Author: renejnavarro

January 12, 2014, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

Dear Friends,

I arrived here in Bali from Manila very early morning of January 4. I mean at 2 am. After Immigration, baggage claim and customs, it was 3 am and by the time I got home it was 4.

The training started the next day. A long introductory meditation by David Verdesi on samsara, emptiness, spontaneity, taboos and the Self. You can read about him in my website in the essay “Thunder Path in Huangshan.” He is a phenomenal teacher and a great friend.

The seminar finishes on January 16. I am scheduled to leave on the 18th. But I thought of staying longer, perhaps until the end of the month. I am supposed to teach seminars sponsored by INAM Philippines again. No date has been set yet although I have been thinking of February 8, 9 and 10. One day for Chi Nei Tsang Internal organs review, one day for Tai chi review and one day of qigong empowerment for the INAM acupuncture staff. These are preliminary and introductory seminars. We will have more and longer seminars in August and September involving the visually impaired, battered/stressed women, homeless “street kids,” Tai chi chuan practitioners, and therapists, acupuncturists and healers.

We will send out requests for donations in a month or two to support these seminars. How and where to house the participants, feed them, and bring them to the venue are questions INAM is addressing right now.

The first week of David’s seminar is done and now we’re starting the second phase: a training with mirrors (one for each of us) and candles, with David Verdesi starting the session with chanting and invocation with a ritual phurba in the darkness. It was quite hypnotic and mystical and shamanic.

To me, the training is a great departure from earlier seminars that, more or less, dealt with the development of power. Well, they had aspects of self-cultivation and spirituality, but they were essentially focused on
developing abilities. This time around David is zeroing in on consciousness and the Self and freeing the Mind from cultural, moral and religious restraints, many of them self-inflicted, and taboos.

There is also something else that’s different in the seminars. David is not charging tuition. Payment is on a voluntary basis. He is also taking in students as long a they are interested to learn. There is apparently no prior screening. A woman from Australia whom we met at a restaurant joined the group. An Italian woman who teaches yoga and Pilates joined us, too.

I have just bought a copy of and seen the Emmy Award-winning “The Ring of Fire” DVDs of Laurence and Lorne Blair. If there’s anything as a must-see travelogue, this is it. The narrative is moving and touching, it is difficult to find one like it. The brothers brought to the world the unbelievable Magus of Java film clip, now a part of youtube.com and seen by thousands of viewers. The Ring of Fire they refer to includes countries and places that are volcanic – from Hawaii to Indonesia, Japan to my country the Philippines. There are several active volcanoes on the island where I lived for 30 years – Mayon, Pinatubo and Taal. Mayon is one of the most beautiful volcanoes in the world. Taal is probably the most picturesque of the three: it is a lake within a volcano within a lake within a volcano. You can see some of the photos in my website blog, too. Pinatubo was arguably the most destructive: its lahar buried towns (like my hometown Bamban) around a 100-mile perimeter and belched ashes into the atmosphere that drifted as far as California to the west. It is now a place of desolation, its inferno somehow, in the meantime, tamed to sulphuric landscape.

What is it in Bali that draws seekers and pilgrims (and bums, tourists, and explorers) to her? Down the street and in temples (5000 according to one statistic), you’ll see tourists with their flip-flops, New Age clothes, pendants and tattoos along with pilgrims in native garb. No, I did not see any notices of channeling or promises of ascension and rapture anywhere. There are yoga studios, vegie and detox retreats, Tai chi training and massage centers, Tarot cards and astrology readers. There is the Falun Gong advert inviting everybody to a free lesson.

During my first visit here, I had just come from Java where I saw the famous Magus, John Chang. I had first read about him in a book “The Magus of Java — the Training of a Taoist Immortal” by Kostas Danaos when I was teaching in Amsterdam about 13 years ago. The author said that the Magus could burn paper, move objects, emit electricity from his body. Five years later, I was in Istanbul as the guest of David and I heard him talking to somebody on the phone. “Shifu, Shifu,” David was saying. I asked him, “Who is that?” David said, “The Magus.” “I want to see him,” I said.

