Fathers and Sons and Martial Arts

My son is something else.

The past few months, Jude has come home from day care getting into martial arts stances and throwing kicks and punches in the air. I don't know where he got them. Perhaps there's an older kid there who's shown stuff to him and they play some kind of cops-and-robbers (as much as a less than three year old can) game or imagine themselves to be Batman or Spiderman or Iron Man or something. Either way, I was very impressed and even please, excited. As a 25 year student of martial arts, fourth degree Tae Kwon Do master and active instructor, seeing Jude kick, punch and kihap (kiai in Japanese) touched me and felt a little 'like father, like son" warmth.

Sometimes, however, he can take his kicks and punches too far. Once, the owner of the day care told me that Jude had hit another student. At home, he throws sidekicks at our dog. When he throws a tantrum, when it's bath time or bedtime, sometimes he  lashes out with hammerfist strikes. And this isn't just the random flailing of limbs. There's preparation, chambering of his weapon (arm or leg) and forceful execution.  To help him control his lashing out, I've taken to letting him hit the various kicking targets and shields I have at home and that I use in my Tae Kwon Do classes. I've also started to teach him some of the other martial arts moves that don't involve physical contant with another person.

Today, just before heading out for mass, I showed him how to get into an attention stance, how to bow and how to get into a ready position. He did them all and when I just wanted to watch and didn't bow he got annoyed and told me I had to. I counted out three kicks and he did them. After we bowed and finished. As we stepped outside and headed for the car for church, I decided to try something else as his mother had to go back inside to grab a jacket. I demonstrated some blocks and he mimicked, for lack of a better word, competently.

Maybe he's taken to martial arts, so far, with ease because of a genetic or hereditary component since I've been doing it for so long. When he was only a few months old, lying down on a bed, he brought his knee to his chest and extended his leg into a good sidekick with a pulled back foot. Maybe it's because his mother is an amazing athlete - a former ballet dancer and, now, Pilates and Gyrotonic instructor - who also finds it easy to perform many martial arts kicks and he got an abundance of her genetics.

I'll be fine if Jude never takes martial arts seriously but I'll be lying if I say I wouldn't be disappointed if he didn't try it at all. Really, I'd love for him to, at least, get his black belt. And, honestly, I wouldn't care what martial art he'd try as long as he honours, practices and shares its traditions. To be completely frank, I don't care what college or university he ends up attending. I wouldn't care if he attends at all as long as it's the right thing for him to be doing - or not doing. I, also, wouldn't care what kind of professions he pursues as long as he is happy doing it and that he gets some fulfillment and meaning out of it.

However, seeing Jude bow and kick and punch and get into his joombi, ready, stance I couldn't help from feeling that between us maybe the Bas family martial arts legacy may develop somehow.

Dampa

I just read a comment in a friend's blog, about her experience enjoying dim sum on the weekend, that stated the person enjoys blogs about food. For some reason I liked that comment - and I thought who doesn't? - because I do too. Reading about people's experiences with food brings so much to the reader. It can transfer the reader to another culture. It can remind the reader of things they didn't know they missed. It can bring the reader to fond memories of things did when eating. It can spring board the reader into trying something new.

To that end, I've decided to repost a blog I recently wrote and posted on another site about my experience at a dampa. A dampa is a seafood restaurant in which you choose what you're going to eat from a wet market and you tell the waiter how you want it cooked.

I hope you enjoy the experience. Here's my post:

I haven't looked up the meaning of the word or its translation (laziness rearing its ugly head again) but from what I gather a dampa is a place where you pick your own food and a vendor will cook it for you the way you want it. I've been to such a place before, in Hong Kong, but I went to my first in Manila on Boxing Day.  And, I got the desire and inclination to go to one from oddest places, considering I'm Fil-Am and you'd think that my wife or someone who grew up in The Philippines would've suggested it. It was from watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations that going to a dampa entered my mind. So, on this trip, my wife and I decided that it was going to be a priority - along with her getting her fill of puto bongbong and eating our friend Jenny's tapa.

There are several dampa now in The Philippines but because the food is largely fish and other seafood many of them are by bodies of water. When we asked my father where we could go, he mentioned the one on Roxas Boulevard in Baclaran.

It was hard to get there, thanks to traffic on this holiday Sunday, and thanks to street vendors and shoppers walking along the road that, before reclamation, had been part of The Pacific Ocean. Now, from the front of the dampa to the water is about a mile or so of reclaimed land that has been turned into road and highways.  I could imagine a jetty or some other protrusion coming from the restaurant to the water, as the expression goes, back in the day.

