Enough Reason for A Filipino Smile

 

Comparative Demographic Indicators for Selected Countries

Note that countries with a negative population growth, viz, Japan, Germany and Poland are countries traditionally hostile to assimilation of foreigners. France's positive growth can be attributed to a sizeable Muslim population who are traditionally prolific procreators.

Kudos to the Filipina for her fertility rate which would make my mother proud, although she managed, for the record close to three times the statistical average. If this does not give a smile to any Filipino male, nothing will.

Philippines
Demographic Indicators	2010	1995	2005	2015	2025
Population
Midyear population (in thousands)	99,900	72,597	90,436	109,616	128,921
Growth rate (percent)	1.9	2.4	2.0	1.8	1.5
Fertility
Total fertility rate (births per woman)	3.2	3.9	3.5	3.0	2.7
Crude birth rate (per 1,000 population)	26	31	27	24	21
Births (in thousands)	2,565	2,215	2,486	2,618	2,684
Mortality
Life expectancy at birth (years)	71	67	70	73	75

 

Japan
Demographic Indicators	2010	1995	2005	2015	2025
Population
Midyear population (in thousands)	126,804	125,341	127,537	124,719	117,816
Growth rate (percent)	-0.2	0.2	0.0	-0.4	-0.7
Fertility
Total fertility rate (births per woman)	1.2	1.4	1.3	1.3	1.4
Crude birth rate (per 1,000 population)	7	10	8	7	7
Births (in thousands)	940	1,207	1,083	864	799
Mortality
Life expectancy at birth (years)	82	80	82	83	83

 

United States
Demographic Indicators	2010	1995	2005	2015	2025
Population
Midyear population (in thousands)	310,233	266,278	295,753	325,540	357,452
Growth rate (percent)	1.0	(NA)	0.9	1.0	0.9
Fertility
Total fertility rate (births per woman)	2.1	(NA)	(NA)	2.1	2.1
Crude birth rate (per 1,000 population)	14	(NA)	14	14	13
Births (in thousands)	4,291	(NA)	4,138	4,470	4,726
Mortality
Life expectancy at birth (years)	78	(NA)	(NA)	79	80

 

Poland
Demographic Indicators	2010	1995	2005	2015	2025
Population
Midyear population (in thousands)	38,464	38,601	38,558	38,302	37,350
Growth rate (percent)	-0.1	0.1	-0.1	-0.1	-0.4
Fertility
Total fertility rate (births per woman)	1.3	1.6	1.2	1.3	1.4
Crude birth rate (per 1,000 population)	10	11	10	10	8
Births (in thousands)	386	433	375	370	300
Mortality
Life expectancy at birth (years)	76	72	75	77	79

 

France
Demographic Indicators	2010	1995	2005	2015	2025
Population
Midyear population (in thousands)	64,768	59,712	62,912	66,301	68,482
Growth rate (percent)	0.5	0.4	0.6	0.4	0.2
Fertility
Total fertility rate (births per woman)	2.0	1.7	1.9	1.9	1.9
Crude birth rate (per 1,000 population)	12	13	13	12	11
Births (in thousands)	805	763	807	783	751
Mortality
Life expectancy at birth (years)	81	78	80	82	82

 

Switzerland
Demographic Indicators	2010	1995	2005	2015	2025
Population
Midyear population (in thousands)	7,623	7,157	7,489	7,698	7,774
Growth rate (percent)	0.2	0.5	0.5	0.2	0.0
Fertility
Total fertility rate (births per woman)	1.5	1.5	1.4	1.5	1.5
Crude birth rate (per 1,000 population)	10	11	10	9	9
Births (in thousands)	73	82	73	73	72
Mortality
Life expectancy at birth (years)	81	78	80	81	82

 

China
Demographic Indicators	2010	1995	2005	2015	2025
Population
Midyear population (in thousands)	1,330,141	1,216,378	1,297,765	1,361,513	1,394,639
Growth rate (percent)	0.5	1.0	0.5	0.4	0.0
Fertility
Total fertility rate (births per woman)	1.5	1.8	1.5	1.6	1.6
Crude birth rate (per 1,000 population)	12	17	12	12	10
Births (in thousands)	16,188	20,849	15,249	16,406	13,444
Mortality
Life expectancy at birth (years)	75	69	74	75	77

 

Sweden
Demographic Indicators	2010	1995	2005	2015	2025
Population
Midyear population (in thousands)	9,074	8,878	9,002	9,153	9,316
Growth rate (percent)	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.1
Fertility
Total fertility rate (births per woman)	1.7	1.7	1.7	1.7	1.7
Crude birth rate (per 1,000 population)	10	12	10	11	10
Births (in thousands)	92	103	93	96	96
Mortality
Life expectancy at birth (years)	81	79	80	81	82

