“Filipino” Speculative Fiction, Read: the Rambling of the Overly Simplistic
[edit: I’ll be compiling other discussions on the nature of Philippine speculative fiction here. If I’ve missed a post, do drop me a line so I can include it.
Please read and join in!
Dean Alfar: Thinking Towards Philippine Speculative Fiction 1, 2, and 3
Kenneth Yu: The Continuing Conundrum
Charles Tan: Does One Need to Use Filipino to Write Filipino Fiction?
Banzai Cat: Of Conceits and Agendas | The Plot Thickens… Like Dinuguan
Tin Mandigma: Speculating about Filipino speculative fiction]
PS: WordPress is giving me a headache whenever I edit, so I won’t be updating this post with new links anymore. Kenneth has a great post compiling all the links on this subject, though. Head on over!
I do wonder why certain people are so eager to tell the world that their work is “Filipino” in nature, just because they’re Filipino. I don’t think it’s all that fair to say you’re making a Filipino speculative story even if you’re Filipino, if your story isn’t about the Philippines or about Filipinos.I guess that not being of mixed blood or an international heritage, I’m in a position to see this as very black-and-white. But just this once, just for this particular issue, I don’t see how that could be disadvantageous. Language
I’m sorry. I know I suck in both English and Filipino, but I have to say this: I believe a lot of things that are important to being Filipino are lost when you try to talk about them in English. We all know that it’s possible to write a “Filipino speculative story” in English, but you know what? I believe a “Filipino speculative story” that’s written in a Filipino language trumps that.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez made One Hundred Years of Solitude originally in Spanish. Stanislaw Lem wrote a lot of his sci-fi in Polish, with Polish characters. Italo Calvino wrote primarily in Italian. I believe we can and should write more speculative fiction in our local languages, simply because it would be more in line with our traditions, the nuances of our many cultures, our regional identity – in short, our untranslatables.
It’s not a crime to stick with English if that’s the language you’re more comfortable with – it won’t make you less patriotic. As we all know, great “Filipino” speculative works in English have been written by native Filipino authors. On the other hand, great non-“Filipino” speculative works have also been written by native Filipino authors.
It’s just difficult for me to hear a story classified as “Filipino speculative fiction” if there’s nothing Filipino about it. If, say, Jules Verne wrote a science fiction story in English, which didn’t have a single French character (who was representative of French culture and beliefs) in it, I don’t believe it could still be classified as a French science fiction story – it would only be a science fiction story made by someone French.
(Incidentally, this is an interesting piece about how Verne’s prose was butchered in the European English translation. Thanks to Charles for the link.)
That said, please pardon me while I go off on a tangent: I do have trouble sympathizing with writers who call themselves Filipino, and yet are unwilling to (not can’t, but won’t) speak or write in Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilonggo, or any other native language, in addition to English. You can say your first language is English and it’s not your fault that’s all you know, and it doesn’t make you less Filipino, but you know what? Let’s get some perspective here. Not even trying to adopt any of the languages makes you less Filipino. That doesn’t make you not!Filipino, but certainly identifies you as not!the man-off-the-street Filipino (at least not the streets that most Filipinos commonly walk) who just happens to have a way with words.
It instantly gives you minus points as a cultural representative, because it makes you less able to communicate and interact with the people you’re supposed to represent. You miss a lot of the nuances off the bat, so you are unable to convert them into notions that are easily expressed and understood in other languages.
Nationality
Incidentally, I feel it is only too easy to use the term “Filipino” as a meal ticket. I feel that sometimes, artists use their ethnicity to establish themselves as representatives of a voiceless minority… when in truth, the “voiceless minority” does not acknowledge them and cannot identify with their work.
Artists with Filipino blood who’ve spent more time in high society and other countries, even if the regions they stayed in technically qualify as “slum areas,” have been notorious for misrepresenting the Filipino people. For example – and this is technically not speculative fiction, but I still love using it as an example – I have major issues with Jessica Hagedorn’s work. I groaned all throughout Dogeaters, and I couldn’t sit through and can’t even remember The Gangster of Love. The characters and scenarios Miss Hagedorn used simply don’t feel Filipino, even if some of the situations described were vaguely familiar. Nearly every character spoke in a way that sounded – well, American. Even with the smattering of Spanish and Tagalog in the dialogue, there was something essential lacking. The Philippines that Miss Hagedorn was painting came across to me as distant and fantastic.