A year later, in January 2006, David sent me an e-mail. “Come to Java,” it said. I took the next plane. It brought me to Frankfurt, Singapore and finally Indonesia, where I was picked up at the airport by David and Wedha, a friend. The next day David took me to see the Magus. David asked him to do a little demonstration for me. The Magus put up his right arm and said, “Touch me.” I felt this strong, shocking current of electricity. “That’s 5% of my power,” he said. He did a few other demos for me. He also gave me a successful, but painful, treatment for a rotator cuff injury that nothing – acupuncture, herbs, massage, qigong, laser – could correct. Western medicine required surgery, and even that did not guarantee success. You can read about it in the essay “Thunder Path in Huangshan,” in the Writings section of my website. Many readers of my website have asked me, “Where is David? Where is the Magus?” David has a website; he lives in Bali. The Magus is somewhere in Java.

Wedha, the nephew of the Magus, invited me to Bali to meet an old shaman who could transform himself into a monkey. A skeptic, I wanted to see this incredible phenomenon since a friend told me about seeing a shaman change into an eagle right before his eyes. When Wedha called him, he was told the old man was away.
Wedha took me to meet his relatives, a couple, instead. They lived in a huge compound. At the time they were building a library and museum for their antique collection of batik and other Indonesian arts. They were swimming in their pool when we arrived. We were introduced to each other. The man emerged from the water, shook my hand, and said, “Mr. Navarro, it would be an honor to have you stay with us.” I was supposed to stay in a hotel by the beach, but this was a surprisingly generous offer I could not refuse. I stayed with them for a week. They gave me the use of a car and a driver and a house. Wedha was told to sleep in a couch in the library. I said, “He can stay with me.” They’ve invited me to visit a few times but it was not meant to be.

In January 2012 I was here for the second time to train with David. I wrote about it in my website blog. David took me to see an old shaman, 92 at the time. David was initiated into the fold by the shaman himself. David also took me and others to see a Hindu priest of the fire tradition. One day if I can find them, I’ll post photos of myself receiving a fire treatment. It was elaborate but essentially passing a hot burning chisel over my tongue 9 times in one round; 3 rounds were required in one night. A total of 3 nights. It was considered in the lineage as a ritual of purification, healing and cleansing. Seems absurd from a western viewpoint, but in a world of correspondences, it makes sense: the tongue is the opening and extension of the heart. And what else is more cleansing than fire?

Yesterday, David talked about the taboos, many programmed by religion and culture, some self-imposed, attachments that limit the freedom of the Self to grow and explore. There are people and institutions and morals that try to fit us into a box. What/who is the Self? It’s too long and complicated to summarize here. The essence of it is the Self we or others perceive is often not the real Self. It is just a collection of ideas, memories, experiences. He talked about masters who were basically outcasts, extraordinary people who did not conform.

Last week David took me along to see a couple, healers who have a very interesting history. He brought a Russian whose lumbar spine was shattered from an accident. The man cannot walk, is on wheelchair, has had 3 surgeries and wanted to get healed by the couple. The Balinese healers look like ordinary people. The wife is a devotee of Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy. I have been one myself since the early 1960s when I studied a Buddhist Shaolin Kung-Fu set called “Fairy Child Praying to the Goddess of Mercy” with an old Chinese master. One day Guanyin (“she who hears everything”) visited her and touched her big toe. From that time on she had this “electricity” she could not control. Was it kundalini? Perhaps yin-yang gong? Then 3 years ago, with this energy under control, she began to do healing. Her husband was of course jealous of her abilities. She prayed that Guanyin would grant her husband this “power,” too. Now they are doing healing together. I have seen only a few people like them with this strong current, one of them in Java (The Magus), two or three in China (the hermits of Huangshan) and of course David. The current runs and feels like electricity, but it is not. David said it is like radio waves. Water that was infused with it acquired an element that made it sweet.

I was privileged to receive treatment with this “yin-yang gong,” so called because it is supposed to marry the positive and negative in the dantian/field of pills. The couple also allowed me to observe their work and to assist them with the Russian patient in the next few days.

A tantric master, a friend of David, who spent 15 years in total isolation in the mountains has been invited to join us for a few days to share his healing work. That means not only additional materials but also additional hours. David said we may have to stay up past midnight. I guess that’s going to radically limit our night life. Not that I have one.

David promised to take us to see more healers. And of course the mysterious Coconut Man, the master who one day discovered his “powers” when a coconut fell on his head!