 

Germany
Demographic Indicators	2010	1995	2005	2015	2025
Population
Midyear population (in thousands)	82,283	81,654	82,431	81,946	80,637
Growth rate (percent)	-0.1	0.3	-0.0	-0.1	-0.2
Fertility
Total fertility rate (births per woman)	1.4	1.2	1.4	1.5	1.5
Crude birth rate (per 1,000 population)	8	9	8	8	8
Births (in thousands)	676	765	687	687	664
Mortality
Life expectancy at birth (years)	79	76	79	80	81

Tragedy for Little Johnny

The following piece came to my inbox unsolicited, like so many promotional materials. Whoever is the originator of the piece, I applaud him/her for the subtle sense of humor and the audacity for circulating it. Rather than forwarding it in the manner of many "chain" letters which tends to be unwieldy more often than not, I decided to post it here in an attempt to augment its circulation. Have fun and enjoy the ride. Feel free to leave a comment if you must.

 

Third Grader Li'l Johnny Meets Barack

Barack Obama was visiting a primary school and he visited one of the classes. They were in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings. The teacher asked the President if he would like to lead the discussion on the word "tragedy."

So our illustrious President started by asking the class for an example of a "tragedy."

One little boy stood up and offered: "If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a tractor runs over him and kills him, that would be a tragedy."

"No," said Obama, "that would be an accident."

A little girl raised her hand and volunteered: "If a school bus carrying 50 children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a tragedy."

"I'm afraid not," explained Obama. "That's what we would call a great loss."

The room went silent. No other child volunteered. Obama searched the room: "Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?

Finally, at the back of the room, Little Johnny raised his hand. In a quiet voice he said: "If the plane carrying you and Mrs. Obama was struck by a 'friendly fire' missile and blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy."

"Fantastic!" exclaimed Obama. "That's right. And can you tell me why that would be a tragedy"?

"Well," says Johnny, "It has to be a tragedy, because it sure as hell wouldn't be a great loss . . . and you can bet your ass it's probably not an accident either."

OF LOVE SUSTAINED

OF LOVE SUSTAINED [New York City, 04/25/81]

(To Nancy in a Delayed Greyhound Bus)

(XIV)

How sluggish do the minutes trickle by!

Why, every moment seems to hesitate

Adjourn its reckless sojourn and deny

That next succeeding moments consummate

The trivial glory of their precious prime!

Yet boredom would not even dare impose

Its wrathful claim on unapportioned time;

Nor patience need recruit and hint propose

On the clock's chore to venture intervene

And hasten your arrival's joy proclaim

No floodgates can love's rapture's flood restrain

When you in treasured nearness grace my dream:

That you will come is all I need to know;

And knowing thus makes waiting pleasure true!!!

On "The Storm"

To Jacqui [On "The Storm"] (09/01/80:)

1.     [1]                         
   

You, who with stroke of genius can reveal

That spangle of existence 'neath the veil

And tangle of confusion which enfold

The human understanding of the Well

Of Life through generations from of old,

Would you with lead and canvass yet unfold

The secret that you see beyond "The Storm"

So wretched mortals may with love behold

Both truth and beauty in more lucid form?

Or does it lie beyond the visual norm

Of revelation that needs genius show

Why love is in itself both calm and storm:

And Life but luster in its afterglow . . .

Too strong to waive, too flimsy to pursue?

 

(II)            [2]                        

Through corridors of wicked circumstance

With cross I wandered and stole a glance

Of your sublime creation, and, in me,

The blessings of that momentary chance

As moment of condensed eternity

Burst forth like movement in a symphony

Aspiring to the highest notes transcend

Before it consummates the melody . . .

Perflext the least of what the notes portend,

Not heeding the beginning nor the end,

To inspiration did my cross transform!

Oh! Bliss from pain! Need I yet comprehend:

What magic did your work of art perform,

What pow'r bestowed in your "The Storm"?

1.                         
   

If contemplation can perforce impart

An answer: 'tis the artist not the art

Who fills my being, and with keen insight

Hope subtly kindles in my aching heart.

True, unbeknownst, yet capture me quite

Like force of dawn comes to displace the night;

A force which proves with power absolute

The wrongs to right, vanquish with mean and might

The fear which doubts myself to sin impute –

The fatal weakness that can bring to naught

The strength, which is the mind's heritage.

If from "The Storm" respite vainly sought,

Then love reduced to futile escapades

Till lost in pain of selfdestructive rage!

