Asia Postscript

Tokyo-Osaka-Batangas-Manila-Hong Kong in 16 Days

Sometimes it feels so wrong but you know it's the right thing to do.

It was the worst possible time for me to take a trip being in the middle of finishing construction of Casa Montana Alegre and a 16 day absence wouldn't help. Also, major trip details like where to stay in Manila and a flight from there to Hong Kong did not get chosen until the night before I left. There were also too many connections with too many people in too many airports and train stations that I felt a connection was bound to be missed somewhere. How do you plan for that?

But I knew it was a trip I had to take, a real once-in-a-lifer, do it now or never have the opportunity again. With the exception of leaving my laptop at Narita Airport, everything worked out. Eventually even the lost laptop reappeared 10 days later.

This was not a trip about countries and cities. I'd been to Japan and Hong Kong before. This was a trip about people, my family's people.

On behalf of my sister and myself I would like to thank Emma Gutierrez for making this trip happen. From the beginning when she learned that I had a Philippine background, she wanted to introduce me to her homeland. This opportunity in particular, during the week-long celebrations of her graduating class, was especially rewarding. We got to meet and spend time with some of the people who were close to Emma during her time in the Philippines. This was an experience my sister and I will carry for the rest of our lives. Thank you Emma.

Emma Gutierrez -- A Pioneer Planner

Recently my sister and I had the pleasure of being escorted in the Philippines by a pioneer and innovator in planning, Emmanuela Gutierrez. Emma is from a city called Batangas, about a two hour drive south of the capital Manila via expressways. Batangas is a city of over 300,000 and Emma was the City's first planning director and developed it's first general plan. And that general plan is unlike most I've seen in the U.S.


Emma came to planning from a teaching background. However, through the efforts of ex-dictator Fernidan Marcos and a U.S. aid agency, a decree was issued that Philippine cities be comprehensively planned so a training program was established. As a new friend said to me in Manila, "For all the bad things you can say about Marcos, he did do some innovative things."

Emma said the hours involved in that program are more than what is done in planning schools today. I can see why. Pictured above is today's Planning Director, Januario B. Godoy. He is holding the current General Plan, currently undergoing revision for the third time since it's creation. Their plan covers much more than land use. It includes: economics, social (including health and education), environmental protection, infrastructure, utilities, and development administration (implementation).

Pictured below, Emma and Januario are holding the first fruits of her efforts, Batangas first General Plan, published in 1978.
It has been almost 20 years since Emma left the Philippines but everyone at Zoning and all over the Planning and Development Office seemed to know her.

The reason for Emma to take the trip was to celebrate with her classmates the 50 year reunion of their high school graduation. My sister and I tagged along to be part of the party and get introduced to a part of our background we have never experienced. There were around 300 people celebrating for a week going from one function to the next. In this picture Emma is with one of her classmates of the 1959 Batangas High School graduating class, the Honorable Eduardo B. Dimacuha, mayor of Batangas. This party was an outdoor event on a farm featuring a barbecued cow and two pigs as well as bands and entertainers. Oh, and we all got these fragrant leis.

Origins of Happy Mountain -- Part I

Translated into Spanish my last name means "happy mountain." In English it's Montealegre. Last week I got to explore some of the roots of the happy mountain people--they are rooted in the capital of the Philippine Islands, Manila.

My father was from the Philippines where the dominant language is Tagalog and English. However my father spoke Spanish, it was a colony of Spain for over 400 years, and my mother, being Puerto Rican, also spoke Spanish. However, my sisters and I grew up not knowing the Philippine part of our background because he left when he was 16. That was in 1921. He died in 1972. It took us till January 2009 to bridge this gap when we went to the Philippines for the first time. And as it turned out we found a living relative, his youngest brother, Severino.

Severino, or Vero, at 82, is the last surviving child of Antonio and Juana Bartolome Montealegre. Before him there was, in ascending order, Remedio, Alberto, Guillermo, Vicente, Cleotilde, Iluminada, Carlos, our father Julio, and Leopoldo. They are buried in Makati, a neighborhood in Manila, along with two of their children in the grave pictured above and below.
Uncle Vero did not appear in this world until six years after my father left in 1921. However, on my father's only visit to the Philippines, in 1972, he and Vero were close. Uncle Vero remembers that visit very well. Shortly after returning from that visit our father died.

