Klaus Doring

I must confess, that I am an admirer of Jose Rizal since long time. I learned a lot of him during my time in Berlin together with my mentor Father Gene Bacareza.

One of the German scholars and scientists whom Rizal befriended was Dr. Alexander Schadenberg, who became his very personal friend. Schadenberg  took great interest in Rizal and even made him the recipient of all his writings (as quoted from Otto Scherer, “Alexander Schadenberg, His Life and Work in the Philippines,” The Philippine Journal of Science, 1928, p. 453).

Another scientist friend of Rizal was Dr. Adolf Meyer, the director of the Royal Ethnographical Museum in Dresden/Germany. It was with Meyer and Blumentritt that Rizal discussed the Chao Jua-Account of Manila in the middle of the 13th century in 1887 in Dresden. The manuscript had been translated by Dr.Friedrich Hirth, an expert, who had worked on it since 1885. Through a letter of Blumentritt, Rizal was introduced to Feodor Jagor, wh invited heim to a meeting of Berlin’s Ethnographical Society. in the said conference, Rizal meet Dr. Rudolf Virchow ,an early German pathologist and ethnologist, as you could read in one of my earlier parts of this serial.

Why Rizal chose to study in Heidelberg, instead of Berlin (or even Hamburg or Munich) seemed to find no definite answer.

(To be continued!)

Discussions about Philippine tourism, democracy and the image of this wonderful country are again heating up. For me, it’s not new. As I stated in one comment of Bob’s write ups: I remember all those things already from the 1980s and 1990s. And how was Bob’s very true answer: “We might not see any changes during our lifetime!” Maybe…
A mistaken belief accompanies each and every one of us daily. Incorrect decisions and wrong doings are part of our daily life.

It is almost a ridiculous fact that man wants to know certain truths about mundane things. But really he seems least interested even mundane truths can be read in the daily newspaper for example. There seem to be too much rash judgements, and the readers absorb these and make these their own. What a fatal attraction!

This is sometimes referred to as journalistic mentality wherein accusations are generously made without proof. Evolution started this trend, when scientists stated for example, that man evolved from the apes, without proof. The only proof they had, was the missing link, and I’m not mistaken, it’s still a missing proof until now… .

To look for proofs is a mental activity, which seems to be no longer a common thing nowadays, because it takes time, effort, silence and is too serious to think about it. Yes, I know, also here in this blog… .

Yet in Christian education, thinking right is important. I wouldn’t say that I am a know it all better. I was born and grew up in parish priest house, and I think I learned a lot. For me Philosophy is important in Christian life. It’s much more important then a case of beer to “avoid” all my problems, also as an expat living in the Philippines.

To avoid error in thinking, the rules of right reasoning must be studied and mastered. I deal with Filipinos. Do I know them really?

Thinking is actually an enjoyable activity, but when one is pressured to get a good job for one’s sustenance or earn more and more as an expat without pension yet, then the other mundane become attractive. After all, great thinkers many times do not get (good?) jobs!

Spiritual writers like the British Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) noticed that mankind had stopped thinking even two centuries ag. That was during his age. Man, probably stop thinking even earlier. he has ceased many times to search for the truth. It’s easier to listen to gossip and naive statements and believe them. What a sign of weak minds.

Too often we are blind to the truth and as a consequence we easily believe lies. To believe in the truth one has to think, to believe in lies we only have to like them. Too bad, if people always like to close their eyes and ears especially while experiencing the delusion of error.

You remember my write up from January 16, 2008? Yesterday we have been informed inform, that the City Government of Davao  will start  charging a garbage collection fee from next month on.  The calculation is not yet very sure. (!).  The idea is to charge  “per squaremeter living area of the building”. Means to say: our house measures 200 squaremeters, and we will be charged about 60 Pesos monthly - no matter, how many people are living in our house. By the way, we are three…

Mmh, I am afraid, that this again one of the “non-well-cooked meals”. Let’s wait and see…

I think it would be very interesting for all readers to share “garbage stories and/or collection fees” from other parts of this wonderful country named Philippines.

“The dawn is not far. Spain opens the east for her beloved Philippines, and times are changing, and I am positive that more are being done than we imagine.” - Dr. Jose Rizal, Philippines.

