"When you set a good example to the world, you become a flag waving on the skies of the entire world!"
"Study the teachings of the pine tree, the bamboo, and the plum blossom. The pine is evergreen, firmly rooted, and venerable. The bamboo is strong, resilient, unbreakable. The plum blossom is hardy, fragrant, and elegant."
"One person's weed is another person's wildflower."
"What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized.
"Pay attention to the intricate patterns of your existence
"He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist."
"Learn to do common things uncommonly well; we must always keep in mind that anything that helps fill the dinner pail is valuable."
"Blue jeans are the most beautiful things since the gondola."
A banig is a handwoven mat made of palm or grass leaves used for sitting and sleeping. The best ones are made of fine, narrow strips which are dyed and woven in intricate patterns—used in Manila mostly as area rugs or tapestries because of their scarcity and cost. Plain, simple ones like this are good for everyday use (or for trips to the beach). The ideal way to store them is to roll them up so you don't put undue stress on the fibers (but that's not quite practical for packing them in suitcases).
Adults who bring children to The Manila Collectible Co. can keep their little hands busy in this corner where they can paint some clay pots. The store also carries products for children, including stuffed toys of Philippine animals like the carabao and tarsier. I just love the sarimanok separating the children's corner from the rest of the store. The sarimanok is a legendary bird of many colors which originated from the Maranao people of Mindanao.
Of all the handwoven fabrics available at The Manila Collectible Co., it is the inaul that I found most beautiful. Crafted by weavers from the province of Maguindanao, inaul is traditionally used as a malong, a tube skirt used by both men and women. For The Manila Collectible Co., the weavers also created smaller pieces, perfect as shawls or scarves. I found them so beautiful, I couldn't resist buying one—a magnificent jewel-toned, iridescent shawl made of the softest silk. Now I need to find an occasion special enough to use it.
The Manila Collectible Co. is a four month old store in historic Intramuros which showcases products from artists and artisans all over the Philippines. All the products they carry are handmade and neatly displayed according to category in the store. These are the shelves of handwoven bags and baskets. We bought an enormous, soft tikog bag large enough to serve as luggage for our next road trip.
The Jim Thompson House, now a museum, is made up of six traditional Thai houses which were put together into a single house with a Western floor plan. The red color of the house comes from a natural preservative painted on the teak wood.
The silk process begins with these squirming silkworms, the larva or caterpillar stage of the domesticated Bombyx mori.
After eating pounds of mulberry leaves and molting several times, silkworms enter the pupa stage and wrap themselves in a cocoon made of raw silk.
The cocoons are boiled to make the silk easier to unravel. Of course, the heat also kills the silkworm inside the cocoon.
The unraveled, raw silk being spun on a reel. Vegetable dyes were traditionally used to color silk, but the results were not consistent and the colors fade after many washings. Jim Thompson introduced modern, color-fast dyes and processes to Thailand in the late 1940s.
A traditional, wooden weaving loom loaded with red and white silk thread.
Like all Thai houses and buildings, the Jim Thompson House also has a spirit house at a corner of the property—in the garden and overlooking the canal. The complex also has a restaurant which serves fantastic Thai dishes, and a shop with some of the loveliest silk scarves, ties, and clothes that I have ever seen and touched.
The Zamboanga Peninunsula of the Philippines, like the rest of Mindanao, has a large Muslim community, so the group assigned this region for the Ateneo de Manila University Christmas Parks chose to clothe Joseph, Mary and Jesus in the richly-patterned fabrics common to many Muslims in Southeast Asia.
The School of Humanities' creation for the Ateneo de Manila University's Christmas Parks is a colorful and stylized interpretation of Jesus' nativity in the islands of Batanes. The province is the northernmost of the Philippines and is composed of ten small mountainous and rocky islands, and traditional Ivatan houses are made of those same rocks—echoed in the construction of the Holy Family. The hair of Mary and Joseph evoke the "hairy" headpieces worn by the Ivatan. Called vakul, they are made from abaca fiber, and are a protectection from both sun and rain.
Aside from the bottle cap mosaic/stained glass nativity, this was my other favorite among the sixteen Christmas Parks of the Ateneo de Manila University. Also a mosaic, but this time made out of computer parts with orange plastic tubing for accent.
The three figures of the nativity are made of the same materials.
The setting for this particular nativity is the National Capital Region (NCR), which is more popularly known as Metro Manila. And the two things which distinguish the region from the rest of the Philippines is its skyscrapers and light rail transit systems, here made out of used foil snack bags.
The decorations hanging from the cupola of the Ateneo Church of the Gesù this Christmas season are called Neules de Mallorca, a traditional craft from the island of Mallorca or Majorca in Spain. They are cut-out paper disks with delicate designs which originally were edible wafers made of the same unleavened bread that Roman Catholic communion wafers are made of.
This nativity scene was made by the personnel of the Ateneo de Manila University's Office of International Relations. The design concept is based on both mosaic and stained glass, but it is completely made of plastic junk—bottle caps and bottoms, straws, and ring binders—with a few broken optical disks thrown in. I find it absolutely fantastic!
