The Plot Thickens... Like Dinuguan

bhex and charles have contributed to kyu's reiteration of the question on Philippine speculative fiction, bhex particularly taking the extreme standpoint that it takes a Filipino to know what is Philippine speculative fiction (to bloodily get the gist of her declarations).

To state:

We all know that it’s possible to write a “Filipino speculative story” in English, but you know what? I believe a “Filipino speculative story” that’s written in a Filipino language trumps that.

Moreover, she states:

...I’m loath to attach the label “Filipino fiction” to any story that doesn’t have the Philippines as a central figure, and which doesn’t present the Philippines from the viewpoint of someone who knows this country and its people intimately.

Them's fighting words, I would say. But it's great to see someone drawing a line in a discussion like this. On the other hand, charles takes the opposite side by pointing out:

Being Filipino isn't limited to one factor but to a lot of elements; it's not just about language but our mindset, our religion, our paradigm of the world.

He further elaborates that:

Speculative for me has been about breaking boundaries, testing the limits. It's about telling stories that go out of your comfort zone, and that might mean not using settings, characters, tropes, or even language that is familiar to you. I think via our nature, we'll subconsciously including something Filipino about it whether it's a mentality, a practice, or a world view.

Interesting, no?

Personally, I thought bhex had a point about intimately knowing what being Filipino is about, especially when it mirrored my comments to kyu in his post: "if Tim Pratt does move to RP (or Haruki Murakami or whoever else), the fact is, they won't know what the Philippines is about or being Filipino since they haven't imbibed the values of being a Filipino or staying here."

bhex's example of the Fil-Am writer Jessica Hagedorn (I haven't read any of her stories so I'll reserve judgment) reinforces my budding theory that being Filipino centers on Filipino culture-- its value system. If you don't have the value system of a Filipino, then how can you say you know what a Filipino is and how can you write about it in the first place, right?

Alas, it's the second part of bhex's argument-- about language-- that I have problems with, finding common ground with charles' counterpoint. Moreover, I'd like to add that: Language. Changes. The English of today is different from the English yesterday. Likewise, Filipino is different from Tagalog and the whole hodge-podge of languages and dialects throughout the islands. Plus, there's the time factor. So my thinking is: why limit one's form of communication (writing via stories) to a particular form of language? By limiting the language of its stories, I'm afraid you may be stunting the growth of the national identity and by extension (as I pointed out in my previous post), its mythos.

However, I am somewhat leery about the idea that because a Filipino is writing just any story, the subconscious Filipino will out. It gives me this image of a Filipino djinni (or if you want to get local about it, a tikbalang) rising out of our heads whenever we write and saying, "That elf is Filipino because of his morals! That dragon is Filipino because of stinginess!" We, as writers, don't even know what goes into what we write at times and all of a sudden, we have this prerequisite clause that automatically says what we write is one way or another, Filipino.

In a way, trying to write Philippine speculative fiction is a paradox because speculative fiction is about writing past boundaries-- but trying to write as a Filipino places boundaries to that fiction. Not that such an idea doesn't add up. Like a möbius circle or a wave-particle duality paradox, Philippine fiction can be essentially both Filipino and breaking boundaries. It's possible but it's going to be damn hard.