To be honest, I really got surprised at the first time to learn and know everything about Jose Rizal and his relations to Germany. We can subscribe Rizal as Initiator of Philippine-German Cultural Relations.

After considering the diplomatic exchange of the British and the Spanish government inManila, we now turn to individual Filinos, who established a cultural link between Germany and the Philippines.

One of the first Filipinos who admired the Germans in the Philippines and abroad was indeed Jose Rizal, the Philippines’ national hero. More than anybody else, it was he, who “initiated the cultural relations between the Philippines and Germany and the German-speaking scholars, as Dr. Cecilio Lopez stressed in “Rizal and the Beginning of German-Philippine Cultural Relations” (”The Joint Enterprise”, Manila, Rizal Publishing House, p. 30).

(To be continued!)

I will never forget my first column in a Mindanao daily in January 2003 about loneliness or better explained as solitariness. While being a columnist of “Tinig ng Bayan” (The Voice of the Nation) at the end of the 1980s I remember Cristina Lising-Geronga, during that time Taiwan coordinator for that magazine for Filipinos abroad.  She expressed innumerable write ups about this topic. Sure, it was a publication for Filipinos abroad. Loneliness, borne by Filipinos abroad while missing their families in the Philippines became a “normal” expression.

During that time time my mentor Professor Dr. Hermogenes E. Bacareza, Chaplain of the Philippine Community in Berlin, started publishing with me “Ang Mabuhay”. Believe me, “loneliness” became one of the main topics. Loneliness or boredom?

How comes that during the last nine years of my permanent stay in the Philippines I met soooo many expats, who are talking about loneliness and/or boredom???

Of course, loneliness can be painful. Well, ask yourself, how you use your time, if you are really alone. Do you simply let time passes without doing  anything at all? Why not use such time productively?

To talk about myself: when everything was done, and we reached the Philippines nine years ago, I decided “to make vacation for one year”! Mmh, you want to know, how long it lasted???

Nobody is perfect. Human relationships, however, can never entirely satisfy all our needs. Friendship with other expats and/OR with my Filipino neighbour might sometimes fail. But let’s learn from each other.

Yeah, and one more thing: reading the bible can be particularly beneficial. The Word of God is “alive and exerts power” and can take our minds off ourselves. Or see it from the other side: Used properly moments alone can help us get recharged mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Being lonely doesn’t need always a case of beer to feel better…!!!

Davao City is also carrying the name Durian City. Durian, the “queen of fruits” - smells like hell and tastes like heaven. Is that really so? The question of the week: “Do you like Durian?” No matter, where you are living in the Philippines, do you enjoy the taste of heaven or don’t you?

How about me? Mmh, I love Durian since the first moment I visited Davao City in 1982. People told me, that if one love Durian, he or she might be back in the Philippines - forever!!!

Meanwhile even the everlasting backwoodsman should have understood, that each and every one of us are our environment deadly enemies. We know it all from our home countries: we experienced a garbage collection fee. Was it a bane for us? No, but those creatures, who act unlawfully by throwing their garbage at any corner of their surroundings are the scourge. I better don’t put it into words, what I feel, if I walk around and see such things even in my village - and even, we have a garbage collection twice a week FOR FREE! We don’t know, how long it will be for free.

Garbage is expensive. As a result many other nations have implemented innumerable unequivocal laws and fees. Public fees are never popular, especially if their true expenditure appears questionable. Waste treatment (plants), disposal, waste composting (questionable in a tropical country!), trashcans, incineration plants or garbage dressing equipments will remain as foreign on a white sheet of paper or as a wonderful but unrhymed and implausible idea in the heads of some environmentalists…

As an expat living in the Philippines I am sure,that a proposed garbage collection fee will never become a burden of my household. And, of course, business establishments should pay appropriate and reasonable fees.

Boon or bane?

It will be a boon, if the proceeds of the garbage collectors will really used to buy compactors or garbage trucks. It will be a boon, if the garbage collector could distribute the people with a regular schedule, and keep the term.

We as expats, but also tourists don’t like garbage at any corner or evil-smelling plastic- and rubber burning heaps.

Boon or bane regarding fees on garbage collections? What DO YOU think, my dear reader?

