Learning about where I am living...
I am not the most avid history buff, ok, I really don't enjoy it all to be honest. I do however, love it when someone can tell it in a story. Textbooks make me sleepy, but animated storytellers have my full attention. With that said, I organized a tour to the Museum of the Filipino People and to the National Museum with tour guide John Silva (www.johnsilva.blogspot.com) for the American Women's Club of the Philippines. [For those of you who did not already know this, I am the tours chair for this club which entitles me to pick and chose tours I want to do, when I want to do them. Everyone says how nice it is for me to do this, but I know it's really all about me, my schedule, my wants and my desires...I would love to say I am altruistic, but, in reality, I am far from it.] The tour was for three hours today and we went through two museums. I was very impressed by the museums. They were done very well, have interesting artifacts (lots of sunken ship treasures off the coasts) and taught me more about the country I live in that I thought could be managed in one day. John is captivating, funny and extremely intelligent. I thought I would share my favorite part of the tour with you to pass on a bit of knowledge. On a side note (yes, I have lots of side notes), we live in a condominium complex of five buildings; Rizal, Hidalgo, Luna and Amorsolo East and Amorsolo West. I have previously learned that Rizal is the national hero of the Philippines and Hidalgo was a painter, but beyond that...I was clueless. Back to the tour...The painting below, as we were told, was the match that lit the fire in the Spanish Revolution. It's a painting of the room 
where dead Roman gladiators were taken. The painting was done by Juan Luna, a Filipino painter in Spain and good friends with Rizal and with Hidalgo (see how all these names come together). Both Luna and Hidalgo submitted a painting (Luna submitted this particular one) to an art contest in Spain that no Filipino had ever entered. Luna ended up winning the contest, with Hidalgo coming in 2nd. Exciting for the Philippines to have two painters given the honor that a party was thrown on their behalf. Rizal was asked at the last minute to get up and say a few words about his best buddies and toast their accomplishments. A few glasses of wine in him and he rambled on and on (as I am here) giving his impressions of their work. He must have bitten into a sour grape as he blurts out how this painting symbolizes the repression of the Filipino people by the Spaniards...oops! His little speech was sent back to the Philippines to be published in the paper. His family was arrested, he was a wanted man and the result is that he stood and fought for Philippine independence only to be jailed and subsequently killed by a firing squad. What an interesting story, eh? Maybe it was just me, but I was enjoying it.
After the tour, we had lunch at an ancestral home that is now a restaurant. La Cocina de Tita Moning is the name and it is a museum in itself. Lots of family history in this home and the food was very good. All 14 of us enjoyed ourselves and got a rich cultural experience for the day. I hope everyone else left with an added piece of knowledge they didn't have before, I know I left with TONS!
where dead Roman gladiators were taken. The painting was done by Juan Luna, a Filipino painter in Spain and good friends with Rizal and with Hidalgo (see how all these names come together). Both Luna and Hidalgo submitted a painting (Luna submitted this particular one) to an art contest in Spain that no Filipino had ever entered. Luna ended up winning the contest, with Hidalgo coming in 2nd. Exciting for the Philippines to have two painters given the honor that a party was thrown on their behalf. Rizal was asked at the last minute to get up and say a few words about his best buddies and toast their accomplishments. A few glasses of wine in him and he rambled on and on (as I am here) giving his impressions of their work. He must have bitten into a sour grape as he blurts out how this painting symbolizes the repression of the Filipino people by the Spaniards...oops! His little speech was sent back to the Philippines to be published in the paper. His family was arrested, he was a wanted man and the result is that he stood and fought for Philippine independence only to be jailed and subsequently killed by a firing squad. What an interesting story, eh? Maybe it was just me, but I was enjoying it.
After the tour, we had lunch at an ancestral home that is now a restaurant. La Cocina de Tita Moning is the name and it is a museum in itself. Lots of family history in this home and the food was very good. All 14 of us enjoyed ourselves and got a rich cultural experience for the day. I hope everyone else left with an added piece of knowledge they didn't have before, I know I left with TONS!
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