Any major airport is a haven for emotional purchases.
My impulse buys are, unfortunately, books, lots of it — especially if Fully Booked or Times Travel offered 35% off on decade-old bestsellers because “everything must go” — plus a free neon gel pen!
Whoopee!
Upon dumping the dozen or so non-fictions on the counter, I would explain myself to the stunned cashier, “I really hate traveling that’s why I love reading…You see?”
Every counter person (except probably at Changi Singapore where everyone is Filipino nice) would give me the poorly veiled side-eye… “No I don’t. See.”
Fine. But airports make me feel vulnerable. I mind the frisking. I mind even more if I feel I’m being singled out as a ‘suspicious entity’.
Like in this one European city, I was behind three elderly women who were wearing national costumes, entering the security gate. There was nothing religious about their getup so I thought maybe they took part in a cultural show and didn’t have the time nor the energy to change.
The towering monstrosity that was the airport security lady apparently also noticed and summoned the three women to step aside for “further questioning”. Then she summoned me (wearing my ratty navy blue cardigan over my Foodie at Work t-shirt, black leggings and flats) to follow the women to the “further questioning” area. Did it seem to her like I was with them? I looked nothing like the women! If they were Punjabi matriarchs, I was, well, Hello Kitty. Or probably she thought I was their Filipina maid, which would make sense. (P.S. While honest work is nothing but noble, this impression of Filipinas has got to change.)
I confronted uniformed Lady Big Ben (gosh she must have been what– 6’5– and I’m…never mind) and furnished her with the verbal calisthenics I usually reserve for Manila truck drivers when we’re on a heated road rage. I must have looked like a whimpering chihuahua challenging a ready-to-butcher Rottweiler. I think she got bored — she looked about ready to doze off — because she waved me off to proceed with my check-in while the women in costumes remained in her custody. I never saw them again.
It took half a liter of pure orange juice, piping hot cafe mocha and double pastrami and extra cheese sandwich to calm my nerves after the embarrassing incident, especially since the other passengers kept on staring at me curiously, nervously, or both. When I went to the restroom to freshen up before my 18-hour flight, I gasped at my reflection in the mirror. I usually never wear make-up when I travel but that time I decided to apply eyeliners. The eye make-up must have melted while I was commuting to the airport, because now large black smudges outlined each of my eye. I looked like a panda. Or worse, a ‘suspicious entity’ embroiled in an epic make-up fail!
I’m glad everyone knows I’m innocent, not guilty. –Snoop Doggy Doggy
Another time, I was arrested at the Hong Kong International Airport.
Nothing hinky — and was promptly and judiciously resolved by my broken Chinese and I even squinted a little to look the part. Kidding, I didn’t really need to try that much to look the part. But this story is for later lazy ass writer. ;P
My name is Peace Girl. That’s my grampa over there.
So airports are practically my oases. Mostly because of the vast range of emotions I get to experience when lured by “everything must go” book scams sales — and free neon gel pens!
Books that, of course, I would never get to read beyond page ten.
Emotional purchases under acute transitory circumstances (e.g. airports) have a way of making you realize later on that you don’t really need them all that much.
Like when I picked up the book entitled ‘On Beauty’ by Italian scholar Umberto Eco because, why not?
Also I was on Cinnabon high.
I lugged the heavy tome around the airport terminal without even taking one peek inside.
When I got home, I plopped on the couch, breezed through the first four or five pages of its foreword, then lost the battle with jet lag.
That was ten years ago and I’m still trying to figure out what happened to the book after I fell asleep.
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco was a highly regarded academic before becoming a bestselling author of fiction with the debut of his international bestseller The Name of the Rose. This was a surprise page-turner coming from someone who found pleasure in exploring the many ways of writing a thesis statement.
A thesis statement is the sentence that states the main idea of a writing assignment and helps control the ideas within the paper so that the argumentative assertion of blah blah blah blah zzzzzzz…
Eco’s thesis on beauty was that it varied among cultures, like there’s an idea of beauty in the Western culture vis-a-vis this or that culture.
I’m sure there was more to the book, except I didn’t get to read the rest of it. I still blame it on jet lag lazy ass writer.