Love and Blessings from Bali,

Rene

Dear Subscriber,

Two seminars are being planned for this year in New Jersey. One is going to be held at the First Presbyterian Church in Alexandria. It will be about Taijiquan DaoRen, the short form based on the movements of the Traditional Yang Family fist form. The other seminar is still being assembled and will be sponsored by the Hunterdon Medical Center. More about this later.

I will be quite busy during my sojourn in my country next year/2014. INAM (Integrative Medicine for Alternative Healthcare), the NGO that sponsored many of my seminars since 1998, is organizing seminars between August 21 and Sept 19, 2014. A short seminar for blind masseurs and masseuses has been scheduled for December 30 and 31 this year during my Christmas visit.

Included in the schedule in 2014 are these subjects:

Chi Nei Tsang internal organs massage
DragonWell Qigong
Xing Shen Zhuang Fa
Zhan Zhuang/Qigong Foundations and Taijiquan DaoRen
8 Extraordinary Vessels
Sword of Protection and Empowerment Qigong
6 Healing Sounds and 3 Breaths
Buddhist and Daoist Qigong

We will work with different groups: “stressed women,” “street kids” who live in shelters, blind bodyworkers, therapists and acupuncturists. Each group will have its own seminar. This will be a big challenge for everybody involved.

The Zhan Zhuang/Qigong foundations – Taijiquan DaoRen and Chi Nei Tsang will be open to the public and those who have taken Taijiquan with me. Get in touch with INAM for details. If you are not from the Philippines, you can still join the public seminars … and pay only the local tuition. There’s nothing extra but you will have to arrange your flights and board and lodging. There are many restaurants, B&Bs, hostels, boarding houses and hotels in the area.

For those who are interested in seeing the Philippines, there are many places you can explore: the famous rice terraces up north, Palawan and its underground river and quartz islands, Bicol and Mayon Volcano. The Philippines has 7,000 islands: you can look up your travel guide and decide which one impresses you.

I have taught many seminars in the Philippines. You can find the flyers in my website.

In the Writings section, there’s an essay, first written 10 years ago, now updated, about the legendary Tai chi chuan master Cheng Man-Ch’ing/Zheng Man Zing and raises the questions: How long did he study with Yang Cheng-Fu whom he claims as his teacher and what did he study with him? It is by no means the last word on the subject. If anybody is privy to materials about it, please step forward. I will be happy to be corrected if you have documentations and evidence that would be relevant to the colloquy. There’s also another essay about what I believe Tai chi chuan is all about. It is my own personal approach to the art as I research its sources and potentials.

Last but not least, I am reprinting my tribute to Grandmaster Johnny F. Chiuten, my first Shaolin master, whose third death anniversary is being observed this coming September. You’ll see it in the Blog along with several photos.

Blessings,

Rene J. Navarro

www.renenavarro.org

I was in the Tao Garden, Doi Saket, Chiangmai, Thailand, attending the International Congress of the Healing Tao last September 2010. Recovering from jet lag, I received the first of many messages in the evening. One was from Ned Nepangue, a friend from Cebu, Philippines, asking me to call Johnny. Then another e-mail from Vic Ramos, a fraternity brother of Johnny’s, came within a few minutes telling me that Johnny, my “old sparring partner,” had passed away. Myla Salanga, his daughter, who lives in California, sent me the same message. So did Jopet Laraya, my martial arts classmate and Johnny’s disciple, from Hongkong.

A few more messages came, confirming Johnny’s death and sending me condolences.

The next few days I walked in a daze. I taught a couple of classes at the conference, one of them a sequence called “Twin Dragons Chasing the Pearl,” from a form – Cross Fist — I learned from Johnny in 1964.

Johnny was my first Shaolin master. He was one of the constants in my life, a great influence on my journey. I met him back in the early 1960s, a great presence in the university campus, a respected member of the Beta Sigma Fraternity. He used to come to my dorm room to teach my fraternity brother, a student of law like me. They would practice right there in the small space beside the bunk beds.

One day, Johnny and I met at the law school cafeteria and sat down at the same table. He asked me why I was not studying with him. I said I did not know that I could. We made an appointment for a lesson right then and there. It was the most important decision I had made at that juncture in my life.

