Lost Stories & Secret Histories

Caught up in my workaday schedule sight often remains unseen.

Trained to see Epifanio De los Santos Avenue (the most congested highway in Manila) as an obstacle course that I must go through on my daily commute, my mind wanders. Witness to its various iterations, from glacial crawl to continental standstill, I dream.

Standing in a packed train, sandwiched between impatience and sweat, I dream of being elsewhere, far from the familiar madding crowd and into another.

Two months ago, the dream took form as a trip to Hong Kong for the annual Art Basel. Suddenly, I’m sharing a 9th floor apartment with two friends and four European travelers. I found the same me from Manila taken out of context and thrown into the sweetest-smelling harbor in Asia.

Traveling is like a reset button for wonder. The brain sizzles as it tries to incorporate itself in the prevailing dynamic. It’s like being thrown in the middle of an improv act already in progress. I blink at the unfamiliar sky; even the sun is in an unusual angle from the equatorial star that cycles above the archipelago from where I came.

Giddy at the notion of riding a train in an island across the South China Sea, I explored the city. It was three days of being aswirl in the labyrinthine subway system, besieged by the colorful mosaic of tiles and people. Trains never failing, twains forever meeting in a multitude of combinations, one minute you’re descending from business-minded Central and then finding yourself amazed to emerge amidst the street food on Temple Street the next.

On the train to Sham Shui Po, I wept. I wasn’t sad. Somehow my tear ducts lost control. Surprised that it happened then and not during the moments when I was confronted by works of art older than I was, bombarded by colors artfully curated and brought together in a 40,000 square-meter exhibition space.

The following morning, I found myself on the same train in Manila. Only then did I realize what the tears were for: it cleansed my eyes and gave me the capacity to gain meaning from the commonplace. Manila is not lesser nor greater than Hong Kong, both are powered by the same sun angle notwithstanding. Both with train lines running like rivers that open up to cultural tributaries.

In the end, not only did I discover the frenetic energy of Hong Kong, it allowed me to rediscover Manila.

Now, I see EDSA as a 23-kilometer long sentient metal snake: an art installation for the sun.

Uncanny that Epifanio is Spanish for epiphany.