Umberto Eco had the fondness of quoting, of all dead people, Saint Thomas Aquinas. In fact, Eco’s thesis on beauty was largely a reflection of how the venerated Thomas Aquinas defined beauty.
St. Thomas Aquinas
I imagined this to be huge deal for the millions of faithfuls because it’s not everyday that the patron saint of divine revelation of the Holy Roman Catholic Church was quoted on the hopelessly mundane topic of…beauty.
Selfie tips …for the pure and … holy cow!
Anyway, for Saint Thomas Aquinas, there are three conditions of beauty: proportion, clarity and integrity.
Proportion and clarity are more or less self-explanatory.
Proportion is Denzel Washington, with his scientifically-approved symmetrical features.
And clarity is the rigorous application of Proactiv‘s three step anti-acne therapy.
What’s Katy Perry’s secret to success? She’s Proactiv.
Also my mantra when I get lazy ass writer.
But Saint Thomas Aquinas wouldn’t have been the true knight of valor that he was if he hadn’t included the third condition of beauty: integrity.
Integrity is so deep and philosophical that I’m getting hives just thinking about the many bloody debates that can come out of this.
Luckily, Umberto Eco unpacked it for us.
Eco argued that proportion and clarity are just about 2% (1 percent each) of the whole essence of beauty.
98% of beauty is integrity.
Uh huh.
Integrity, he said, is simply that glow from within — or inner glow.
Unluckily for me, I didn’t get to read Umberto Eco’s entire book because I conked out on the couch due to jet lag lazy ass writer.
That’s why my earlier attempts at inner glow were er– a little bit too enthusiastic…
I mean, I was chugging vials after vials of Gluta Glow which I was told later on was really medication for liver disease.
I was convinced that if my skin could just give off little sparkles — you know — especially at night, like Zoe Saldana in that blockbuster hit I forgot now the title, then I would have achieved 98% of beauty approved by Saint Thomas Aquinas. Imagine that…
So I read somewhere that another way to achieve ‘The Glow’ is to hide inside a cave (preferably dark) and upon emerging from it…ta dah! … the glow. I tried it, of course, and I can say it was absolutely baloney. The glow I saw was only because my eyes were adjusting to the light outside …ugh…
Kyoto: A trip down memory lane
After the success of the Paris Climate Summit last December, where a legally-binding agreement to fight climate change was achieved, I thought that a quick side trip to Kyoto would be particularly meaningful.
It was here at the heart of old Japan where the historic Kyoto Protocol was adopted.
And in a way, a turning point for the climate movement.
In December of 1997, nations — big and small– gathered in Kyoto to find ways to reduce the massive amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that was being spewed into the global atmosphere at an alarming rate.
This climate change conference was called the Conference of the Parties 3 or COP 3, which I regret not to have attended, because in 1997, I was busy arranging and rearranging my Spiceworld-themed closet according to each of the Spice Girls getup — One day I’d be Sporty….next day I’d be Posh... Ginger … Pepper …Coriander…and my favorite, Garlic, a known repellant of both vampires and mosquitoes.
Before there was the Kyoto Protocol, there were no specific targets for countries to reduce their carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.
Therefore big polluters could press release what everyone wanted to hear — that they were so ready to cut the bad stuff that polluted our seas and skies. But since there was no real obligation as to how much, then it went down to just B-A-U, business as usual.
In other words, coal, coal and more coal!
Today it’s unimaginable to fight the climate fight without the corresponding responsibility of significantly toning down toxic garbage.
Relishing the quaintness of Kyoto, I went around places where the delegates to the Kyoto climate summit in 1997 may have also visited. Super nerdy and a little sad, I know.
I imagined the energy and tensions that arose out of that bold and audacious attempt to bind powerful nations to limit their wanton pillaging of our earth’s resources.
The Kyoto Protocol was far from perfect.
In fact, nations like the United States would later on refuse to recognize its veracity.
The reason was that the Kyoto Protocol only required the wealthy developed nations to get their acts together and quit belching out greenhouse gases.
But what about developing countries like China that emitted pollutants at the exact same pace or even faster?
That’s why succeeding climate summits would already demand both the developed and developing countries to play key roles in the global climate fight, depending on each nation’s capacity.