I’m sure some Filipinos (also Filipinos of privilege, I presume) will disagree with me on this. Filipinos who grew up overseas and have no clue what life is actually like in the Philippines may also disagree with me, because Miss Hagedorn’s writing is lyrical and quite easy for non-Filipinos to appreciate.
But you know what? If the only Filipino writers who can get recognized internationally are English-speakers who have actually not spent most of their lives mingling with born-and-bred Filipinos, a lot of things will always fail to come across. Something as basic as the spelling of “Filipino” is one thing. Personally, it grates whenever I see people calling themselves “Philippino” online – I think this indicates just how badly our local literati need to establish a global presence. But since I also think that spelling isn’t as important as sentiment, YMMV.
It’s only annoying on a primal level. I’ll admit: even Filipinos who grew up in the Philippines may not be able to properly write “Filipino stories,” speculative or not. I personally can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to write good Pinoy fiction, speculative or not. Like everybody else, I only write what I know, and suffer the risk of being called “not Filipino enough” in the process.
Since I’m pointing out theme and language as the most important factors, we may wonder: What about foreign nationals who write fiction with Filipinos in them? It’s simple, really: Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon – not Filipino fiction, and not just because Neal Stephenson is not Filipino. Filipinos are incidental, not central, to the story. I’m still looking for exceptions to the rule here, but I’m loath to attach the label “Filipino fiction” to any story that doesn’t have the Philippines as a central figure, and which doesn’t present the Philippines from the viewpoint of someone who knows this country and its people intimately.
It’s not a matter of cultural purity. I’m not trying to launch a crusade against English-speakers or Filipino-Chinese citizens who are more fluent in Chinese, etc – but since there’s clearly a need to define what “Filipino fiction” is, I’m putting this notion out there: If you want to write a Filipino speculative story, you’ll write it as a tribute to the culture and to the people. You’ll have Filipino characters, you’ll mention the Filipino setting, and you’ll do it in a way that reflects how you, as the writer, perceive the term “Filipino.”
Of course, I acknowledge that you’re free to define “Philippine speculative fiction” as you will. I doubt that anyone can tell you that your work is “not Filipino enough” if you strongly think otherwise.
Theme
For me, even if a story is not palatable to the rest of the world, even if it comes across as “weak,” as long as it’s something that attempts to accurately represent Filipino tastes, customs, damnations and desires, it’s Filipino.
There is no shame in saying you’re writing a story that is “not Filipino in nature.” You may still be a Filipino writer catering to international sensibilities. But saying that you’re writing a “Filipino story” means a whole lot more. It means taking on the responsibility of being a spokesman.
And I think that for most of us in the blogging generation, that takes a lot more than just writing what we know.
It’s no secret that upper-class and middle-class artists have an advantage, promotion and creation-wise, over lower-class artists. Promising artists from the lower classes struggle to keep up, and we struggle to give them a voice. But people DO have different codes of etiquette and grace, especially in art. The more eloquent stand apart from the rest, and they may be envied for so many valid reasons – they have more time to write, they have more access to information, they’ve read more books, they have different tastes, they have “global” standards, etc.
But if they don’t represent the people with their stories, they are not writing “Filipino speculative fiction.” Nothing, short of everyone in the country being equal in information access and language use, will change that.
PS: I realize that this post may lead people to ask exactly what kinds of fiction I plan to feature in a blog called “Philippine Speculative Fiction.” I wrote this on the About page when I was still making this blog, and it still holds true:
The Philippine Speculative Fiction weblog is a repository of thoughts re: speculative fiction (fantasy, horror, science fiction and everything beyond and in between) productions made within the Republic of the Philippines, or by Filipino writers based elsewhere.
So regardless of whether or not you wrote what I personally consider to be “Filipino speculative fiction,” as long as you’re a Pinoy based in the Philippines or elsewhere, I’d like to tell other people about your work.
If you’d like to get to know other Pinoy speculative fiction writers, I hope you’ll join us at the Philippine SF and F Writers Guild and say hi!
For me Jessica Hagedorn isn’t necessarily about the Filipino experience but the Filipino-American experience. And the inclusion of American makes a whole lot of difference in the reading. Filipino-American is a culture that has similarities to the Philippine and American experience but not quite, which makes it a subculture of its own.
