I‘m a quarter of the way through the First Act of my new series, which is set in a fantasy world inspired by colonial Philippines. (Don’t worry, Bitch Queen 3 is already finished, but I have to do something while I wait for edits).
One of the most unpleasant, but necessary things I’ve had to do while developing this particular nation is the research. I don’t mean a five-minute browsing session on Wikipedia. I’m talking about years and years of combing through old books and articles written by fellow Filipinos, some of which I’d brought over from my last trip to the Philippines. It’s unpleasant because you inevitably come across passages about how your people was perceived in the past, and how that shaped your cultural identity, and how, if you’re the sort of person who can see connections everywhere, that resulted in the challenges and difficulties your people face every day.
Generally, Filipinos don’t talk about these issues much. We know how to fit in. We are really good at fitting in. Our culture demands that we know pakikisama–with being considerate with the crowd, and setting personal issues aside for the good of all. It is ingrained in many Filipinos. “What’s there to talk about? What racism? You can do whatever you want, even when it hurts.”
So I’m often at odds with how to express what I feel over so many of these things, and as to be expected, I stay quiet. I was taught to stay quiet. But of course there is a reason why my name comes hand-in-hand with groaning from my elders, because I’m not very good at staying quiet for long: I let it bleed out in my writing instead.
It’s hard when there’s so many nuances. It’s hard when it’s not black and white. I have more questions than answers. Like how people say we’ve made progress, but you see friends making the same mistakes, “allies” making a big pretense while cloaked in a blanket of caring and understanding. Do you take what you can, so you don’t confront the harmful subtleties, you suck it up and find the good in the bad? At least they’re interested. At least they’ll share your messages, your struggles, even if so many will never understand it. The little things that just sneak up on you, like how a discussion about dogs and mentioning you’re from the Philippines will inevitably result in someone asking why your people eat dog and you having to clarify that no, it’s not you, it’s certain tribes, but no, it doesn’t mean they’ll go around eating your friends and why are we even having this conversation…?
Tattoos were part of our cultural heritage, but I grew up being told getting a tattoo meant going to hell.
Don’t even get me started on the circumcision. The look on people’s faces whenever someone brings this up in a gathering, like how many Filipinos consider this an important rite of passage to manhood freely undertaken by boys when they’re of age (well, voluntary if you’re willing to discount the peer pressure). But there is still that cringe, and now you’re wondering if YOU’RE the one damaged because you’ve never seen the problem in it before.
And then you see literature from the past, all that text damning your people as savages, and how you realize it’s an old wound, this being told your ways aren’t the world’s ways. You can’t undo that in a day, or a year. Not in generations. It’s not romantic to feel like people think you’re a savage or that you’re uncivilized, that you’re ignorant, that you don’t matter. So now even when people know better, now that they’re interested, now that they’re willing to listen, you’re left wondering how to say what you need to say. Wondering if they’ll understand. More often than not, you just end up withdrawing because you don’t want to offend.
Do you know why “own voices” matter, why we can’t just dismiss something as a fantasy world and why it’s so important to consider the source? It’s not about being the PC police and telling people what they can or can’t write about. But it’s a bit like how men can write well-written women, but we shouldn’t ignore the women when we’re looking for literature about women’s experiences. It’s all about those subtleties, those nuances. The range, as I’ve heard some people explain it.
Because it’s very hard for someone who has not experienced a thing to try to paint the complexity of living the thing on a day-to-day basis. Because if this convoluted rambling is any indication, it’s hard enough for people who DO live it to explain themselves. And we don’t have the freedom to ignore the repercussions of inauthenticity, of falsities. So how people of colour navigate a multi-cultural world, for example. How we have to balance everything we say with the “norm,” even if our cultural norm is different. How hurtful it is to hear someone misrepresent your race, your religion (or the religion and beliefs of those you care about), but you have to temper your outrage with the reality that you could easily be dismissed as another angry minority. How someone from a colonized nation will now view their everyday–especially if say, they’re living in that colonizer’s world. Limited choices, all of which are often equally bad–will speaking up about something put a target on your back? Is staying quiet enabling? How if you’re not born to that Western self/ego/ideals are the most important thing in the world, there’s so much you’re fighting. Even now, I’m considering deleting this whole thing.
I suppose this is why I write–to find clarity, however fleeting. Books can’t salve the pain, but between page one and The End, we can pretend they do.
