vamos a Ilocoslovakia

Ilocos was fabulous... except for the food. I thought that my northern tongue would insulate me from Ilocano cuisine but hell, I was mistaken.

We went first to the famous old city of Vigan where we had breakfast. Initially we were supposed to have our morning meal at the Governor's house aptly called Baluarte. Instead we were forced to eat the usual morning dish from Jollibee. Afterwards we proceeded to Paoay Ilocos Norte where we relished every enchanted moment within the premises of the famous Paoay Church. I felt as if I was transported to the ancient city of Angkor.

Malacañang of the North and its famous Paoay Lake view was fun. We had a blast posing for our telenovela pictures. Im going to post the pictures as soon as i get the digital copies.

Busy having fun / Having fun while busy

Finally, I have time for myself. Though I still have a meter-thick worth of readings that I've stockpiled for myself during the "break" from school (about 3 weeks).

We went to Batangas last weekend to celebrate someone's birthday. It's actually my 2nd degree cousin's birthday. Tanauan was not as spectacular as I expected it to be. I was thinking that maybe, there have been a lot of changes since the last time that I went there... about 7 or 8 years ago when the STAR tollway was still under construction.


Afterwards, we went to San Juan, Batangas. A resort called "Laiya Coco Grove."



Looks can be deceiving... Honestly, I did not like the place, but a respite from Manila would be good. I brought along a bag full of readings, much to the dismay of my aunts who kept nudging me to drop the papers. I read through Cox, through Nathalie Kiargianni, through Paul Cammack and through Kaldor. All in all, they helped me shape what I'm currently doing. Thesis proposal... Though I dont think 2 days would be sufficient to construct an "acceptable" one. I've rummaged through Fr. Jojo's mail and read through Jac's paper... its... not so good. Even the bibliography... I dunno, its usually a practice of mine to look at the bibliographic sources, so as to understand where the fuck the words or phrases are coming from. From what I saw, I deleted the file from my computer.

I have 2 and a half more papers to do tonight and tomorrow. I need to finish by then so that I can go to Ilocos by Thursday night. Finally, I will get to see Laoag. I've seen Vigan. I've even gone as far as Aparri, but not Laoag. Surely the city will offer its zesty taste as a respite from my boring routinary metropolitan life.

BLOG UPDATE:
yes, this is still me. moi. I just swapped the old site with this "academic journal-blog" that we had for Dr. Gealogo. I figured, why create a new one? just swap the site addresses. Anyway, I like this template. My old entries are still archived of course...

Marginal Notes/De muchas cosas en el mundo

Note to dawasari:
Im still narrating... cant structure. sorry. :)

Warrior Monks and "Holey Wars"

To segue a bit, Mavic and I find it a bit disturbing that journalists would misrepresent certain realities, not even considering the ethical or moral implications of the words that they choose. This purposive ambivalence which is manifested by the insensitive words can surely precipitate conflicts.

Representations and meanings must be handled with care especiall if you are to disseminate these informations for mass consumption. Imagine, a pacific monk engaging in a holy war? Would it be appropriate to label it as such? Maybe so, however the context that other people may take it may not take it as such. Abstractions such as these may lead to a misinterpretation of terrorism and an allusion to the war on terror. This is in itself problematic. No wonder journalists are killed all over the Philippines

Slavery and the appropriation of labour for the reproduction of [capital/religion]?

It would seem so; as Mavic has mentioned that one of the "reasons" for the "failures" of a system of "capital" to emerge in Burma was probably linked to the appropriation of labor for religious purposes (i.e. temple building). It is quite interesting really, but it would be careless to assume that all the forms of slavery in Burma was necessitated by this temple-building spree of the king... rather, it is also important to note the possibility that a "pre-capitalist" society was emerging where the metropoles would appropriate the surplus mode of production from the hinterland for the benefit of the metropoles.

I at least attempted to raise the issue that religion must not be seen as such at all. Such sweeping generalisations against religion would not hold if one would look at how Max Weber insisted that religion had played a role in the hastening of the development of capitalism although he also argues otherwise. It is interesting to cite her James Warren's work on the Sulu Zone, who employs Immanuel Wallerstein's World Systems Theory in attempting to explicate the motivating factors for the development of "piracy" and the slave trade.

Comparing the Philippines and Burma

It is not surprising that Southeast Asian Studies would tend to be more comparative than vertical in orientation. This serves the purpose of perpetuating the field of study. The more we accentuate the similarities of the people of Southeast Asia, the more profitable it is for Southeast Asianists.

