From Boracay to Greece: Vacations and Representations

(No, this is not Malu Fernandez speaking)

This December, my PhD supervisor Mirca Madianou visits the Philippines for vacation and fieldwork. She plans to spend the Christmas holidays with her baby Alex in a nice beach resort before setting off to do her interviews of migrants' left-behind families from January to February. (Of course, I've booked her to do a MediaTalk already. Hehe.)

So in our last meeting, I had the surreal experience of acting like a Wow Philippines travel agent and recommending beach resorts for her to check out. Her requirements were: 1) she wants to spend one week in a nice, secluded resort, and 2) she wants to spend the second week in a place where she can do more stuff and meet "locals" as opposed to foreign tourists.

It seemed easy enough, but then once she pulled out the map of the Philippines and started asking question after question, I felt nervous and uneasy, as if I could not really "speak for" my country. Some of my blunders:
1) It took me a tad too long to find Davao on the map when I was talking about Pearl Farm. (She's still wary of going to Mindanao though, especially because of the baby)
2) She was asking about what to see and do in Bohol and Mindoro, and I could only say that I had never been to either but I did know that the chocolate hills are in Bohol.
3) Anxious about the advisory that there's malaria in Palawan, which ruled out her top choice El Nido, Mirca asked for another recommendation for the nice, secluded resort. And then I remembered reading a travel article about Amanpulo. She proceeded to ask, "So where's that in the map?" And again, yikes, it took too long to spot Amanpulo, which apparently is in a group of islands near Puerto Princesa.
4) She started asking about Boracay. And I have to pretend that I had been there, but--GASP--I've actually never, ever been. Shock. I recommended that she stay in my friend's hotel, but remained vague yet specific at the same time about what she should expect in Boracay. "If El Nido is like Santorini, then Boracay is more like Mykonos," this faker said.

I dunno. With Mirca, I'm quite comfortable talking about media theory and even empirical studies that deal with India, UK, even Greece. But when it comes to Philippine issues and current events, I feel more tense and confused. I remember the time when she asked me whether I thought Manila can be deemed multicultural or even cosmopolitan. And of course I gave two sides of the story (based on academic literature, of course), but I never felt like I answered her question sufficiently.

Anyways, the enjoyable part of our last meeting was when I recounted to her my Greece experiences. Mirca had listed some must-sees and must-avoids for me, as did my other Greek friends. And of course I wanted to give her my own cursory anthropological reading of Greek people and their/her culture.
1) I told her that, just as she had recommended, I went to Gazi, the site of her fieldwork.

But I told her that the place was pretty lifeless when we got there after lunch. And then I recounted how I was so baffled that I checked my guidebook later, and I was surprised to find out that Gazi has been called "Gay-zi" by locals and is a place that should be visited at night. Mirca apologized afterwards for not spelling it out clearly to me that it's a clubbing place and not a sightseeing place. It's just cute that she was prolly hesitant to be upfront and tell me to go to the Greek gay village. But we did see some cuties anyway so no problem. See the "boyS-in-the-background stealth foTOWgraphy" (Paul-Plazo 2008):

2) I also told her that a friend had recommended that Nenita and I go to the shopping district Kolonaki and have coffee at Dacapo, but our many attempts were foiled. There were simply too many people people-watching. Dakapo (think Serendra) is so interesting in that the people are all facing the street and eyeing everyone as they walk by. Nenita and I tried prolly five times to find a table but were unlucky every time. And when we went to another cafe, we were escorted to a crappy table where we couldn't do our own people-watching. And I told Mirca it's likely because I was wearing shorts and we weren't dressed like flashy Greeks. To this, Mirca said, "Oh gosh. I hate Dacapo. It's like, how do you say it... new money." See? This is why Mirca and I so get along.

