01-31-2026, 10:06 PM
"Do you feel that your education is automatically Eurocentric as a result of your choices? Or is there a plan to broaden your horizons at some point? Does your Filipino background make it any easier to understand the Egyptians, for instance?"
I think that much of Filipino literature is basically Western in character, as we were a Spanish colony from the 1500s to 1898, then an American territory from 1898 to 1946. In high school, we were made to read four major works, though we only directly read one of them. Ibong Adarna, in English The Adarna Bird, is a Tagalog long poem written in the 16th century that we read in heavily paraphrased form; all the characters' names are in Spanish, and the story could easily be understood as one of Perrault's or the Grimms'. Florante at Laura, in English Florante and Laura, is another Tagalog long poem, though it was written late enough that we read the actual poem directly; its very story is set in the Balkan and Italian peninsulas. Noli Me Tangere, Latin for Touch Me Not, and El Filibusterismo, Spanish for The Subversive, were the two great Hugo-esque novels of Jose Rizal; both were written in Spanish, and have been translated into a language most of us Filipinos could actually understand since Rizal first had them published. And then there's the Filipino works I've most enjoyed since, only they're almost always Filipino only in ethnicity, not in language, such that I've here already Showcased bits from those books without having to translate....
So my education, when it comes to literature, has never gone beyond the Eurocentric.
Do I plan on broadening my horizons? I already try and do so with other arts, especially food and music, but I'm content with being just the one kind of expert in literature. Food is very easy to get into, since one has to eat multiple times a day; music, one can listen to music intently while doing something else; but literature? It's a non-necessity that demands all of one's attention. I assume people who claim to be experts in both the Western and Eastern Canons either have a superficial understanding of both, or they have no other interests xD.
I think that much of Filipino literature is basically Western in character, as we were a Spanish colony from the 1500s to 1898, then an American territory from 1898 to 1946. In high school, we were made to read four major works, though we only directly read one of them. Ibong Adarna, in English The Adarna Bird, is a Tagalog long poem written in the 16th century that we read in heavily paraphrased form; all the characters' names are in Spanish, and the story could easily be understood as one of Perrault's or the Grimms'. Florante at Laura, in English Florante and Laura, is another Tagalog long poem, though it was written late enough that we read the actual poem directly; its very story is set in the Balkan and Italian peninsulas. Noli Me Tangere, Latin for Touch Me Not, and El Filibusterismo, Spanish for The Subversive, were the two great Hugo-esque novels of Jose Rizal; both were written in Spanish, and have been translated into a language most of us Filipinos could actually understand since Rizal first had them published. And then there's the Filipino works I've most enjoyed since, only they're almost always Filipino only in ethnicity, not in language, such that I've here already Showcased bits from those books without having to translate....
So my education, when it comes to literature, has never gone beyond the Eurocentric.
Do I plan on broadening my horizons? I already try and do so with other arts, especially food and music, but I'm content with being just the one kind of expert in literature. Food is very easy to get into, since one has to eat multiple times a day; music, one can listen to music intently while doing something else; but literature? It's a non-necessity that demands all of one's attention. I assume people who claim to be experts in both the Western and Eastern Canons either have a superficial understanding of both, or they have no other interests xD.