Hi Bhex! So for you it’s clearly “theme” that determines the adjective “Philippine” before “speculative fiction”, and other things are not as crucial. You make a strong point. May I link to this entry of yours on the PGS blog? I think this will give a bit more coherency to my ramblings (that had no clear conclusion! I just couldn’t reach one, for the life of me) that I posted about some days ago.
Also, what’s your take of someone who is not a Philippine citizen but writes a story whose characters and themes and even setting are centrally Filipino?
Thanks for this post. I like the insight.
Oh yes, and Prof. Emil Flores did mention the same thing you did about Jessica Hagedorn, that you’re not the only one who feels that way (I haven’t read any of her novels yet, so I didn’t venture my own opinion). But that’s why he said we should be careful about “exoticizing” our stories.
@charles Hagedorn’s work is clearly not representative of Filipino living. But because it tries to say that it is (Dogeaters is set in Manila during Martial Law, not in the States, IIRC), it’s being accepted as such, and it’s setting the global bar. That’s my beef with it, and that’s my beef with other Filipino writers not having a global presence; authors like Hagedorn end up being the sole option.
I’ve googled for negative reviews about Miss Hagedorn’s work and come up with precious little. Where are the blogs that try to set the record straight? Where are the native Pinoys who are supposed to be more credible as authorities on life in the Philippines? I don’t think they’re even interested enough in Hagedorn’s work to spend energy and time refuting it online, which is okay by me. I just wish we had more fiction out there that balances out excessively “exoticized” (to use Kenneth’s term) views of the country.
@Kenneth I’m a bit torn about that. I’m acquainted with a few non-native Filipinos who love the country enough to blog about it frequently, but I’m afraid I can’t recall a single work of fiction written by a non-Filipino citizen (who has no Filipino blood and who hasn’t lived in the Philippines for an extended period of time) that I can comfortably call a “Filipino story.” I’ve read the occasional potboiler that has one American detective/soldier interacting with the NBI/Coast Guard and moving around within the local territory in order to find a fugitive… I thought those novels painted a pretty decent picture of life in the Philippines, but it was clear that the authors still saw the Philippines as – well, a curiosity. The authors made no effort to pitch themselves as intimately familiar with the culture and the people, so there was still a sense of detachment that prevented me from seeing their work as “Filipino.”
Thanks for replying, Bhex.
I think you’re right. There is no work as such yet, I think. I was just wondering, what if there was one. Similar to Kij Johnson’s Fox Magic (an American citizen writing about Japanese myths).
Oh, and “exoticized” is not my term. It’s Prof. Flores’s. :) Thanks!
Thanks for the rec, Kenneth; I just found “Fox Magic” on SFF.net. It was a really lovely read :)
hey bhex, have you tried Alex Garland’s The Tesseract and Yoichi Funado’s May the Valley of the Rainbow? Both books are set in the Philippines and have Filipino characters (Garland’s story is set in Manila and Funado’s in Cebu). Unfortunately, I haven’t read either but am wondering if these would pass the non-Filipino writers writing about the Philippines guideline.
hi, bc! those are very interesting titles indeed. haven’t read them yet, but i’ll make sure to keep an eye out for them. many thanks for the recs! :)
Bhex: With the Jessica Hagedorn issue, the question is, who’s writing the great martial law novel, and who should be publishing them (assuming the former has been written). That, I think, is the heart of the dilemma.
Also, since this is Spec Fic we’re talking about, could we note write about aliens transported to far-flung galaxies, with no Filipinos or Filipino myths and written in English, only the loose metaphor that it is the OFW experience? Granted, if this was realist fiction, you’d drop the pretense of aliens and spell them out as OFWs, but isn’t that one of the beauties of spec fic, that we can use something else to distance the readers from reality and tackle the issues we’re not normally willing to tackle?