3) And finally, I told her that I thought that I had gained more insight as to her motivations behind doing her own PhD project Mediating the Nation. In her PhD, she examined Greeks and Turkish speakers in Greece and how they talked about "us" and "them" in relation to news consumption. I narrated how I spoke to a few locals and gathered that some Greeks tend to be quite wary of migrants, particularly non-Greek Orthodox (i.e., Muslim) migrants. This is especially interesting given that one other Greek that I spoke to during my travel said that their country's economic boom in the 70s/80s was a result of Greeks in the diaspora sending remittances back to the homeland. You'd think then that they'd be more sympathetic to migrants. Mirca did agree somewhat that this resurgence of Greek pride and identity in very essentialist terms made her take notice and examine nationalism in relation to the media.

Anyways... are you comfortable representing others more than representing yourself, or the collectives that you belong to? Is there truth to the idea that Filipinos know more about other countries than their own? How do tourist spots represent and misrepresent a country? And where do you recommend Mirca to go to for her holiday? What tourist place or splace represents the Philippines favorably? Which place or splace practices the virtue of infinite hospitality (and get me brownie points)?

Aprez vous!

Save Media Studies, Sign Up for MAG!

It's that time of the year again! Please spread the gospel of Media and Globalization to all your Ateneo friends! Open to all majors. Wednesdays 130-430PM!

“The anthropologist arrives in the city on foot, the sociologist by car and via the main highway, the communications specialist by plane” (Garcia Canclini, 1995).

Media studies scholars have been criticized in the past for being elitist, detached, even corrupt for celebrating American (global?) popular culture. The course Media & Globalization is a critical intervention in academic discourse by highlighting the social, political, cultural, and ultimately moral relevance of understanding the media’s role in processes of globalization. According to bestsellers, communication technologies are key to the “death of distance” and the “flattening” of the world. But this course stresses that the media are enabling and disabling, they include and exclude; the mediated “global village” is not open to all. Media & Globalization is then global in scope (we study CNN news, American Idol, Benetton print ads, Korean soaps) yet simultaneously local, if not always-already personal (we ask ourselves, “How do I contact my relatives abroad? How did I react to the tsunami disaster? When do I feel Othered?”). The aim is to enable students to critically evaluate the media’s capacity to make visible distant others as well as recognize their own duty to be responsible consumers and producers in today’s world.

This elective, on its second year, emphasizes both theoretical and creative work, and welcomes students from all tracks/courses, especially those who are active media users/pop culture fans. Exciting plans for MAG 2.0 include a visit to GMA Network, dialogue with renowned journalists and advertisers, a student-run version of MediaTalk@admu, and a guest lecture from a Pakistani journalist. The course is designed and taught by Jonathan C. Ong, who will arrive from Cambridge by plane.

Springtime FoTOWgraphy Part 3

Captions c/o Nenita, future host of her much-awaited blog site.

Me in my Anabelle Rama impersonation: "Jhhon!

Benta na for 10M pounds!"


Me doing my Kristy Lee Cook wide-stance; all that's missing is me singing "God Bless England"

Can he be in any more gay?!?

To Mommy, this is what Jon does on his free time to pay for credit card bills from Abercrombie & Fitch. Did ya'll recognize him?

This is me being Moses and my version of the Red Sea.


This is me being pissed off at how warm London is. Sayang ang jack-ay!

Jon in his little red riding hood. How can British cuties resist?

Powerlunching in Gordon Ramsay's at Claridge's. Wait. Bakit blurred ang picture? Di kasi marunong kumuha the Chinese waiter. Oops! Sa Chinatown pala.

More to follow!

Springtime FoTOWgraphy Part 2

Because it's impossible to take a bad picture.

Springtime FoTOWgraphy Part 1

With my last requirement for the year all done, I'm free to enjoy what's left of my first year at Cambridge. And with my ex-McCann boss Nenita's arrival, grey clouds gave way to sunny blue skies. Of course she takes all the credit for the seasonal change: she even hopes to charge every UK citizen 50pence for her Storm of X-Men-ish magic powers.

I can't imagine being an undergrad or master's student at this time though. There's just too much distraction. With the gentle breeze, perfect 20degree weather, all the cuties have come out of the woodwork. Lacrosse, frisbee, football, punting. And sometimes shirtless too.

Who says PhDs don't know how to have fun?