinking of a friggin’ name for it. My one night a week with my friends was just about the only break I had from work and the only thing keeping me from growing wild-eyed with my obsession.

  “Nice place,” Chris said, taking the seat beside me. “I feel like I’m back home,” he continued, regarding the music. “During the 80s.”

  I liked this Chris character. He seemed earnest and accessible, especially with those nice crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled, which he did often. And don’t even get me started on his intelligent-sounding British accent.

  I had drifted off to thinking about the introduction to my guidebook. How would I address the Filipina traveler so that from the very start, she knows the book was especially made for her? What was something very Filipina? Beating around the bush? Non-confrontational, like me? The concept of tingi? “Saving” our virginity for marriage—meron pa ba nun? OA magsimba, like my mom? Very Catholic?

  “Chris,” I said suddenly. “Is that short for Christian or Christopher?”

  “Christopher.” He smiled.

  “Do you know that Saint Christopher is the patron saint of travelers?” As I asked this, it clicked in my head: I can start my intro with that trivia! This information I knew from my mom. She had an image of Saint Christopher above the entrance to the travel agency.

  “Really? That’s interesting,” Chris said, sounding like he meant it. “Although I wouldn’t know. I’m not Christian.”

  “You already told me that,” I said.

  “No, I meant—”

  I laughed.

  He laughed, too. “Should’ve seen that coming,” he said.

  “So, what are you?” I asked, taking a sip of my beer.

  “Agnostic,” he said. “Leaning towards Buddhism. Studying it, actually.” He regarded me. “Devout Catholic?”

  “Catholic.” I smiled.

  A real agnostic, I thought. I had never met one before. Interesting.

&
nbsp; Jakob, I noticed, was in the able hands of Virnice, Felice, Lee, and Bunny. They had engaged him in a conversation that didn’t involve our guy friends. Heartthrob!

  An Elvis Costello song came on—“Alison.” Chris sang along softly, “...and with the way you look I understand that you are not impressed...”

  “Please don’t,” I said, poker-faced.

  He stopped, checked my expression for seriousness.

  “Please don’t ruin Elvis for me,” I said with a smile.

  He laughed. “You a fan?”

  I nodded.

  “I watched him in concert once,” he said, a deep dimple showing on his left cheek.

  “Really?” I asked, wide-eyed.

  “I thought that’d impress you.” The corner crinkles, again.

  Impressed to my toes, yah! “Where? London?”

  “New York. At the Beacon Theatre. It was amazing. It was just him and his pianist.”

  The Beacon Theatre, he said, was known for its great acoustics, and as a tradition, all musicians who performed there would sing their last song a capella.

  “That man’s voice was just so amazing you wouldn’t believe it. I didn’t know if it was the Beacon or just him.”

  The rest of the Gweilos group basically disappeared into the background after that. Chris was the most fascinating person I had met in a long time. His dad was Afrikaner and his mom was English, so he spent his childhood shuttling between Cape Town and Manchester. He went to university in London, took up marketing, and has worked all over Asia—India, Singapore, Malaysia.

  “In fact, I feel more Asian than English,” he said. “Whenever I’m in England, I feel like a foreigner. A lot of things over there don’t make sense to me anymore.”

  At his pressing, I told him about my work—that I’ve always been in the travel industry—my family, my mom’s travel agency, my dad’s jazz club (“He has got to be the coolest dad of anyone I’ve ever known! Where is this jazz club of his? I have to meet him—it gives me hope that it’s not all downhill from here.”). I even found myself telling him about my project.

  “A guidebook especially made for Filipino women,” he repeated, absorbing this. Then: “That’s wonderful! How did you conduct the market research?”

  The what? Oh my God!

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “It wasn’t meant to alarm you or anything. It’s just that I handle a shampoo brand, you know, and it’s my job to know whom we’re selling our shampoos to. And they’re mostly women. I was just wondering if maybe we were talking to the same people. Are these women from the A, B, or C class?”

  Holy shit! I hadn’t even thought of that! And I thought I was having a difficult time already! Pa no pa tong lecheng market research na to?

  He must have noticed my distress.

  “It only sounds fancy, Hilda,” he said reassuringly, and I liked the way the sound of my name rolled in his tongue. “It’s really just about knowing what they’re like and what they want.” When my expression didn’t change, he said, “Tell you what, our advertising agency does all these comprehensive research on Filipino women from all social classes because our company basically has a brand targeted for each class, as well as age groups. The research material is massive and really good stuff. I could forward them to you. Just tell me what you need.”

  I was too dumbfounded, I didn’t know what to say.

  “I think what you’ve got there,” he continued, “is really special. I’ve never heard anything like that before.”

  Then he smiled that crinkly-eyed smile of his, and I knew, as surely as my undies were sexy—that lesson stuck like flypaper—that I was gone. I was so gone.

  “So are you taking your boyfriend?” Hannah asked. “Can we finally meet him?”

  “He’s so not my boyfriend, Nana,” I said.

  Chris and I had been going out for almost two months now, had even kissed, made out... but I didn’t know what to call him. He was the foreigner I’d gone out with the longest so I didn’t know what to expect when it got to this point, the point when my family was demanding to be introduced. But what would Chris think? What if we were just casually dating? It was at times like these that I appreciated the Pinoy guy’s formality when it came to relationships. They followed a linear path from friend to suitor to boyfriend to husband. Pinoy guys were as clear as mineral water to the extent that they’d even ask such an annoying question as: “Can I court you?” What were you supposed to say to that?