As we pulled into a very narrow parking spot, which we were guided into by a thin woman in dirty capris and a long sleeve t-shirt with a towel around her neck, I commented to myself how skilled Filipino drives are to be able to get into, out of and around tight spaces with double parked cars, azcals (street dogs), people walking four or five wide shoulder-to-shoulder and tricycles trying to squeeze around you going the other way on a one way street. (Reality TV show idea! We could call it "Survivor Driver" and it would have drivers from all over the world competing in different mundane and outrageous driving feats.)

After getting out of the car and paying the woman a few pesos for her help, we proceeded to the restaurant. Above its entrance is a sign that says it's the original fish market and restaurant. Seeing that, my anticipation for the experience and the tastiness of the food was naturally heightened. There was, already, a sense of authenticity to what we were about to experience. In addition to the sign, I noticed my son. Clinging to me tightly, his head didn't stop turning from side-to-side and his mouth hung open as he watched street kids, shoeless and dirty, walking by themselves in and among the other people and between cars. One child was sleeping on a cardboard box that had been flattened out. When my son turned to me, I could feel tears wanting to well up when I saw, how at his young life of two years and eight months, he could see and tell there was something different and unfortunate about what he was seeing compared to his own life. When he held me tighter, I leaned down to him and whispered, "Be grateful, Jude. We're very lucky."

When we got inside, an intrepid waiter from one of the restaurants - there are several and you choose the one you go to with your food - greeted us, gave us a menu with the options we had of how the seafood would be cooked and guided us around the various fish stalls. The squid, laid out on ice, some about the size of a small squash and some as small as an individual pack of Rolo chocolates, glistened and changed the appearance of its coat when we'd brush our fingers against them. The crabs were some of the largest I'd ever seen. The seaweed didn’t look like the sliced stuff we'd get at the sushi counter in the supermarket in New Jersey. Instead, it looked like green mini sago (clear tapioca balls) stuck together on a stem two or three inches long.

After making all of our selections, we went upstairs and had our feast. Without doubt, this Boxing Day lunch with my wife, son and parents has been the tastiest and most satisfying meal of this trip. We had Chili Crabs, done with typical Filipino sweetness and different from the Singaporean spicier version. We also had fried pampano, Mussels Soup, my wife's seaweed salad, garlic rice, kang kong sautéed in bagoong (shrimp paste) and garlic, and adobong pusit.  Without doubt, this adobong pusit was the best I'd ever had; its sauce thick and salty-sweet.  For Jude, we got some plain rice and lechon kawali. We tried to give him some of the seafood but he wouldn't take it so we ordered the pork but still he wouldn't eat, which is very strange because back in New Jersey he eats everything - American food, Filipino, Indian, Chinese, you name it.

So Jude could eat something, we went to Pancake House©, one of the restaurant chains my brother-in-law owns, and got him his favourite waffles. That's where we had our sweets too. My wife had an old fashioned Banana Split, my parents shared plain pancakes and I enjoyed a Halo Halo.

On the way back to the house, battling for road space among the other cars, Jude discovered and became enthralled by Jeepneys. Now, a week on, he says the word correctly but then it was "Jeepey." Not bad for a less than three year old who'd never seen them or said the word before.

It was a fantastic day. For all of us, we got to savour a delicious meal and spend time together. It was more time for Jude to bond with his paternal grandparents, who he is starting to know and call Grandma and Granddad, the way they want him to (his maternal grandparents are lola and lolo). For Jude and I, Fil-Ams who didn't grow up and aren't growing up in Manila (I grew up in Hong Kong and Jude is growing up in America) it was a chance to experience more than the 'metropolitanised' Makati and Greenhills. It was a chance for me to get in touch with my roots and for Jude to see the country of his parents' birth.

Oh, and by the way, Happy New Year everyone. May you all have a safe, happy, healthy and content 2011.
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Simple Pleasures

The last couple of weeks I'd been having a food craving but, up until last Wednesday, I didn't know what I wanted. My taste buds were calling for some sweet satisfaction (how's that for alliteration, fellow writers? haha) but I didn't know for what exactly. Then, out of the blue, when my wife was heading out to the store and asked if I wanted anything, it hit me. I wanted a bun from the bakery at the Asian supermarket; a bun I used to enjoy as a child in Hong Kong that I would get from Maxim's and other bakeries around the city.