 

(IV)            [4]                         

It is with thanks that I indulgence pray

Of you to take these words not with dismay;

Though ourselves strangers we both find

Each other, and forever we may be,

The fait accompli that you touched my mind

In ways unique and apprehensionblind

Ignites a flame of wild obsession bred

To brave the tide that fate and time entwined,

The flood to take on from the fountainhead

And not just drink of your canvassinlead;

Unworried on the wherefores, nor ask how

To paint a picture, you may deem proceed . . .

The Tide is you, the moment may be now!

This Storm in me is sin to disavow!

[* * *]

Tales of my Grandmother

Nostalgic Remembrance of Grandma Simpron-Asumen

At the outset I express my deepest apologies to my venerable ancestors if by writing about them I, ipso facto, violate one of the hallowed axioms of Asumen-hood. Namely, common decency demands that the family laundry be kept under wraps inside the family closet. It just so happens that I don't find anything disgraceful in what I have written so far and what I intend to write about henceforth.

Should any member of the clan find it offensive or hurtful that I delve into the history of the clan which might be deemed most private, I plead guilty. If there be any such parties, to them, I also apologize. In my defense, let me invoke the insightful inklings of Thomas Gray (1716-71), thus:

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

If you looked up "obstinacy" in any picture dictionary, any descendant of my grandmother's should find her picture as the definition of the concept. She was the quintessential meaning of the word. It is precisely for this reason that her story demands to be told. Her descendants can learn and be proud of her, even of those quirks which arguably may be construed as character flaws. She purportedly acquired, after all, the reputation of being the meanest lady in the township.

So if you carry some of her DNA signatures in your genes, it can only help to be somewhat aware of what you might have inherited. It certainly should serve to dispose of some of those bad hair days which may happen upon you every once in a while. Keep in mind, obstinacy is deplorable only to the extent that you are wittingly clinging to an attitude with the full knowledge that you are in the wrong.

A most prominent feature of the house that grandpa and grandma occupied in my earliest recollection of childhood was the imposing bushes of lemon grass surrounding the house by nearly three-quarters of the perimeter. It was a commonly held belief that lemon grass repelled the lethal poisonous variety of tropical snakes. Nanay Orin (short for Florentina), as we called grandma Asumen, tended her lemon grass with the pride and preening satisfaction that an English aristocrat accorded the roses in the ancestral garden.

Bear in mind that then there was no market value for lemon grass. In a farming/fishing community every household was expected to have at least a bush of it in the yard. Nevertheless, grandma had the well substantiated reputation of not parting with a single stalk of lemon grass without giving the recipient a lengthy lecture on the virtues of planting your own.

Consequently she always gave away cuttings which included the roots with the admonition to plant the roots before cooking the succulent stalks because she could not tolerate any body asking for handouts a second time around. So a demure neighbor would very well suffer not having lemon grass in the supper stew than endure grandma's notorious lectures.

Where I spent my earliest childhood, the proximity of a neighbor was reckoned in terms of number of hills and dales away, or so many bends of the meandering nearby creek away. The measure of whether or not you were a neighbor was how well you were reached by the sound of the blown tambuli, the traditional means of calling the attention of neighbors. The message was transmitted by a pre-established pattern of long and short notes, some primitive macro Morse code of sorts.

As a pres-school little boy I only learned the pattern for alarm as in summons for help and for jubilee as when there was an unexpected bounty to share, e.g., when you had a bountiful catch for the day, fishing-wise. Each household's tambuli, made from either a water buffalo horn or the shell of a giant conch (as was my grandfather's), had a signature sound so there was no mistaking who was sending the message.

Our house was located two valleys bookending a longish diamond back ridge away from grandma's house. Their tambuli was faintly but unmistakably audible from our house. I always treasured the afternoons when I could spend in their house for one excuse or another, under the pampering tolerant watch of my grandfather.

To begin with, Nanay Orin was the sweetest little old lady a little boy could ever hope to have for a grandmother. She had the habit of taking afternoon naps, probably a relic of the Spanish siesta. While she was taking a nap, grandpa used to help me steal from her stash of chocolate tablets, i.e., tablea, usually kept in a basket suspended to the rafters. Grandma, on discovering the mischief, would grandly announce that there was a rat infestation problem in the household because no matter how she safeguarded her stash of tablea, she still would be missing a few.

Even from a little boy's perspective, grandma was definitely diminutive in stature. She was an accomplished midwife without the benefit of formal training. All three of her children, were very skilled at giving a massage, particularly the anma variety. I am the fifth of eight siblings. All of us were delivered at home with the sole assistance of a midwife. I was the last one to have been delivered with grandma as the attending midwife. The rest of my siblings were delivered by Aunt Isabel (Nanay Abeng) as the midwife.

