ay nga pala, matagal ko na 'tong gusto ilagay sa blog ko. galing 'to sa paragraph sa work ni Nick Joaquin na "culture as history". these are some of my favorite paragraphs.

"....to taunts by Asians on our lost soul, we respond with a mea culpa (apology) and not with a counter-charge. Where the hell were they before 1521? During the war the Japs strutting among us berated us for having become "Westernized" and bade us "come home to Asia. Since the Japanese never did for us, in our pre-west days, what Indian and Chinese civelization did for them, what business had they berating a culture they should have helped to nourish then but didn't."

another one is...

"Through the centuries of our supposed contacts with the Chinese, they were already a paper culture, we continued to write on treebark. Through the centuries of our supposed contacts with the Indons, they were already a book culture, we continued to write on treebark. And through the centuries of our supposed contacts with arabs, they were already print culture, we continued to write on treebark. But within thirty years of Legazpi we took the first step into paper culture, print culture, book culture."

just some food for thought about our country being westernized. who is to blame nga naman? the westerns or our asian neighbors who didn't pay attention to us before the westerns did? bakit parang laging galit ang mga historians sa mga westerns sa pagdadala ng western mindset sa ating bansa, imbes na sisihin ang mga asians na hindi man lang nag-effort magbahagi ng kanilang culture sa atin? yun namang mga hapon, naki-epal nalang nung nakikitang sinasakop na tayo ng west. di ba para pa ngang ang laki ng utang na loob natin sa west? Hay naku.