The Medical Engagement: "We Thought It Was the Wedding"

- June 29, 2014, Sunday.

- It's been a while since I last posted a really personal post; most of my recent blog entries have been about my journeys and/or my academic endeavors here and abroad. It's not that I don't get to meet up with friends for casual gatherings - I actually do, and frequently - but I don't usually post them here as frequently as before. Today, I thought of posting this since this is one of the bigger events that I've been to lately.

- My friend Dorenett got engaged to her boyfriend John Glenn, both of them doctors. The engagement was held in the Century Park Hotel Seafood Restaurant. The reception was grand for an engagement, almost like a small wedding reception (and with this engagement, who knows how even grander the wedding reception will be!)

Yay!!

- What I found most interesting about the engagement was that many VIPs from my high school alma mater were there, because of both Dorenett's and John Glenn's families' affiliation to my alma mater's alumni association; I thought they would have an alumni association meeting right there and then (kidding, of course.) My friends and I felt that we had to behave more since some of the VIPs were officer personnel and supervisors from our alma mater.

- The engagement ceremony itself was done in a private room, and it was hard to take photos because of all the giant SLRs and videocams of the official people-in-charge of the ceremony documentation.  For the most part, we just decided to sit down and eat some steamed nuts while waiting for lunch. At least we had much time to catch up with each other.

Pretty hard to get decent shots.

Exchanging gifts.

The youngest is the biggest; they're all 2 batches higher than I am.

- The big but cozy event ended around 2pm, with everyone getting big goodie bags with awesome sweet treats inside. As the guests with their fancy semi-formal to formal attires left one by one, and as the engaged couple thanked everyone near the exit, we all still had to remind ourselves that this was only the engagement, and not yet the actual wedding.

"The Hallyu Mosaic in the Philippines: Framing Perceptions and Praxis": The 2014 AIKS Conference on Korean Studies

- June 19, 2014, Thursday.

- The Ateneo Initiative for Korean Studies (AIKS,) which serves as the office of the World Association for Hallyu Studies (WAHS) (Philippines,) organized its first hallyu conference in the Escaler Hall of the Ateneo de Manila University - my college alma mater. It was a local conference, but there were a handful of foreign participants who presented their papers on hallyu, also known as the "Korean Wave." For those not familiar, the Korean Wave, or hallyu, is the influx of Korean culture in other places, mostly through mass media (i.e. K-Pop and Korean dramas.) My former professor on Korean language and current president/director of AIKS/WAHS Philippines, Prof. Sarah Domingo Lipura, encouraged me to write a paper for the conference during this burning-hot summer. Fortunately, the paper-readers thought my paper was good enough, and so I was given the chance to talk about my topic.

- My paper's topic was about the Filpino stagnant fans and retired fans of hallyu. The stagnant fans refer to those who have lain low from the fandom, but are still fans, and may still engage in fan activities like attending concerts or conventions. Retired fans on the other hand, are people who have completely gone out of the fandom and are generally apathetic. I presented many factors as to why these people have gone out of the fandom. Some of these include personal reasons, loss of people to spazz with, the current state of hallyu in the Philippines (too mainstream, not as exciting as before, the "jejefication" of hallyu, etc.) among others. Despite all these things in my paper, the study had a "happy ending" by showing that even though many fans became stagnant or retired, their experience with hallyu has allowed them to have a better appreciation and tolerance for other cultures (not limited to Korean,) they trusted Korean products more, and that they were able to have a good impression on Korea as a whole. Because of this, hallyu is still an effective or relevant soft power/cultural diplomacy tool by South Korea.

- Today's conference was packed with VIPs. Dr. John Paul Vergara, vice president of the Loyola Schools did his opening remarks, His Excellency Hyuk Lee, ambassador of South Korea to the Philippines, gave his his warm greetings, and Dr. Ingyu Oh, director for general affairs of WAHS, shared his keynote speech. Distinguished professors from other universities were also present.

Hey look that's for me. Haha.

Prof Sarah, and Dr. Vergara.

Prof Sarah and the Korean ambassador.

Prof Sarah. Haha.

Prof Sarah and Dr. Oh.

Some members from the Ateneo Blue Symphony.

- I presented in the morning panel entitled "Dissecting the Filipino Content in Hallyu Fandom" with Dr. Catherine Deen of the De La Salle - College of Saint Benilde, who presented an exploratory study of hallyu fan clubs in the country, and Prof. Patrick Capili of the Ateneo Modern Languages Department, who painted an image of the colorful Philippine KPop fan culture. (Prof. Capili teaches Spanish and Portuguese in the Ateneo, and I was fortunate to have sat in in his Portuguese class some years ago.) Our chair-critic was Mr. Herdy Yumul from the Mariano Marcos State University.

Dr. Deen.

Prof. Capili.

And me!!