This was not only because grandma was too advanced in age to adequately do the job. My younger sister, sixth in the order, ended up being officially named Turtlelita. That was because when mother was pregnant with her, my parents were not in good terms with grandma. Grandma generated the rumor in town that she had put the curse on mother's pregnancy and that mother was pregnant not with a human fetus but with a turtle.

In defiance, when my sister was born, father named her Turtlelita. Her first grade school teacher took pity on her and she just decided to change the name to Tortellita. Much later on, somebody pointed out that it sounded like the diminutive for fried eggs, tortella. I think when she got older she just decided to drop the pseudo-prefex and became just plain Lita.

I can't exactly recall what triggered the quarrel between my parents and grandmother. I do recall that during that time grandpa was still on speaking terms with my parents. This led to the well held consensus that it simply was an instance of grandma's mean streak. On hindsight, I consider it a simple instance of the proverbial conflict between female in-laws, well documented since biblical antiquity.

So there you have it. These are selective tidbits of what is readily retrievable from my bank of selective memory. Feel free to pick and choose, if you can, which personal trait to inherit. As for myself, I deem it a fitting tribute to her memory by altering the third person plural pronouns to third person singular and quote a stanza from Thomas Gray, thus:

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Her sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
She kept the noiseless tenour of her way.

 

 

 

A Posteriori

* * * A P O S T E R I O R I * * *

(After Seeing You but Once NYC/12/28/80)

(V)                 [1]                         

If sweet suspicion but sustain

The chance which all suspicions breed

Suspecting truth, would truth remain

That unsuspected dormant seed

Whence bloom those dreams we seldom dare

For fear that but frustration prove

The daring fruit that dreamers fear

When dreams appear to be of love

And love bedeemed illimmature

By matured silence venture speak

May unbespoken long endure

Injured to heartbreak give and take:

Silence is for the faint at heart

As daring speech is Virtue's art!

 

(VI)            [2]

Let askance dwell ere you with contempt fling

Into some rage that may perdition bode

Of our acquintance in its early spring

Which rapturepregnant, threatens to explode

Of passions akin to a summer storm;

Try selfcomposure but in vain contain

The havoc which, you, unbeknownst, perform

Beyond what prose may venture to explain

To this, my poor and unsuspecting soul.

Thou, tide legend of Shakespearean fame

Which in affairs of men the flood control,

Oh how! and why you set myself aflame?

Sweet Angel born of living poetry,

Grant me the right to sing thee night and day!

 

(01/04/81: After Seeing You Home)

(VII)             [3]                     

Live courage by sweet mem'ry of a kiss

With nonchalance to me you hastened throw

So made courageous boldly dreams cherish

And hope the memory will chance renew

Ere burden of your answer negative

Myself annihilate beyond redeem

And languish in the poignant thought as grieve

As liking you be but an empty dream.

If your kiss were but protocolimposed

Let selfdeception Purgatory be

Regrets bereckoned most deserving cost

When sin is but default's own legacy!

I'd rather grab the harvest of a sin

Than wonder of: If but, what might have been!

 

(VIII)            [4]

Hence contemplation boldly will proceed

More questions pose, to thenceforth answers seek

For questions are to conscience healthy bread

To nourish on, as hubris feeds on risk.

Should I be rest content with your first "No"

And to the verdict of harsh fate resign

Myself would be my most dangerous foe

And reason would to wretched farce consign.

Should I at all the path of danger brave,

The consequence to face sans bitter tears,

Let forfeiture not be that path conceive

Else all my days be litany of fears.

Virtue misplac'd there seems in arrogance

Misplacing virtue's reason's temperance!

 

(03/04/81: On Your Smoking)

(IX)        [5]

Oh yes, that I am burning so within

Although unlike the cigarettes you take

With hesitation of a conscious sin

(Before commission its repentance seek)

Should be no secret; least of all to you,

Who set this heart aglow, should I disguise

The hunger for your touch which you construe

As tendency to preach and moralize!

If know you should, sure, should I truth reveal

And misconstruance henceforth not admit

Even the echo of my envious tale:

That but I tip holding your cigarette

So fire within me can your lips devour,

For cigarettes you shall crave nevermore!!!

 

(03/11/81: Beyond A Title)

(X) [6]

If but I can love you a little less

Than I have loved you since and love you now,

To such proportion would perhaps some peace

Or stolen comfort settled thoughts allow

Some more resourceful means with more success,

Uncharted avenues venture explore,

Unearth those as yet undiscovered ways

Or unimagined Gods' power implore

To brave the door of favor to your grace.

And yet, Alas! Each day I love you more!

Behooved beholden be of your caprice

As billows beating on the passive shore:

Though loving you meseems the greater need,

Of you beloved be, the cause I plead!!!