Monthly Archives: May 2008

Our Little Pianist

Growing Pains, Life In Japan,

It has been a while since I last posted a video of Aya playing the piano. She is now in Primary 4, thankfully. Just six more months to go before she moves on to the Junior course. She has improved a lot since last year. She still enjoys playing and learning how to play the piano. What is more important for me at this stage is that she is having fun while learning, and appreciating music at such a young age. Well, I guess in a way I’m learning, too, because there is no one else in the house who can supervise her. But the truth is that it’s not easy for me, because I don’t really play the piano (just trying hard!). In a way I’m being forced to learn with her. Yan kasi. 🙂

Anyway, I’ve uploaded a couple of videos to YouTube. The first video is where she played “Kawaii Hanataba.” (Go figure what it means in Japanese…kawaii is cute, and hanataba means…uh, I dunno.) The second video is where she played three short songs which she learned in Primary 3: Aoi tori, Ohayou, Koguma no Ma-chi, and Rondon Bashi (London Bridge).

Do forgive the mistakes. After all, perfection is not achieved overnight. 🙂

Singkil, the FAST Way

Life In Japan,

I just want to share the photos and video taken during the Tsukuba Festival held last May 10-11, 2008. Take note, the dance performers are students and researchers here in Tsukuba, and they have no professional training whatsoever in folk dancing. But every year, members of the Association of Filipino Scholars in Tsukuba (FAST) never fail to deliver dance numbers that always delights the audience. They all lend their time and talent in order to make sure that Filipinos will be visible in the festival. Their participation in the festival is a way to share the rich and unique culture of our country to the international community here in Tsukuba. (And contrary to what you may probably think, they don’t receive any kind of remuneration for their performance in the program!)

This year, FAST presented Singkil, another famous folk dance in the Philippines which employs bamboos. As far as I know, the only other time Singkil was performed by FAST was in 2002. Compared to the Tinikling, Singkil is much more elaborate, and involves more performers. And yes, more bamboos.

I’m not good in dancing, and I never perform in these FAST presentations at the Tsukuba Festival. But I do get tapped for emceeing once in a while (like once every three years har har har). I’m not that good in Japanese, and for sure I read and pronounce some of the words in the wrong way…but it seems that I am the only one gutsy enough to do it. You’ll find me as one of the emcees in the video, where I gave the Japanese introduction of Singkil and the song Ako ay Pilipino. 🙂

Without further ado, here’s the performance of the FAST members in the recently held Tsukuba Festival 2008. Kudos to everyone! Yoku gambarimashita ne! 🙂

For photos, check out the FAST website at http://fast.bagarinao.com

Bitter Lessons

On The Serious Side

This week has been most peculiar. How could I describe it? Weird, strange, unusual, depressing, shocking. I’m still reeling from the unexpected turn of events.

I lost a friend. This song has been playing in my head for the past few days, and deep in my heart I wished that I knew how to save a life. If only I knew…

Those Nasty Spam* Callers

Life In Japan

Almost nobody we know calls us on our landline phone nowadays. It’s the cellphones, sweetheart. And with the free unlimited calls available to Softbank’s White Plan subscribers, it’s much economical to call cellphones than landlines nowadays. Unless of course you’re calling to another NTT line.

However, if the phone rings, 90% of the time it would be one of those persistent callers from our dear motherland who are forever hawking their products, or trying to sweet-talk us into subscribing to Filipino channels on cable TV.

Sometimes they would speak in Japanese, asking if there were any Firipin-jins at home. When I’m in a playful mood, I’d go along and speak to them as if I were Japanese, not Filipino. It amused me to no end to hear the caller struggle in Japanese, not knowing that they were actually talking to a kababayan.

*Spam = unsolicited email. In the same spirit, I now refer to telemarketers as spam callers.

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