Let The Right Ones In (wasn't this a Vampire movie?)
News that probably only matters to me:
-- So I took an HIV test -- mandatory actually for applying for permanent residency. It was negative. I was pretty confident that it would be...but still. You know that seed of doubt that makes you think...what if? What if there was that one time? I've played with fire all around the world but I'm careful enough. What if the result was the opposite? I was confident, but I held my breath while I opened the envelope. What if nga? But there you go. Well...this country apparently won't take you in if you do have the virus all in the name of self-preservation. Yet their numbers are climbing. I shake my head at it...really now? Then again I just have to look back at the recent government paranoia about H1N1 and so the reaction is predictable. (In other news, I also have no tuberculosis.)
-- Tomorrow I take the last steps to get my Permanent Residency here in Singapore. Sure I make fun of it and its quirks (and oh my effing god the Singlish), but the truth is I admire it. Yes it's controlled and paranoid and self-important. It also almost does not poke fun at itself too often (the way we do)...but I see hope, honesty, pride and a tangible future. You can feel what it aspires to be, you feel it as much as the full force of the daily humidity. They will be seen and heard, and for all the right reasons. I think we Filipinos cannot connect our dream of what we want the Philippines to be and the stark, ugly reality. But these guys know how and most of the times are willing to pay the steep price of doing so and make tough calls. Who doesn't want good things to happen to their country in their lifetime? It only makes me feel these politicians back home are full of empty words.
-- Being gay here though is a bigger struggle that it is back home. The government does not recognize it in the same ways that other countries are starting to realize that they are part of their own. People who do not seek to corrupt the majority or any such stupid "agenda" but just want to BE and to feel OK to BE. Gay people here do not have the special role they have in the Philippines (or at least Manila) -- where they have influence and a voice.. where.they have a heft in society and an endearment from women. Maybe because the Philippines is a matriarchal society, so gay men aren't a threat (most of the time) but an ally. Here -- with the fragile balance of diversity between religions, race and conservatism -- it lacks a coherence to anything. Socially, it's okay. Hell, here in Fashionista City, no "gay trait" is looked down upon it gets impossible to tell the difference sometimes. Straight Guys hog the mirror in the gym and manscape as equally as their gay peers, buy expensive cosmetics and toiletries, dress to the nines and yet...you can't watch a gay movie commercially (only arthouse or film festivals, with a lot of censorship) or buy a gay-themed book or DVD or come out at work and expect the same respect. So its, "You boys can look gay...just don't do anything or let us hear you talk about it." Is it asking a lot? Is it asking too much? You see, its not so much what the gay people here are deprived off, it's the message it sends out to everyone else.
I guess you can't have everything. I'm not really complaining (it's not as if I lived in the Middle East) but I'm just saying my piece as I don't seem to have the kind of channels I had back home. So see you tomorrow Singapore, let the Safe Gays in.
-- So I took an HIV test -- mandatory actually for applying for permanent residency. It was negative. I was pretty confident that it would be...but still. You know that seed of doubt that makes you think...what if? What if there was that one time? I've played with fire all around the world but I'm careful enough. What if the result was the opposite? I was confident, but I held my breath while I opened the envelope. What if nga? But there you go. Well...this country apparently won't take you in if you do have the virus all in the name of self-preservation. Yet their numbers are climbing. I shake my head at it...really now? Then again I just have to look back at the recent government paranoia about H1N1 and so the reaction is predictable. (In other news, I also have no tuberculosis.)
-- Tomorrow I take the last steps to get my Permanent Residency here in Singapore. Sure I make fun of it and its quirks (and oh my effing god the Singlish), but the truth is I admire it. Yes it's controlled and paranoid and self-important. It also almost does not poke fun at itself too often (the way we do)...but I see hope, honesty, pride and a tangible future. You can feel what it aspires to be, you feel it as much as the full force of the daily humidity. They will be seen and heard, and for all the right reasons. I think we Filipinos cannot connect our dream of what we want the Philippines to be and the stark, ugly reality. But these guys know how and most of the times are willing to pay the steep price of doing so and make tough calls. Who doesn't want good things to happen to their country in their lifetime? It only makes me feel these politicians back home are full of empty words.
-- Being gay here though is a bigger struggle that it is back home. The government does not recognize it in the same ways that other countries are starting to realize that they are part of their own. People who do not seek to corrupt the majority or any such stupid "agenda" but just want to BE and to feel OK to BE. Gay people here do not have the special role they have in the Philippines (or at least Manila) -- where they have influence and a voice.. where.they have a heft in society and an endearment from women. Maybe because the Philippines is a matriarchal society, so gay men aren't a threat (most of the time) but an ally. Here -- with the fragile balance of diversity between religions, race and conservatism -- it lacks a coherence to anything. Socially, it's okay. Hell, here in Fashionista City, no "gay trait" is looked down upon it gets impossible to tell the difference sometimes. Straight Guys hog the mirror in the gym and manscape as equally as their gay peers, buy expensive cosmetics and toiletries, dress to the nines and yet...you can't watch a gay movie commercially (only arthouse or film festivals, with a lot of censorship) or buy a gay-themed book or DVD or come out at work and expect the same respect. So its, "You boys can look gay...just don't do anything or let us hear you talk about it." Is it asking a lot? Is it asking too much? You see, its not so much what the gay people here are deprived off, it's the message it sends out to everyone else.
I guess you can't have everything. I'm not really complaining (it's not as if I lived in the Middle East) but I'm just saying my piece as I don't seem to have the kind of channels I had back home. So see you tomorrow Singapore, let the Safe Gays in.