  Now Hannah’s batch exhibit was coming up—a big deal to the family since not only was she graduating cum laude, her work was also awarded Best Thesis.

  “Yeah,” Helen chimed in. “Boyfriend, non-boyfriend boyfriend, whatever. Just take him along.”

  So when he called that day to ask what my plans were Thursday, I said I was going to my sister’s group exhibit at Megamall, a particularly important event I couldn’t afford to miss.

  “Wow!” he said, clearly impressed. “This is Hannah, right? The 20-year-old?”

  I said, yeah, that’s her, alright.

  “Do you mind if I tag along?” he asked. “I’ve been dying to meet your amazing family.”

  Problem solved!

  The morning of Hannah’s exhibit, as all mornings since Chris and I started dating, I spent a full hour stressing over what to wear. Going out with a foreigner in this country wasn’t easy, I realized. With Matthieu, I was more relaxed and carefree about what people thought of us, maybe because I knew he wasn’t going to stick around the area for very long. But with Chris—and with my skin color—I was conscious of the many loaded looks thrown our way.

  To the onlookers, I probably looked like one of those women who hung out with a drink (complete with cocktail umbrella) and danced seductively by the bar in Cafe Havana, waiting to lock eyes with a white guy. So I studied how these women looked and dressed and made a conscious effort to avoid clothing, accessories, and behavior that might associate me with them. That meant steering clear of big hair, a lot of make-up, big hoop earrings, nag-damit-ka-pa tops, very tight jeans, heels, and little bags.

  Thus, the dark-rimmed glasses (with no grade), the high ponytail, the tiny pearl earrings (or no earrings at all), the tank top with a funky skirt (or white t-shirt and low-riders) and thong slippers—the lightweight kind you buy very cheap in Bangkok. The look was: I’m pretty, funky, brainy, and so not trying.

  “Hilda, let’s go!” My mom banged on my door. “Kanina ka pa!”

  This is such a hassle, I thought, as I stared at my reflection in the mirror a last time. Such a hassle.

  Just as I predicted, Chris won over my family the instant he opened his mouth. He was right about feeling more Asian—he knew to ask about the traffic coming over (a sure conversation opener since we never seem to tire complaining about the awful traffic situation even though we cannot remember a time when this wasn’t a problem). He asked my mom about the state of the local travel industry; told my dad how he’s always wanted to go to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras and, of course, the jazz; asked Helen how it was being one of the few Filipinas he knew living on her own; and finally, asked Hannah what inspired her to make her thesis painting.

  “My faith,” Hannah said simply.

  Later, when Chris was going around the exhibit hall, inspecting the other students’ work, Hannah walked over and stood beside me in front of her painting.

  “Somebody just racked up major ganda points with Mom,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  I cocked my head towards the white painting on the wall.

  Hannah followed my gaze. Then she turned her gaze back to me.

  “You think I did this for Mom?” she asked, a deep line forming between her perfectly shaped eyebrows.

  Well, didn’t she? I mean, The Last Supper. Jesus Christ, I stammered silently. I had been rendered mute by her look.

  “I happen to believe this,” she said in a hurt voice, as if I had just insulted her. “Don’t you?”

&
nbsp; “Nana...” I started. But my sister and her artistic temperament had excused themselves, saying, “I see my teacher. I’ll go say hello.”

  I was left to stand there with my cocktail glass, in front of her painting, her batch’s best thesis. It was Da Vinci’s most famous painting, The Last Supper, rendered in white paint against white paint.

  Absence is presence, Hannah had said. From the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. “White as a pigment is considered a non-color,” she had told our group earlier in the evening when my mom pressed her for her thesis statement. “So when you see white, the perception is that you see nothing, because it is an absence of color. But that’s just your perception. In the same manner that we, using only our senses—sight, touch, smell, hearing—don’t perceive Jesus, but that doesn’t mean He’s not there.”

  She pointed to the painting. “Look, using only white paint—supposedly a non-color—we see The Last Supper.” She paused. “But if you notice, it’s the texture of the painting that allows us to see the images in white. White needs the aid of texture to be appreciated. Jesus cannot work alone; He needs our faith for Him to be real in our lives.”

  Since that incident, I felt Hannah’s judgment of me. In some strange way, I felt I had failed to live up to some expectation of hers, like I had lost whatever credibility I had as an Ate. It was as if she had been patient with me for the longest time and that innocent comment I had about her precious Last Supper was the last straw.

  She even stopped asking me for advice. And at one point, when I had learned she was taking up photography and I had said, “O, photography naman ngayon? What ba talaga do you want to do?” Hannah had given me the same look she had given me at her exhibit.

  “I’m not the one who’s lost, Ate,” she had said quietly.

  The first time I slept with Chris, we stayed up all night eating chips with sour cream dip, laughing, and then waiting for the sunrise in front of his living room’s large glass window. He lived in a swanky Makati address (“Very expat,” I teased as he gave me a short tour of his apartment) that I found a million and one reasons not to visit on other occasions because I knew it would only mean one thing. Not that I didn’t want to sleep with him the first time we had dinner. It was just that I wasn’t sure what I was expected to do after. I mean, do I stay the night? Then do I go straight to work the next day or do I go home and make up some excuse to my mom? I was 26, and I was really getting tired of acting like a teenager around her. I was sick of explaining to her where I had been, where I was going and with whom, and feeding her illusion that I was a vestal virgin.