On my first lesson, Johnny told me to stay in a very low horse position when we began. What he did to me for the next 3 hours or so was incredibly graphic — and painful. He kicked me, pushed me, rode on my thighs and back, asked me to walk around, slapped me all over. It was something I had not seen even in the kung-fu movies where the hero was asked to do 100 repetitions of a technique until he was bone-weary. Johnny’s method, presumably transmitted from Grandmaster Lao Kim, was meticulously sadistic in a benevolent way. I mean it was meant for a purpose, and that purpose was to test my patience, endurance and determination, and inculcate in me certain mystical values, and to build me into a warrior. Well, I don’t know if I became a warrior, but it certainly tested my patience. As for the mystical experience, I think I attained that, too, because at a certain point when I was about to collapse, I felt an enormous energy welling up, I saw a different reality, I reached a different level of awareness. I came back the next week and took some more of the same punishment. By that time, the novelty was gone, and I was ready to endure because I knew that to have a view of what it is at the top, you have to climb the mountain, by yourself.

When he graduated with a degree in pharmacy, after shuttling from one course to another to prolong his Kung-Fu studies with Grandmaster Lao Kim in Manila, he went home to the island of Cebu to run the family business. On one of his visits to Manila, he introduced me to Lao shifu, then in his 70s, and asked him to take me as a private student. The old man could not turn him down because Johnny was like his own son. It was a rare opportunity for anybody to be taught as an indoor disciple by Lao Kim, at the time considered to be the patriarch of Chinese Kung-Fu in the secretive world of martial arts in Manila.

Whenever Johnny visited Manila, we would get together to take lessons and have dinner with Lao Kim. Johnny would also show me his new fighting techniques. One time, he stayed in Manila for a month and he and I studied Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan and Pa-Kua Chuan at Hua Eng Athletic Club in Binondo. He learned both 108 solo form and Pa-Kua in just a couple of weeks. When I saw him again, he had added astonishing components to his system: potent jing and trapping. That’s how he was, a serious and dedicated searcher. He studied karate, kundalini yoga, Tetada Kalimasada, he was a black belter in aikido. He was into cross-training and mixed martial arts even before there was a name for them.

In late 1970, I migrated to the US. I studied with Mat Marinas, an arnis de mano/Philippine stickfighting master in Queens, NY. Meantime, Johnny began exploring the different styles of stickfighting (also called escrima) in Cebu. He studied different styles and eventually developed his own system called “Arnis de Cadena Pronus Supinus.”

There were times when yet another foreign delegation would come to see him. Johnny would make them wait on mainland Cebu while he stayed in Bantayan, an island that until recently was accessible only by land transportation and by ferry. I was with him in Bantayan in 2004 when he said how tired he was of the endless challenges he had to face in his life. But in his search he wanted to test himself against the best.

He had had several serious cardiac procedures since the mid-80s, one of them in Texas, and I did not think he should be fighting again and other practitioners should have respected the fact that Johnny’s body was no longer as supple and strong as in the 60’s and 70’s when he used to fight 4 opponents at the same time. Nonetheless, in the prevailing martial arts culture, there was no rest for the master.

Many martial arts practitioners pursued him for his combat expertise and his instructions but he never did divorce martial arts from the energetic and philosophical aspects of self-cultivation. He was always looking for techniques that used the mind and Qi without relying on the physical. He wanted to use Qi to heal himself and others. He was a fount of combat knowledge but he was also a wise man, a very rare combination in the martial world that is inhabited by many violent types and rarely by refinement. He was always respectful of others, even those who were cross and rude. To Johnny, fighting was pursued with the detachment of zen. He never did fight anybody out of anger or resentment or personal issues. In this he was unique in the martial arts world, I believe. After a fight, he usually shared his techniques with his opponent. He had an open and benevolent nature. He had a generosity and wisdom that was beyond the comprehension of the ordinary man. And he was always humble, never denigrating anybody, even those he had defeated in combat. He was a paradox in the martial arts world, gentle, thoughtful, hospitable, fluid. I could have sworn that he was a Taoist sage!

When he passed away on September 10, 2010, I lost a friend, master and guide.

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih

____________________________________

Stories about Johnny:

He told me about his encounter with a famous Filipino fighter who tried to ingratiate himself to him by taking him to places in California when Johnny was there to visit his daughter Myla and her family. Johnny expressed his doubts about the man’s intentions when we saw each other in NY while he was visiting his brother. “I do not know what he wants from me,” he said. When Johnny returned to California, the intention of the man became clear: he wanted a fight. This man was known as somebody who boasted about beating up people apparently to build the legend of his prowess. He also claimed he was a “psychic healer” and bragged about his exploits with women. As Johnny related the episode, this man said:

“Johnny, what posture will you take if I attacked you?”