A few days later, we headed to the Asian market, after taking our son to see an early showing of Gnomeo And Juliet, to buy Japanese mayonnaise and grab some lunch. After sharing a couple of double rice combo lunches three ways, we bought the mayo and some other groceries then headed for the bakery where I satisfied my sweet tooth. The bun that did it for me is oval with a slit/trench cut down the middle lengthtwise. That trench is filled with a sweet white cream and the top of the bun is sprinkled with sweet desiccated coconut. My entire childhood, I thought that filling was some kind of cream. Only now did I discover it's butter; not a thick lard-like kind of butter but a light, smooth and ungreasy kind. Well, for the rest of the day, and maybe even the remainder of the weekend, that butter bun was the tastiest, most delicious thing I'd eaten.

It's funny how things make your day. I'd been having - and am still having - a stressful time of things. There's a lot going on. Maybe, subconsciously, I wanted that bun because it's a reminder of my childhood when things were light and easy; a contrast to what's happening these days. Or, maybe, my taste buds just wanted something they'd missed. Either way, that butter bun did it for me.

What does it for you?

Writing Space

It's funny when you learn or realise something about yourself. Sometimes, it's an 'aha' moment. Other times, it's disappointment and even upsetting. And then there are those times when the discovery elicits something positive; a direction you know you can take (and maybe should've already taken) to make a part of your life easier, better, more enjoyable.

Well, this week, I learnt something that is just frustrating.

I can't write at home. Well, to be more accurate, I can't write at home during the day.

I've had the week off from work and I go back on Monday. In some ways I'm ecstatic about that. You see, as a teacher, I get a lunch period and a couple of prep periods. If I don't have anything specific to do during my preps because I'm caught up on my grading or I've already written my lesson plans for the next week or the set up for my next gym class is done I can, sometimes, take advantage of the time and get some writing done. If not what The Gotham Writer's Workshop people call 'hard writing' - actually writing the manuscript - it may be 'soft writing' which is planning out what you're going to write either by working on your outline or thinking about your characters, theme, plot, etc. Usually, though, I'll send my down time doing as much hard writing as possible.

Well, it's hard to do it at home. Maybe it's just a matter of being disciplined and sitting at my desk and writing. Maybe it's the environment or structure of my home. For those of you reading who've been to my home, you know my 'office' is a small six by six space next to the dining table in the living room. You see, we live in a two-family house with cute and cozy (read: limited space) apartments. I used to have an office upstairs but it became the nursery when my son was born. I would love to set something up downstairs but it floods when there's heavy rain (like today). Moreover, the dining room is next to, without any partition, to the living/TV room.

Up until recently, as I was finishing Back Kicks And Broken Promises, I would take to getting up at 3:00am and writing for an hour and a half to two hours before my wife and son would wake up and before it reached the point of no return for when my dog has to go out. Now, it's gotten harder to get up that early and it's gotten harder to fight off the distractions - recorded shows on DVR, a little FIFA on the Wii, kicking around on the web. In addition to the distractions, there are other legitimate things that I do and need to get down. Things around the house - laundry and cooking are largely my domain. I try to hit the gym or a workout or two a week. I've started playing squash again for fun and fitness (anyone interested in a match) and I teach a Tae Kwon Do class twice a week at night. I've also got reading to do. What writer doesn't? And, last, but definitely not least, is family time with my wife and son that includes bath time, story time and sleep time.

I know I'm not the only one to have a lot on his plate. I'm not the first and I won't be the last. I guess, maybe, I'm in a lull from having finished Back Kicks; the high being over and I'm crashing hard. So, how do I sober up? What do you guys do in situations like this? Fellow writers, I need your help.

Tocilog

I'm off work this week and, of course, on the first day of break it's snowing. Looking out my window, it looks like the snowfall has stopped and I can go out and shovel. My back is tightening as I think about what I have to do. Haha. At least, only a few inches have fallen and not the few feet we had last month and at the beginning of this month.

Anyway, while waiting for the snow to stop, I decided to make breakfast for my wife, son and I. Looking in our ref (the common colloquial term for the refrigerator in The Philippines or, at least, in my wife's family), I found our rice cooker, half filled with leftover rice from yesterday, eggs and a package of tocino in the freezer. While thawing the tocino in a bowl of watre, I chopped some garlic and sauteed it before adding the rice and some rock salt from Manila to make sinangag, garlic fried rice. With the tocino ready for the skillet, I put it in a little oil and cooked it on low heat. While that was going on, I cracked three eggs - one at a time into a shallow bowl and added a pinch of rock salt to each - before making sunnyside up eggs. These are sunnyside up eggs I grew up with that are cooked overeasy without actually turning the egg over in the pan. The yolk is splashed with a little oil to cook it over just enough that when you eat it with the rice it oozes over the rice like a sauce. This combination of food - tocino, sinangag and fried egg (itlog) - is commonyl referred to as tocilog by native filipinos.