All these culminated at the Paris climate summit last December.
Beauty, Japanese style
To my horror the Japanese really liked me. I’d enter a shop and get treated like a long lost cousin, daughter, bff…
Wait, maybe — I thought, what was my grandfather doing during the Japanese occupation? Oh that’s right, my mother’s father was busy shooting pellets at Japanese attackers during the war as a guerrilla fighter.
The Japanese are a regal, proud and gentle people.
It is but a rueful glitch in history that the Japanese and Filipino people had to meet that way, once upon a time, savage and blood-stained, and never to be forgotten.
But afterwards, the Japanese (perhaps to make atonement — or not) became the Philippines’ most ardent benefactor that gifted our struggling nation with the most advanced technologies.
While Kyoto is charming, the real enchantment is in one its districts, Gion.
Gion is most renowned as the land of geishas.
The tradition of Japanese geishas is as alluring as it is mysterious.
Are these women prostitutes or artists?
Does the geisha reflect the Japanese ideal of beauty?
Unlike my wise sister Natasha, I allowed myself to be tourist-trapped, responding to an ad posted on the bulletin board at the train station,
“Do you want to be a geisha today? Come…”
We never learn.
Scratch that, I never learn.
Like once in Turkey, we were smoothly lured with, “Do you want to see the house where Mama Mary lived after Jesus Christ was crucified? Come…” You can imagine how that one went …
At the okiya or lodging house of geishas, I watched in awe as a team of make-up artists, wardrobe consultants and photographers and their assistants, transformed me into a novelty gift item.
Apparently, I was too novice to be a geisha so they dressed me up in colorful prints which made me a starter geisha or maiko.
I expected the kimono or traditional garment to be heavy.
What surprised me was how many layers of kimonos there were to complete the authentic maiko look.
The wardrobe lady even pressed a pillow (a pillow!) on my belly before wrapping an obe sash around my waist. I looked like Winnie the Pooh after quitting Weight Watchers.
I sniffed back tears because I had chronic Pooh issues.
But the wardrobe lady probably took this to mean I was speechless with delight because she then embarked on another tedious task of unwrapping my obe sash, pressed another pillow on my back, before wrapping the belt around me again. There, two pillows, she announced, double the beauty, twice the luck.
And to think in the West, women were fainting due to illegally tight corsets and well, Spanx.
Go figure.
P.S.
While the climate summit in Paris was in many ways the culmination of decades of grueling debates among the world’s nations, much more is still at stake.
The climate agreement needs to be ratified by our leaders so that it becomes real, tangible and relatable to each and every one of us, wherever we may be.
The climate fight is far from over. Though I won’t be in Morocco for COP 22, I have a feeling I will be traveling more and more to many places because of it.
The irony is, of course, not lost to us. Getting from here to there means mostly air travel.
Air travel is dependent on the use of fossil fuels and is largely responsible for the increasing carbon dioxide concentrations in our global atmosphere.
As I type this I’m staring longingly at our broom here at home. A Filipino household is not complete without these brooms that come with wooden or woven handles and the tag ‘Baguio City’ printed on them. Baguio City is the summer capital of the Philippines where these native brooms or walis tambo are famously displayed by the roadside.
Anyway, my dad used to quip, ride a broom, but never got to ask what he meant. So one day when I was more bored than usual, I decided to just take his word for it, plucked one from the closet, and in the manner and style of Sarah Jessica Parker from the other blockbuster hit Hocus Pocus, I went for it. Suffice to say, while my attempts were spirited, they were unsatisfactory at best.
While commercial aircrafts are still not powered by renewable energy, let’s give each other some leeway to be imperfect climate activists in a world that still has so much to learn.
After all there are many other ways to offset our personal carbon emissions.
I used to think planting trees are super corny. But now that I’ve understood its urgency, not so much.
Let’s also be grateful to creative minds that are finding ways to make our dream of a fossil free world come true.
For instance, check out the solar impulse story:
https://www.solarimpulse.com/adventure
These trailblazers only prove that the tragedy is never in our imperfect but persevering efforts.
It is when one person then two, five, six, a dozen individuals, and soon the whole community give up and walk away that we lose the fight.
Cheers!