Awarding of certificates.

- We had a nice cozy lunch in CTC, and I had fun meeting some of the other scholars/professors who presented in today's conference. The afternoon panels talked about identity and representation in film and television, gender issues and their connection to hallyu. The last panel was a special panel that talked about the hallyu experiences in Southeast Asia (outside the Philippines.)

Prof Sanchez.

With Prof. Sarah.

Special panel.

Sir Beaver.

- The conference ended around 6pm, after Prof. Beaver Flores of my undergraduate home department, the Communication Department, gave his closing remarks. Although I'm still tired after the long day, I still can't believe that I had the chance to talk in the Escaler Hall even after graduating from the Ateneo, and I'm probably feeling this excitement/hangover from the experience because I spoke inside the Escaler Hall for a formal event. (The last time I spoke inside that hall, I think, was for a theology report during second term junior year.) Probably the best feeling I had today was being approached by some students and scholars after my panel, who wanted to see my paper or who wanted to ask some follow up questions because my topic intrigued them. (After all studies about people going out of a certain fandom/interest are rare compared to studies about people going into a fandom or subculture.) As a young scholar who's still finding his niche in the scholarly world, this experience made me feel that my academic endeavors are able to reach out to other people after all. (Again I'd like to thank AIKS/WAHS for giving me the opportunity to present in this conference - and for giving me an excuse to visit (the) Ateneo again.)

Doing What I Do Best: Indianizing Another Friend Through Manila's Little India

- June 14, 2014, Saturday.

- My friend Evan and I have been enjoying our extended summer vacation lately, ever since UP moved its opening of classes to August. To add some diversity to his summer-vacation life, and to air my mind from my pre-class-opening tasks and paper works, we decided to meet again. This time, I decided to take my chance to let Evan peek into my little Indian world; it was Evan's first "immersion" in all-things-Indian.

- We met this morning at my house, and off we merrily went to Manila's Little India in UN Avenue. Since we arrived a bit too early for lunch, we walked along Mahatma Gandhi Street to go to Manila's Hindu Temple (mandir.)

- Visiting the temple has always been a good experience for me. Not only do I get to constantly refresh my memory about the stories about gods and goddesses in Hinduism, the temple's history, and the society involved, but there is always something new or different whenever I go there. When we visited today, I was surprised to see that the temple was being repainted and partially renovated to make it look more festive. On top of that, the statues of the gods, as well as the temple's life-size cow statue, Surabhi/Kamadehnu (mother goddess in the form of a cow) were all in nicer costumes today. Apparently, a child was to celebrate his first birthday in the temple; first birthdays require certain special religious rituals.

Evan and Surabhi.

- At the second floor, Evan and I wore kurtas on top of our shirts, just so I could give him an experience of wearing an Indian costume (and another excuse for me to wear my kurta again.) As with all the other people I've brought to the temple, I narrated the stories of all gods and goddesses present in the temple. I also highlighted the significance of the lingam and yoni, since people normally mistake the lingam-yoni to be a tea pot, a genie lamp, or just an "unusual statue;" It is actually a fertility symbol, and a symbol of the cosmic union.

Peacock lamp.

"Is it a lamp??" - After asking Evan to have a wild guess on what the lingam-yoni was.

Yay kurta!!

- After a lengthy narration about everything, we headed to Assad Cafe to have Evan's first full Indian lunch. We had chicken masala, Kashmiri fish curry, and mutton biryani. To beat the hot day, we had mango lassis to drink too.

Happy boy.

- We later picked up half-a-kilo of sweets and some samosas from Assad Minimart, and headed to my house for a Bollywood movie session. Instead of popcorn, we ate the Indian sweets; we had some laddoos, jamons, cream-filled jamuns, jalebis (syrup-y funnel cakes,) rasgulas, and some almond squares.

- "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi" ("A Match Made by God") was a movie that I have been recommending to Evan, but he had no chance to watch the film until we decided to watch it at home. The movie had a clear message, had some meaningful songs, had less characters, and had a simple plot. The film's bonus was that it provided colorful shots of Amritsar, where most of the movie was filmed; Amritsar's "Golden Temple," the center of Sikhism, was also shown several times in the movie.

Don't....

Disturb....

Meeeee....

Indian sweets.

We said a brief hello to our friend Merrill.

First taste of Indian sweets.

"Do I like it??"

"Again, don't disturb me, I'm watching."

- Evan had to go somewhere for dinner with his family after the movie, but it was awesome that we had another interesting day around Manila. I was probably keen about today, because I was once again able to let a friend have a look inside the world that I have been involved with for as long as I can remember. (Of course, that meant having the task of showing the awesome sides of India and India cultures.) I was glad that he liked the curry and the movie, but most of all, I was happy to realize that I  had another friend who had an open mind and who was willing to understand other cultures.