I discovered a "gold mine" of Asingan Hometown stories....Frank Hilario's blogs!..Here are a few nuggets. For more ( and there is a BIG MOTHERLODE IN THERE! ) go to
5 Internet Cafes in Asingan?
You better believe it! I know because I have gone to all of them. These are the ones around the town proper. How good are they? Two are excellent: very fast, myDSL 256, and with big monitors (17 inches), webcam, headset, not the poor kind. Not cheap – they are inexpensive: To surf, you pay only 20 pesos an hour, which translates to almost 25 cents US. Do they have customers is not a question – how come there are 5 cafes in a sleepy town like Asingan is the question. What I don’t like about them is that they are crowded, very crowded, like this: C R O W D E D, with almost no elbow room. They are trying to maximize their earnings per square meter. That’s their mathematics. It’s bad economics of course. And it’s bad for the education of the children. Why? They are all there playing games, and the one keeping the store is happy that way. Internet at the expense of education – that is the ultimate foolishness.
And that is why I’m writing this. I’m ready, willing and able to put up an Internet Café in Asingan, and I have no problem with money – I have none. Anyone interested who doesn't have my problem?
If you are from Asingan and are not a writer, that’s no problem. You can tell us Stories from the heart. If you have stories to tell, tell me. Write to me the details and then I will write it up and I will send you a copy and I will share it here. Photographs? I have to study how to insert photographs yet.
In any case, you don’t have to be writers to write. All we want to happen is the sharing of stories, recalling the past, remembering friends and some silliness, and thanking God we’re still alive, those of us who are 60 and above (I’m 66).
Share your CDs and books! Vic Costes in Toronto has just given me an idea: You there outside the Philippines, your kailians in/from Asingan who are not well-to-do would appreciate your gifts of books, CDs and DVDs even if you send them over here by snail mail. Look at it this way: When you give away, you have a good reason to buy new ones. The public library in Asingan is not that well-stocked. I think the library of Rizal Junior College in the mid-1950s, from where I used to borrow and bring home 5 or 6 books to read the weekends and return the next Monday, had more books than the current collection in the public library.
Donate is the idea. Let it be from the bottom of your heart, or the bottom of your pockets, whichever comes last. You may ask: Which book, which CD, which DVD? My answer: Don’t ask, just donate. Look at it this way: You are getting rid, and very nicely at that, what you don’t like or don’t need. Then I am sure you will be rewarded with a good feeling. Then I hope you will graduate to giving away even those you like yourself – that would be sharing, a great thing to do.
On my part, I already donated one copy of my book, my first: indios bravos! Jose Rizal as Messiah of the Redemption. It’s actually a book written around my own English translation of the farewell poem of Rizal, which I have retitled ‘Adios, Patria Adorada’ (not Mi Ultimo Adios) and translated into ‘Adios, Beloved Patria.’ That book is historical – it’s the first from somebody in Asingan, the first on Rizal; it contains the first English translation of Rizal’s final poem by an Ilocano, also from Asingan; it’s an intellectual biography too, the first in the Philippines. You can read excerpts by clicking the link Adios! Beloved! Patria below.
And that gives me another idea: If you can donate one dollar or two, each one of you, then I can print more copies of my book (US$10 a copy) for distribution free to our townmates before, during or after the fiesta on 18-23 April.
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I am for Frank's ideas..He is a true Artist/Writer. Would you believe he and his Mrs. raised 12 kids in the Philippines? That is man to beat..Let us support his ideas, not just with words, but with money..Words are cheap, but money moves things around and shakes the unshakable.--#
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