“You will see if you attack me.”

The man attacked and Johnny pushed him against a wall. Johnny could have inflicted serious injury, but he used the Press technique from Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan that was partly meant to stop an attack in its track. I do not know if that was enough to bring this man back to his senses, he was not hurt but it was a shock and an eye-opener for him. Perhaps he learned a lesson from Johnny, but then again, I do not know. Johnny was terribly disappointed by the episode partly because this man tried to befriend him and abusing Johnny’s trusting nature, tried to exploit it.

This second story happened back in the mid-60s when Johnny was a student in the University of the Philippines. It was late at night and Johnny had just got off the bus from Manila where he had been training with GM Lao Kim. As Johnny was walking home, he encountered a group from a rival fraternity. He was surrounded by about 30 of them. When somebody attacked him, Johnny went into what he called “ground fighting.” In this technique, it was difficult to hit him because he was down there most of the time, kicking and rolling. He managed to escape and inflict some serious damage to the muggers. Later a cop from the campus security knocked on his door and asked him to go to the police precinct. The chief told him that there were complaints that he had attacked and beat up some fratmen. But it was a charge that was impossible to prove because Johnny was alone against a big group. The charge was dropped.

The third story I can authenticate myself. In the 60s we used to spend hours doing nothing but forms and sparring. In 1966, on a Wednesday at about 12 am, it was during the Holy Week, if I remember, we had a memorable match. We had had numerous fights before, at different places. Sometimes we started at 8 o’clock in the morning and we carried the exchanges off and on until 1 in the afternoon. But this was the first time he had resorted to the technique. During a furious exchange, he stabbed my left leg and I fell. A bubble of blood formed instantly. It was one of those moments when life passes in front of your eyes. Johnny showed me how to massage the leg and put the blood back into the vein. Later, the bubble appeared again and grew to the size of a baseball. I went to see Johnny at his house in the campus. He slapped the baseball and spread the blood all over my leg. He made me drink two cups of dit da jow liniment made of 36 herbs. The recipe came from Lao Kim. My leg was black and blue for a few weeks. It was one of the scariest times of my life. Asked about it years later, he replied, “You were going to kill me. I had to defend myself.” I am sure he was exaggerating my abilities — and intention — because during the years we sparred I had never been able to touch him. I have photos to show what Johnny did, one of them I cannot publish because it shows the moment he delivered the thrust of the finger. Footnote: Dr. Guillermo Lengson, vice president of the Karate Federation of the Philippines under Johnny in the 60s, who also studied with Johnny, said of his sparring sessions with Johnny: “Sinagasa ako,” (literally translated as “run over”) referring to the technique of non-stop attack that Johnny had honed to perfection. I take it as a compliment to Johnny that there are martial arts practitioners who have adapted the word “sagasa” to refer to their systems.

For more information about Master Chiuten, go to:
http://www.beta-sigma.org/

There was a short visit to Bamban, the old hometown, at the foothills of the Zambales mountain range. Farmers harvesting rice and a grandchild being held by his lolo.
There was an orchard of mangos, tamarind, guayabano, coconuts, and chesas and several tilapia ponds. Cousins prepared native dishes — bringhi (a village version of paella), dinuguan (blood stew with a lot of garlic and pieces of a pig’s head) and burung asan (fermented fish and rice which is used as a dipping sauce for ampalaya (bitter melon/gourd), okra and talong (eggplant) — and fried tilapia. On another occasion, we were served Philippine snacks — puto, cuchinta and tamales. There was too much to eat everywhere I went and I felt guilty for not being able to discipline myself.

Esperanza del Rosario, the widow of my former minister Philip at the Methodist Church, was the speaker at the Sunday church service in Tarlac. It was our first time to meet after more than 40 years. The gentleman with us was Cesar Graganza, a childhood friend from the old hometown.

