Weekend Project Meets Japan!

A lot of things are happening, and I'd like to see this as a good sign. I'm writing this in between packing my bags for another trip, running errands, in between shoots, coffee breaks, and catching up with good friends.

As with everything and everyone I want to remember, let me at least give this a shot so I could make sense and sew together seemingly disparate stories. There are moments that you just want to pause and live in, to capture as they happen in order to believe they actually did. 

I look at the calendar and it's been a month since this happened- just an exhibit of how this "time" thing has a funny way of somewhat making us feel guilty.

I remember the night before our flight to Japan, I look at the space between me and my mother. I tell her- "I'm broke". 

I cannot look into her eyes.

My mother tells me, "you graduated cum laude in a very good university. I know a lot of people who are lazy but earn more than you do."

I pretend to look at something far.

She spills each sentence with long pauses in between, making sure I understand them... perfectly.

"Pero okay lang yan, Jen. Masaya ka naman. Maaayos mo din yan." ("But that's okay, Jen. You're happy. You'll figure things out eventually.")

:)

And happy, I am. You know, the kind of happy that you're sure to have these moments flash before your eyes before you die- kind of happy.


Our short documentary, Pamana, was chosen and presented in the Visual Documentary Project initiated by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) in Kyoto University. It discusses about the alternative learning system of the Agta-Dumagat-Remontado indigenous peoples of General Nakar, Quezon. Thank you so much for opening your community to us :)

Should you be interested to watch, here is a link to our documentary :)

After making this short film and meeting the rest of the filmmakers from different Southeast Asian countries, I realized that a lot of things are happening, and it's always easy to get caught up in yourself- your immediate concerns, issues, the current state of your love life. But as life progresses for or against us, there are lives and realities happening simultaneously as ours. May we also progress to thinking that whoever we may have ended becoming right now and wherever we may be- we are for, and not against each other. And it's not surprising that despite the absurdity that the world has to deal with, there are still those who believe that this is not yet a hopeless case.

I guess I just grew tired of hearing "ganun talaga, wala na tayong magagawa diyan" (That's how it is, we can't do anything about it anymore). 

Our group, the Weekend Project, is incredibly thankful and undeniably stunned with this experience. We actually had to constantly remind ourselves- "Shet, nasa Japan tayo no? (Shit, we're in Japan, huh?)" It was our first time to experience a temperature of 2 degrees and meet a Japanese who speaks fluent Filipino. The last one was just a total mind fuck, especially after getting lost in translation for days.

To everyone who supported us in any way possible, we offer you our sincerest gratitude. May the cosmos always be kind to you :)

To my family, especially my parents, thank you for always being supportive. Please know that I am always trying my hardest. Always.

These words- I do not know if they make sense to you. 

And this incessant need to write them down- at the back of receipts, tissue papers, bundles of notebooks, a blog... it's not just to remember names and events like how they teach us in history class, but a way to create a sort of narrative, like a life story of how you've lived. So that this is something we could tell others and ourselves when we are asked with the common yet weirdly philosophical question- "Kamusta ka" ("How are you?") You know that the answer is not merely an "okay lang" ("I'm fine").

But things are happening so fast that there is a seeming need to cut things short. And at this very moment that I am writing this, I am actually running late for a meeting.

Maybe we could learn more from the Japanese and their concept of Mono no aware- of sensitivity and appreciation of impermanence and the transience of things. 

I guess that's just how we roll.

Kyoto, Japan, 2014