Also, since this is Spec Fic we’re talking about, could we note write about aliens transported to far-flung galaxies, with no Filipinos or Filipino myths and written in English, only the loose metaphor that it is the OFW experience?
well, you know what – i don’t think the OFW experience is unique to filipinos. if you’re going to write a speculative story that serves as a metaphor to an underprivileged class/race selling themselves into servitude for a shot at a better life, i don’t think you’ll be symbolizing something that’s unique to the philippines, even if that was your intention. without using clearly defined filipino elements, you may as well be symbolizing the exodus of the chinese, the indonesians, the mexicans… it has nothing to brand it as uniquely filipino.
one way around this that i can see is maybe (and this is a big “maybe”) if the words you use for defining the new social structures are filipino in origin, implying that the filipino exodus is the one that was the most influential in your world-building. the native classes could be called “amo” while the migrant classes are called “alipin,” “alila,” “utusan,” “katulong” or some such. you may not have filipinos in it, but at least you’ve provided a major clue, as it were, that you are referring to the filipino situation. then and only then can i be able to call your story a “filipino story”… but that’s still a long shot, i think, since i have yet to see how you can spin it. the whole thing actually has to have a filipino feel, and won’t sound like something that generally serves as a metaphor (/parody?) for the plight of the underprivileged.
also, i’m not trying to say that filipino-ness (/ship? dom? hood? er…) and social realism are related. you can write a completely escapist tale using the kiba-an instead of elves, or the aswang instead of the werewolf, i’d still be able to call it a filipino story. i just don’t think one should tote around one’s story as “filipino” if there is nothing cultural or ideological that would distinguish it. it’s perfectly fine to write about elves and dragons and princesses and aliens – such fiction could be written (and has been written. lots of times) in the philippines. however, i think that only reflects how filipino spec fic writers are highly influenced by foreign literature.
if your goal is to bring the “filipino” into world literature, you’re setting up your own restrictions, so you need to be more conscious about what you include.
Have you read Ghosts of Manila by James Hamilton-Paterson? Er, obviously it wasn’t written by a Filipino but every now and then I’d put the book down and think, “Wow. This is exactly how I feel about my country.”
Also, great article. :)
Hi Lauren! Thanks for dropping by :)
I haven’t read Ghosts of Manila, but from what I can find online, it’s a non-fiction book that focuses on Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier?
I’d be interested in seeing how the author describes the Philippines. Will give it a try if I come across a copy :)
Ayos!
I agree that you read Alex Garland’s The Tesseract although the movie adaptation which I have not seen was set in Bangkok. :(
As for writing spec-fic in Filipino. I could not agree more since I have tried to churn out science fiction stories in Filipino for a while. I need to go back to my drafts and post something new. Hehe.
Why do I write in Filipino? maybe because I don’t write in English that good, honestly that is true. :) Anyway my goal was to enhance my creativity using our native language especially in my chosen genre which was Science Fiction. I studied Translation as my degree but it seems the only way that I can continue empowering our language is through creating stories in Filipino as much as possible.
hi ian!
i just read up on the reviews for the Tesseract movie. wow. doesn’t look like anything i’d like to see, even if it does have jonathan rhys meyers in it. i’d sure love to find the book in local bookstores though!
ahaha i don’t exactly have confidence in my english skills either! tagalog has always been my first language. but as everybody i’m communicating with now for work and play is speaking mostly in english, it’s getting harder and harder to exercise my filipino language skills through fiction. it still happens now and again, though, for which i’m grateful.
it would be great to read more of your writing :D
The important thing to consider is the term “speculative.†To speculate means “to think over possibilities.†If there are no constraints to these possibilities, then speculative fiction can refer to any type of fiction. In which case, any debate on the meaning of speculative fiction is meaningless, never mind Philippine speculative fiction.
If these possibilities are constrained to historical realities that may have taken place (e.g., Britain stays on in the Philippines and the Spaniards never return) then one can call this genre “alternate history.†If one imagines ancient gods taking control of the region, then that’s fantasy. If one imagines the Philippines not giving in to IMF-WB restrictions and eventually becomes a superpower nation, and from which we develop a space age consisting of Filipino space explorers, then that’s alternate history and science fiction. If one imagines a small Filipino barrio where it rains flowers everyday, then that’s marvelous realism. In which case, given different possibilities and constraints, the term “speculative fiction†is meaningless.
What about “Philippine� In literary studies, the label is usually applied to literary works where a Philippine local language is used or the author is generally recognized as a Filipino, whether through his citizenship or ancestry. Thus, Jessica Hagedorn’s novel is part of Philippine literature.
What, then, is Philippine speculative fiction? If there is no agreement on constraints to possibilities mentioned earlier, then it refers to any fictional work written by authors recognized as Filipinos or written in a Philippine local language.
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article , but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.