To top off our breakfast, we drank kalamansi juice. Unfortunately, although I'm grateful that we can get it here at the Asian grocery store, the juice is made from a honey sweetened concentrate and not fresh kalamansi. Only once did I find fresh kalamansi and fresh dalandan in a supermarket in Jersey City but, like I said, that was only once and it was super expensive. It was worth the purhcase though.

As far as this being a vacation week, it was tasty to have such a nice breakfast that we don't normally have. And along with the feeling of being snowed in, I've been put in a holiday, chillaxing (I don't normally use such words but since it was recently added as an official dictionary entry I've decided to) frame of mind. I guess, in a way, topsilog is a kind of comfort food. Thinking about that, I ask you, what are your comfort foods? And, if you're an immigrant, as I am, or come from a strong ethnic upbringing what are your comfort foods from your childhood or your homeland?  Let me know and include a recipe. I'd love to try it.

Writer's Block

As I sit and wait to hear from the agents I've queried and pitched my novel Backs Kicks And Broken Promises to, I'm working on my next project, Sage Of Heaven. I know where I want the story to go and what's going to happen (in a big picture way) but I've always been a bit of a free writer, letting the characters dictate what happens to them, how they respond to those happenings, and when, how and why they change to move the story along and fulfill their dramatic needs. In being a free writer, it's sort of like hanging out with people, getting to know them and watching them evolve. I do outline but it's a bare bones kind of outlining. I make bullet point lists of what I want to happen in the novel but I think I may have to do some deeper outling this time around.

Like many of us who write, I read magazines like Writer's Digest and Poets & Writers, and they often have tips on outlining. Some of them seem a little arduous, writing as much in the outline as you would in the actual manuscript. To me, this feels like doing the work twice (and then there are still revisions to do once the first draft is completed). I don't think this is a wrong way of doing it; just the wrong way for me. However, with Sage of Heaven, I'm a little stumped. I know what I want to happen but for some reason I'm having trouble tapping on the keys of my laptop and guiding my characaters. So, I think I'm going to have do give one of those arduous outlining processes a shot. Maybe I'll write something in the outline that I can put into the manuscript to jump start the process.

Anyone have any outlining tips that have worked for you? I'd love to hear them. I've also put a link, where I've mentioned that title of my current project, where you can read the first chapter. I'd love to get your feedback on it. Thanks.

Managing Emotions

It's been about three weeks since the Writer's Digest Conference and Agent Pitch Slam and I hate to say it but the high from the experience is coming down. Before the conference I sent a dozen query letters out to agents. At the slam, I pitched six agents and they all requested material from me; two asked for the full manuscript.

Since then, I've received four rejections. It's expected, and only one of the rejections came from an agent I pitched face-to-face, but it's still a downer. I know getting published is a process in and of itself and it can take years from typing the first word of the novel to getting published. It took me seven years to write my novel from concept and all of its transformations to its final form. Since 2009, when I pitched two agents at the pitch slam at Book Expo America, I've been trying to get an agent. I didn't think I'd have much success then - they both asked for pages but politely decline and one of them said I could query her with future projects - but this time around the responses seemed so positive and excited that I can't from feel hopeful. And, when three agents said my novel sounds, in scope and feel, like Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize Winner The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I couldn't help from feeling that I may actually be on to something.

I'm old enough and experienced enough - I had a screenplay in the late 1990s that garnered agent interest but, unfortunately, things didn't progress - to know not to get my hopes up and that these things take time and that not every agent will be right for my work but, I'll be honest, it's getting harder and harder to plod along and push through. I've entertained thoughts of self-publishing and calling it a day but, then, I know I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't see my writing pursuits through to the end. After all, I write not because I think I should or because it's a viable work or career opportunity. I write because, like many of us scribes, I have to.

I guess, as I get older, I'm feeling more pressure to have done something with my life; not that getting a Master's Degree, becoming a husband and father, becoming a Tae Kwon Do master, trying our for an Olympic team, being a stuntman in a commercial, and getting articles published and getting paid for them is having done nothing but there's still something lacking. It's more than a desire or a wish but something deeper. It's somethign I've always wanted - to do and become something bigger and more meaningful than I already am - but it's gotten stronger since becoming a father.

Anyway, if I was venting then I'm done. However, if anyone has input or tips to get through the waiting, I'd love to hear them. For now, I'll just wait and keep checking my email (something I probably shouldn't do but it's easy to do with the iPhone) and work on my next novel. Thanks for 'listening' and, for you fellow writers out there, happy writing and good luck.