In Quezon City, Ed Maranan invited me to the art exhibit of Joly and Jana Benitez, father and daughter, at Erewhon Gallery, in Old Balara. A photo shows one of Jana’s paintings. When we were introduced, she told me that she studied Daoist martial arts in Wudangshan. I wanted to talk to her about it but she was quite busy that night. I looked at her website and found that she lives in Brooklyn, NY and has studied art in many studios, schools and countries. An impressive CV for one so young.

Ed and I were surprised to “encounter” Imelda Marcos in the gallery. She joined Helen Benitez for the photo op.

A photo shows me with the Maranan clan who own the Muang Thai Restaurant having dinner.

A 2-day Zhan Zhuang/Qigong foundations and Tai chi chuan DaoRen seminar sponsored by INAM, the center for integrated medicine that holds regular acupuncture courses, capped my Philippine visit. It was a fund-raising for their indigent project. INAM has organized many of my seminars on Tai chi chuan, Chi Nei Tsang internal organs massage, Qigong/Taoyin, and Microcosmic Orbit Meditation since 1998. Students, many of them working with the community, came from different parts of the country. A pleasant surprise: one time a woman from INAM gave me a massage. I did not recognize her, but I was surprised to receive a CNT manipulation. Photos show Annie Sollestre, who has studied with me for much of a decade, leading the class in the form, me supervising the class, the group posing for a picture after the awarding of certificates of attendance.

Photos from the Philippines: Coron Town

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Photos from the Philippines: Coron

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I was in the Philippines from February 14 to March 7, spending a few days in different places – Tarlac, my hometown, Manila and Coron.

Coron, Palawan, Philippines has become a more visible and popular destination, not only for the well-to-do but also for backpackers. There are a few expensive hotels and many hostels and room rentals. The overhead is manageable. There are also amenities that are free or low-cost.

I heard that Coron is going to be like Boracay in 5 to 10 years – overcrowded, noisy, commercial and expensive, dotted with condos and golf courses and not to forget, the ubiquitous videoke bars. Of which, I should mention that one time I woke up in Estipona, Pura, Tarlac at 2 in the morning I heard a distant voice from the next village singing a popular song … “I write a song” by … I can’t even remember the name of the famous singer. Senior moment, I guess. The thing is that Coron has several Islands, part of the Palawan province complex, including the iconic El Nido. You can visit any one of them, especially in this Year of the Water Snake. Coron Is Water Heaven. True, there will be heavy traffic in one or two islands and you may have to wait to dock your catamaran. But there are other islands to choose from. There is also a hot spring resort many backpacking young foreign couples repair to after 5 in the afternoon. Water temperature: 38 degrees C on the lower level and 42 degrees C on the upper level of the pool. There is an entrance fee in every island – for maintenance and upkeep – of about PhP 100 to 300 (about $2 to $5).

For those who love mythology and its lessons for us in life, we quote from two famous authors who put in historic and symbolical context some of our ancient images.

Mircea Eliade in his book “The Sacred and Profane: The Nature of Religion” has something to say about the waters:

The waters symbolize the sum of virtualities; they are fons et origo, “spring and origin,” the reservoir of all the possibilities of existence; they precede every form and support every creation … This is why the symbolism of the waters implies both death and rebirth. Contact with water always brings a regeneration – on the one hand because dissolution is followed by a new birth, on the other because immersion fertilizes and multiplies the potential of life.

Joseph Campbell in his book “The Power of Myth” says:

The power of life causes the snake to shed its skin, just as the moon sheds its shadow. The serpent sheds its skin to be born again just as the moon sheds its shadow to be born again. They are equivalent symbols. Sometimes the snake is represented as a circle eating its own tail. That’s an image of life. Life sheds one generation after another, to be born again. The serpent represents immortal energy and consciousness engaged in the field of time, constantly throwing off death and being born again. There is something tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that way. And so the serpent carries with it the sense of both fascination and the terror of life.

I was with a medical mission from Pennsylvania, a group of mostly Filipino-American doctors who have done work in India, Uruguay, Thailand and the Philippines. Five years ago, I was the only acupuncturist in the group. I managed to do some treatments because a couple of doctors referred patients to me. This time around, I did not get any patients. When I applied to join the group, I told an organizer that I was an acupuncturist. She told me that I could carry their equipment. So even when a doctor told me that I should be in the hospital to await referrals, I stayed in the hotel and read  and practiced Chinese calligraphy and meditated and did island-hopping one day. It was not the thing I came to do but hey, it was better than carrying luggage. I was told that there were more than 20 tubal ligations in one day. When a priest was told about it, he expressed shock that the procedure was being done in the hospital. Perhaps he had nothing to do with it, but the next day, only 2 or 3 women appeared for the surgery. The Reproductive Health Law was passed only recently in the Philippines. The Roman Catholic Church has been its main and strident opposition over the years. A wag remarked and only half-jokingly that the priests should be required to undergo vasectomy.

