{"id":85,"date":"2007-09-24T00:54:15","date_gmt":"2007-09-24T07:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/specfic.philsites.net\/2007\/09\/24\/more-thoughts-on-the-filipino-in-philippine-speculative-fiction-and-more-quotation-marks\/"},"modified":"2007-09-24T01:16:33","modified_gmt":"2007-09-24T08:16:33","slug":"more-thoughts-on-the-filipino-in-philippine-speculative-fiction-and-more-quotation-marks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/2007\/09\/24\/more-thoughts-on-the-filipino-in-philippine-speculative-fiction-and-more-quotation-marks\/","title":{"rendered":"The “Filipino” in Philippine Speculative Fiction, and More Quotation Marks"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been meaning to mention this for a while now, but I’ve managed to put it off spectacularly. Tin wrote a post on the Read or Die blog<\/a> detailing the literary events booked for the rest of September. There are still quite a few exciting activities up, so do take a look!<\/p>\n

In the meantime, wow – so many new posts about Philippine spec fic! But well, we’re in that phase where we could always use more, I think. Off to update the list<\/a>!<\/p>\n

\n

I’ve wanted to write a follow-up to my post, but it wasn’t until I read Sean’s post<\/a> that the words came to me.When I was younger, I resented being told what I had to write. Come to think of it, I still do :D But after getting used to writing on demand, I’ve come to appreciate the need to adhere to certain conventions. If you’re out to write something in particular, respect the rules and respect your audience. If you aren’t<\/em> out to write something in particular, then don’t force the rules to conform to your output, saying your work falls under a certain category when it doesn’t. Above all else, I’ve come to appreciate the need to take responsibility for what I write.<\/p>\n

Just to emphasize: I’m not telling anybody to write – or NOT to write – anything in particular<\/u>. I’m just asking people to not call what they write “Filipino” if it so obviously isn’t.<\/p>\n

…Unless, of course, their definition of a “Filipino story” is similar to how it could be easily defined by an editor or a publisher – anything written by someone who positively identifies him\/herself as a Filipino, whether or not s\/he lives on Philippine soil<\/u>. Then I’d rather they said that, instead of try to defend their right to write whatever they wanted. As a writer myself, I am certainly not arguing that<\/em> point.<\/p>\n

To be honest, I personally don’t write a lot of fiction that I’d call “Filipino.” I mostly write in English, and I mostly write non-Filipino stories. Even when a story occurs to me in Filipino, I’m tempted to write it in English – and I admit, it’s because my audience speaks and writes English. I estimate that 90% of the people I know online are native English speakers, and\/or are multilingual or at least bilingual.<\/p>\n

When I read the work of the writers I admire online, I realize they don’t write with any reference to their nationality as authors, and that lack of concern is what influences me. It’s easier and more in my nature not<\/em> to consider ethnicity relevant when I write. I don’t apologize for that, and I don’t expect anyone to.<\/p>\n

Also, I reserve the right to write in Filipino, or to write speculative fiction relevant to the Philippines, if I wish. When I write in Filipino, I have to be prepared not to be read, and that’s fine – if a story comes to me as Filipino, I can’t be bothered to translate it into English just for the sake of social responsibility<\/em> or whatnot.<\/p>\n

However, I would be uncomfortable with anyone attaching the term “Filipino” to all the things I write, just because I am a Filipino writer. Everyone else is free to do so if they wish, of course, but I wouldn’t support it.<\/p>\n

I am proud of my fellow Filipinos when they accomplish things, but if they themselves do not wish for their stories to be identified with the Filipino culture, then it’s fine! I’m not invoking the age-old social realist guilt trip that says everything you do or say has<\/em> to have Filipino references.<\/p>\n

But there is<\/em> a need to define what Filipino speculative fiction is, and that’s what I responded to. I’m not saying I don’t think you are Filipino; I’m just saying I don’t think your story is.<\/p>\n

I imagine publishers and writers would have their own concerns about how to label something “Filipino.” As for myself, I realize that running a blog called Philippine Speculative Fiction, it may seem like I have double standards for what I would call a “Filipino spec fic.” However, when I’m promoting on this blog, I mean to say “this is the fiction that Filipinos write.” I don’t mean to say “all this fiction is Filipino in nature.”<\/p>\n

I encourage any and all fiction written by Filipinos, even those who aren’t keen on identifying themselves as “Filipino writers.” This is still my stance as a writer and as someone who maintains a blog about Philippine speculative fiction.<\/p>\n

\n

You know what, I’m finding it interesting that this discussion is bringing some things to light. Apparently, there are<\/em> some Filipino writers who believe that speculative fiction is a refuge from any sort of pressure – that speculative fiction shouldn’t be restrained by sub-classifications. It just seems kind of moot to me, since most spec fic writers define their own works by genre or subgenre – saying things like “well, this is an interstitial story” or “I was shooting for a bit of detective noir relayed with a Japanese minimalistic touch.”And there are those who believe that people should set aside nationality when they’re writing speculative fiction. I find that especially intriguing. So does this mean you believe that the “speculative fiction” genre discourages ethnicity? Or that works that have ethnic flavor are automatically inferior to those that don’t? Does including Filipino elements in a story automatically limit<\/em> your imagination?<\/p>\n

Do you think “Filipino speculative fiction” is an invalid classification? Doesn’t it deserve to exist? Or would you have other ways to define it? I’d like to know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been meaning to mention this for a while now, but I’ve managed to put it off spectacularly. Tin wrote a post on the Read or Die blog detailing the literary events booked for the rest of September. There are still quite a few exciting activities up, so do take a look! In the meantime, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-transparent-header":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}