Ko Ko Thett's lecture attempted a comparison of the Philippines and Burma, though it was more or less a highlighting of the similarities. Although one must acknowledge the baggages of earlier disciplines in highlighting the differences between the peoples of Southeast Asia, one must also bear in mind the ideational forces at work here. It sort of reifies the field of Southeast Asian Studies.

Ideological Baggages in the TOTALISING discipline of History

I think it was of respect that nobody really raised or even hinted the noticable, or shall I say, the vividly displayed "socialist baggage" that Dr. Truong carried around. One cannot really blame her, even if she was educated in Toronto, she still spent most of her life being bended into the constructed truths and realities of Vietnamese society.

Nevertheless, her discussion illustrates, or paints a caricature of the status of intellectual scholarship in her country. I do not intend to glorify other countries by training my guns on vietnam's scholarship rather, I shall merely note the prevailing winds of academic discourses of her country, largely from where she's speaking, what she says, how she says it and why she says them.

The modernist project certainly has a strong grip (still) of their brood of intellectuals as she frequently deploys terminologies such as "scientific," "objective," and many others. This baggage is not really exclusive to socialist regimes such as hers but rather the regime merely accentuates the perceived "power" of "objective science" especially within the context of a country such as Vietnam. To be safe, many schools in Southeast Asia still suffer from this "time-space-warp" wherein the educators still think that they're in ca. 1970 (such as UST, some colleges in UP [especially UPSE, CSSP-PolSci-to some extent-especially Alex Magno], some departments in the Ateneo [I'm not telling!]).

Talk of development from her stand point especially post-"renovation" declaration is most relevant, because it sees the social sciences as an avenue for facilitating these "controlled changes" (read: state-controlled). Here in the Philippines, sociology and other disciplines have been bannered as the panacea to our social ills, that a sociological (hence, scientific) study of our social ills would lead to the development of solutions in the form of policy recommendations. But of course, Vietnamese people do not enjoy the "democratic space" that we Filipinos (though ours is constantly contested by right-wing and extremist-left-wing groups [BAYAD MUNA]) take for granted. It is therefore not surprising that the regime that viewed sociology, political science et al as bourgeois disciplines has implimented its genesis through their intellectual arm, the Viet National University. Such portrayal of the social sciences is dangerous as it is treads the path wherein you may slip into the positivist trap that has decapitated many in the past.

N.B. Rc sat with us in this class (and is probably reading this entry). I shall come out of my closet - I am falling in love with SEA studies. :)

The Konrad A. Press Corps

They were lined up as if they were in a live telecast in Malacañang Palace.
I don't mind though. The Konrad A. Journ graduate students were there deploying their arsenal of questions to Professor Truong and Professor Truong was answering them in a very P.C. manner.

En Otras Noticias:

Dr. Truong posited a point by a western scholar, K. Taylor, who said that:

"The birth of Viet Nam was the birth of a spirit of resistance to the universal claims of Chinese Power."

"...a new consciousnesss within the East Asian cultural world that had its roots outside that world. ...[The Vietnamese] had learned to articulate their non-Chinese identity in terms of China's cultural heritage."

Now, Mavic and I found this very problematic which led me to speculate that home scholars, as Winichakul calls them, would not agree to this assertion. Mavic pointed out that perhaps Vietnamese culture is a continuation of Chinese culture from where they have artificially enforced a border. I would surmise that the development of a spatially created identity through its distal relationship with Peking was realised perhaps over a long time and was asserted finally when Peking's hold over the Chinese province became weak. I posited this point to Dr. G, to which he agreed.

Such cultural (arrogance), if we may call it that, has its epistemology rooted in the nationalist constructs of modernity.

The Totalising Discipline of History

RC sat with us today. We had for the very first time Dr. Truong Chi from Vietnam. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. The class was not as zesty as those with Mala, however I find the "spice" of the lecture quite subtle and it hits you well where you don't expect it.

History, apparently is a dominant field in Vietnam. The term that Dr. Truong used was "totalising" where history would 'encroach' into the intellectual provinces of other specialised disciplines such as anthropology or sociology. Ethnology, apparently, shares the limelight along with history... It has a special place in the hearts of the scholars of Vietnam.

Now, what role does history play in a "socialist" society/country such as Vietnam? Marxism would see social change in the context of historical materialism... that history shows a narration of struggles between different classes of society. In light of the posited points by Dr. Truong, history apparently has been used to shift its focus to the masses/peasants... which they claim, is the dominant discourse of Vietnamese struggle. It pans the camera away from the courts of power, the temples of old and analyses under a microscope the struggles of peasants against an oppresive elite.

History as a totalising discipline? puede.