I have included photos from the old hometown, my Zhan Zhuang and Tai chi chuan DaoRen seminar and my evening with Palanca Literary Hall of Fame recipient Ed Maranan. Ed and I had a “sighting” of Imelda Marcos at the art exhibit of Joly Benitez and Jana, father and daughter, at the Erewhon Gallery. I knew Joly from the 60s when he worked for senator Helen Benitez (and later Imelda) and I for Senator Lorenzo Tanada, the famous Filipino nationalist and opposition leader. He did not recognize me when I was introduced to him. I did not recognize him either because he had become terribly emaciated. Jana told me that she studied wu-shu/contemporary Chinese martial arts in Wudang. I wanted to talk to her about it but she was too occupied at the time. Later, Ed and I joined a banquet with his family at Muang Thai, owned by Maranans. I can say here that their version of the cuisine is better than the restaurants I tried in Thailand!

Of course there are plenty of shots of Coron where I spent more than a week in idle rustication. There are photos of tamarind fruits and cashews both yellow and red. For those who do not know, cashews are probably the only trees with nuts outside the fruit. The fibrous fruit, usually dipped in salt, is sour and sweet and tangy. It is eaten raw or made into a juice. Coron is a prominent producer of cashew nuts. Aside from the cashew and tamarind, we had mangos and duhat, a black cherry that I have seen only in the Philippines. Perhaps they were transported to the Philippines from Mexico by the Spanish galleons during the Conquista. There were red snappers, clams, crabs, and shrimps for dinner. Fresh coconuts could be ordered anytime. I have no recommendations, but Sophia’s Garden Resort, where we stayed, was impeccable if a bit expensive, its staff were always thoughtful and friendly. There are a few island-hopping facilities offering tours. Ask for Al Linsangan. He is famous on the island. He has good credentials. One of our regrets: when we contracted a different outfit, we were slapped with hidden bills. Be sure to negotiate all the terms before paying because you may be asked to pay for undisclosed expenses.

I’ve featured Rose, our host and guide, who arranged one of our trips. She was a sparkplug. She knew everything and everybody. You have to learn to harness her because she can be very hyper. I’ve also photographed the hotel staff at Asia Grand View Hotel, where we had a few dinners, on our last day on the island.

One of the amusing surprises in Coron: I did not know any of the passengers on our island-hopping tour. While we were lunching at a nipa hut on one of the beaches, Maria formerly from Uruguay now living in Spain asked the young woman across the table, Why are people asking you to pose for pictures with them? The mother answered, She represented the Philippines in the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant in Las Vegas. We were told that she, Janine, won first runner-up. She looked simple, with that quiet, slim and unpretentious beauty of the Filipina from the back country. I did not know she was that important to the public until everybody who heard of my encounter was asking me to show my photos of her. So I had “sightings” of prominent women on this trip: Esperanza del Rosario, the widow of my former minister in the old hometown, whom I had not seen for more than 40 years (she attended my Zhan Zhuang and Tai chi chuan DaoRen seminar); Imelda, the notorious first lady of the dictator Ferdinand, who seems to make a good copy even now; and Janine (sorry I don’t have her last name), Binibining Pilipinas/Miss Philippines., whose morena image appears on several advertising billboards in Manila; and last but not least, Loida Nicolas Lewis, University of the Philippines. college of law contemporary (mid-60s), true friend, New Yorker and fellow anti-Marcos adherent. Loida is  one of the strongest-willed and most generous and honest persons I know.

I would like to thank family and friends for their hospitality and INAM (ATRC), the NGO  that runs a healing and acupuncture center and sponsored many of my seminars since 1998, and the indefatigable Annie Sollestre for organizing the seminar for me.

Ganbei!

Rene

Gallery – Angkor Wat Revisited

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Gallery – Photos from the Philippines

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Gallery – Photos from Croatia and Slovenia

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