Funereal filipino gospel-grass?

Reporting in from a really excellent day in Manila, much as I never expected to say that. After some trouble finding a hotel in the right neighborhood and price range with a vacant room for the next three nights, I didn’t even head out into town until around 2:30. Things started off badly, getting totally ripped of by a taxi driver to whom I had been particularly nice. He turned on the meter when I asked him to (this is frequently a problem with taxi drivers in the Philippines – they want to ‘cut you a deal’ instead of turning on the meter, and will just start driving while they argue with you), so I wasn’t worrying too much about paying attention. At some point the meter went fairly rapidly from around P65 to P477 without me noticing. When I expressed skepticism about this, he explained that he was a special “hotel taxi”, turned off the meter, and agreed to charge me “only 400”. By way of a reference point, the return trip cost me P120. I considered fighting him on this, considered the fact that we would likely be arguing over the equivalent of $3-4, and thought better of it. As I got out of the car, he pointed to a tourist trap horse-drawn carriage, and warned me not to take them because they were “very expensive” and would “charge me too much”. Hum.

Things were on the up and up from there, however. I spent the whole afternoon in the Intramuros district – which is the old Spanish quarter, or what’s left of it – starting at Fort Santiago, the fortified entrance into Manila from the Pasig River. The fort and walls of Intramuros date from the 1570’s, but oddly, don’t look it. Fort Santiago was the execution place of the nationalist hero Jose Rizal – doctor, novelist, poet, artist, amateur zoologist, Free Mason, and all around good guy, apparently – in 1896 by the colonial Spanish administration. It’s now basically a shrine to his memory with a small and inadequate but surprisingly attractive museum and large gardens.

Inside the museum is a small room where Rizal was locked up in the days preceding his execution. The room itself is not very interesting – a newly plastered boxy space covered in back-lit plaques with inspirational Rizal quotations. Leading off from the room, however, is a very small chapel-type space. I’d heard music in other parts of the museum and assumed it was a recording; it turned out to be people singing from inside this room. I sat on the floor in the execution room for about 30 minutes, trying to figure out what was going on. (Anything to make sure that I move through museums as slowly as is humanly possible!)

It was clearly a religious ceremony or private mass of some sort: there was a priest in full robes standing in front of a small table with candles, and a guy standing next to him ringing a bell at certain moments. I couldn’t see the whole room, but apart from the priest and the bell-ringer, there were about 5 women of various ages visible through the door. They were wearing all white, but it didn’t look like uniforms or ceremonial clothing.

I was torn the whole time about whether or not to take a picture for you all. In the end I decided not to. It was quite visually striking – the room was lit by candles, and full of women in white looking about to burst and casting huge shadows on the 19^th century plaster wall – but the real idea was the music, which I couldn’t get with a picture. More to the point, people usually aren’t crazy about you taking pictures in churches, and I didn’t want to be disrupting or disrespectful.

Most of the ceremony consisted of singing. There were occasional interludes of tuneful chanting or solo singing by the priest – who had a really lovely low tenor voice – which were followed by long responses from the women and the bell-ringer, and whatever other unseen people were in the room. The music itself was very, very strange. Or, not really strange, so much as not what I expected to hear. The closest thing I can put my finger on is some sort of funereal gospel-grass choir. It sounded very Western to my ears, but in an American southern Protestant sort of way. Not Eastern, but also definitely not Catholic of any variety I’ve encountered before. The women sang close-harmony, mostly full-throated, but with an eery, thin soprano descant line over everything. Everything was a capella. The only song I recognized was, bizarrely, Silent Night, and that was the least mournful of the bunch.

They sounded good – good enough that I thought it was a recording when I was in the other room. But they didn’t seem professional. For one thing, I had a strong impression that I was making them feel uncomfortable or self-conscious by sitting and listening. I don’t think that it was intended as a performance. For another, they were wearing a hodge-podge of white t-shirts and skirts, and there was a little pile of sandals and shoes outside the door to the room. Also, they sang like people who were accustomed to singing together, but not as if they were choreographed or practiced. The harmonies revved up rather than landing – there’s actually a musical term for this, I think, but I don’t remember what it is – the way group singing sounds when not everyone shifts notes at the exact same time. I’m not sure how to explain it. They sounded like a bunch of individuals with beautiful voices singing together, rather than a choir. Like a family or group of friends that sings together regularly.

The attitudes of the singers varied significantly. Closest to me were two women in their 60’s who seemed on the verge of tears much of the time. Both looked completely lost in the singing, and one spent most of the ceremony on her knees with her head down and hands clasped. The 20-something woman next to them, on the other hand, yawned regularly between songs.

I scurried away as soon as the music ended, but not too quickly to see about five small children – dressed completely informally, by the way -- come out of the corner and go toward the singing women. Each of children lifted the hands of the older women and touched them to their foreheads, the way kids do here to show respect.

I have no clue what was going on here. A volunteer group singing requiem for Jose Rizal? A private mass? The anniversary of someone’s death? Anyway, I was glad I caught it.

The rest of the afternoon was equally enjoyable, but less eventful. I wandered the Intramuros in the rain and walked along the old ramparts. The neighborhood was pretty much deserted – I ducked under an archway for about 20 minutes at one point to get out of the worst of the downpour, and I saw a grand total of one motorcycle and two bicycles go by the whole time. Aside from the fact that I was very, very overdue for a long walk by myself in the rain (WTF, Colorado), I think that this was really the right way to see the Intramuros anyway. Crumbling stone walls covered in vines look better in the rain.

Around 6pm, I hit the big time jackpot, thanks to the LP as usual. That’s the Lonely Planet for you plebs out there. I will not elaborate, except to say that you will all have to wait to find out what you’re getting for Christmas.

Pictures coming when I get back to CDO, although none of me.