Permanent readers of this blog may observed my serial “Philippine-German Relations” since a couple of month. I was inspired to write about it because of my mentor Professor Dr. Hermogenes E. Bacareza, former Philippine Chaplain of the Philippine Community in Berlin /Germany. “Father Gene”, born in Maribojoc, Bohol, is an internationally known scholar, author, linguist, lawyer and historian, holding two degrees in Modern European History and Canon Law. He studied at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila (where he is still teaching up to now), Goethe-Institut Inter Naciones in Munich/Germany, at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts/USA, and the Pontificial Greogorian University of Rome, specializing in Ecclesiastical Rotal Jurisprudence with a garde of Summa cum Laude.

He has written several books and published numerous articles in different journals. He stayed in Germany for 15 years. During this time I was able to publish two magazines (in German and English) together with him.

His present book, Philippine-German Relations: A Modern History (1834-2006), deals mainly on the subject of Philippine-German relations. The book is now available in all National Book Stores nationwide. I got the permission to share with you some more aspects of this topic. I can tell you, even you, my dear reader, are not a German, it might me be very interesting for you, because Philippine-German relations always involved also other nations.

The President of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, stated in the foreword: “The close relations between the Philippines and the Federal Republic of Germany have been evident in all aspects, especially in the economic and cultural fields. … I would like to congratulate Father Bacareza for his scholar historical work, which will certainly add more strength to the traditional ties of friendship … and which already found roots even in the life and activities of our great national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal.”

I would be glad, if you, my dear reader, would continue enjoy reading this serial from time to time in my blog. Unfortunately I can only provide you with an English version.

(To be continued!)

We are in conflict with ourselves many times during our life. In our home country or here as expat in the Philippines. Our future gives cause for concern; the past holds us captured, therefore many times we miss the future.

The grief and sorrow asked the hope, “How are you?” The hope answered, “I am a little bit lw and sat today!” The sorrow replied sarcastic, “I hope so!”
Nobody wants really know what might happen after reaching the retirement age. But that’s wrong, especially if you plan to move to another place for good. How old are you now? When do you plan to move to the Philippines? Are you getting already a pension or do you still need to make money here? How? With whom? Can I deal with my here living countrymen? Can I deal with the Filipinos?

“It’s an absolute certainty, that doubts are the main certainty!” stressed already the German author and dramatist Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956).

Our way to an honorable and respectful age can be fulfilled also here in the Philippines. Besides many technical informations (LiP guides you a lot!), I always love also to give some “philosophical helps”. Be sure, they work, especially if you are still looking for the middle path in living together with friends, family and business partners here in the Philippines:

- once in a while being able to say “no”,

- deleting inferior and defeatist feelings,

- admitting, that we can’t do everything in one single day,

- being no longer afraid about other people and their comments,

- accepting the “silence” of people, even expecting their support for a reply,

- still being accepted even terrible tired,

- being allowed to make mistakes,

- being allowed to remain sensetive,

- being excused, even without having an intelligent reply.

Some things may also work in our home countries. Not all. Here in the Philippines, I experienced all these ideas with a big success.

Hopefully you and I may always have enough understanding people with us to accompany us during this voyage…

One thing Germans and Filipinos have very much in common: they love music and dance. Regarding music I was many times amazed being on air with my radio show “Classics at Night” for more then three years. The feedback of Filipino listeners between 12 (!) and 79 (!) was absolutely incredible. Also the knowledge about the Classical Masters such as Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Chopin and many others made me speechless. Hosting that show has been always a great pleasure for me.

“The love of music is something that Germans and Filipinos hold in high esteem. There is no language barrier between us because music is a medium that needs no translation,” stressed already before the Philippine Ambassador to the Federal Republic ofGermany, Hon. Mauro Calingo in Helen F. Samson’s “The Bamboo Organ of Las Pinas” (Las Pinas, 1977) pp. 100-101. This is, by the way, the best book so far, which deals with the origin, nature and development of the famous Bamboo Organ of Las Pinas.

The love of music was shown in the repair of this world-famed organ, which is still a major tourist attraction. It was constructed by Father Diego Cera de la Virgin del Carmen, a Recollect Missionary and parish priest of Las Pinas. It took nine years to build and complete the construction (1816-1824). Originally, it had 54 notes and 23 stops. It was composed of 832 bamboo tubes and 121 metal tubes.

(To be continued!)