Uncle Vero could not remember his grandfather’s name but did know he was from Spain and who had also died there. His grandmother's name was Adela Lalinda, who was born in the Philippines.

Meeting Uncle Vero for me felt like visiting the past, as well as seeing the future. My father and his family thought they each had died in the war. My father was working on a ship with his brother Vicente when Vicente became ill and sent home. At some point the ship landed in a U.S. port, probably San Francisco, and my father jumped. At that time the Philippines was an American colony.

In this picture Uncle Vero is in the same cemetery where some of his siblings and their spouses are buried.

It felt like seeing the future because everyone said I look like him. He also confirmed some of my inclinations and arthritic joints. He likes red meat, doesn’t eat vegetables, likes to exercise, and moves like a dart. He also speaks English and is alert and astute. Is this the future me?

P.S. If you want to see some video of Uncle Vero please let me know.

P.S.S. Juan Garcia-Maruri is a Spanish architect practicing in Los Angeles. In my office we would talk and he would remind me that he grew up in a city near a very small town called Montealegre. He said I should stay in the family hotel and check it out. I guess that's Part II.

Dad and Mom

November 24, 2007

Jason and I are sitting in a booth at Casita del Campo, the local quasi gay neighborhood Mexican restaurant. Jason, my cousin’s 13 year old grandson, was hungry after the movie so I was delighted at the prospect of going to Casita and having Margaritas while we went over his homework.

It was math. And it wasn’t algebra. And I didn’t know quite how to relate. In college I wasn’t bad at math, I got an A- in Calculus at Berkeley, but I never felt I could put it all together despite getting good grades. I looked through his book. 35 years later I still felt a disconnect.

Despite getting soused on margaritas, with Jason’s help I was able to figure out how to divide fractions. However, when it came to how many feet were in a mile I turned to Jay, the maitre ‘d, who promptly responded 1760. This didn’t seem right and upon questioning he clarified that this was actually yards. The food arrived before we were able to move on to the next exercise.

But it was the following conversation that really struck and motivated me to blog tonight.

Reaching into my inner core I was able to get out the question:

“Should kids be controlled by their guardians?”

“Mostly,” he said. That was a positive and open answer so I searched for clarification and asked what me meant.

“Their guardians may not always be right and kids should be able to think for themselves.”

Whether it was the margaritas or the validity of his statement, it rang so true that I had to write it down on the place mats and also ask Jay what he thought.

Jay agreed but also threw out that guardians knew better.

Having been with a few parents I knew better then to think that guardians know better. But they still had the right to know better. I asked Jason about this and appropriately enough said he didn’t feel they always knew better.

Well, there it is. Teenage-hood in a nutshell. Guardians have the right but are not necessarily so. Teenagers have the right to think for themselves.

Guardians have veto power.

How the hell do you reconcile this?

November 6, 2007

EGYPT – THE GAY TOUR

On Board The Tiyi, Up River -- The Nile

After a whirlwind of activities including a 21 hour marathon, today there is time to reflect on the five thousand years of human history we’ve witnessed the last two days.

It’s hard to get a handle on how to process it all. It’s not that I wasn’t prepared. For the last two weeks I pulled out and read all the dozen or so National Geographics I’ve saved on Egypt. I knew there was three thousand years of ancient history and another two thousand since Christ. I knew the country was an archeologist’s Disneyland and that most of it was probably still undiscovered.

But then to come face to face with it was something else.

As Omar Sharif’s voice said at the Sound and Light Show at the Pyramids; the Sphinx has faced the dawn each day for over five thousand years and to gaze upon it feels like looking at time itself.

Furthermore, walking into the tombs of some of the pharaohs who constructed these incredible monuments in order to pass from one reality into another felt like I was confronting not just time but also who we human beings are on this planet.

No one knows how many ruins and civilizations are still to be discovered, but the ones in Egypt, I believe, go back further than any discovered so far. Their size, complexity, and sheer amount of cultural history behind them appears to dwarf any single ancient civilization known so far.

How did they build these things? How did they develop their art and architecture, writing system, mummification process, belief systems? There is so much of it.

No wonder it’s hard to process.





November 9, 2007

Abu Simbel -- Up the Nile, Egypt

The boys paid a visit to Ramses II and his wife Nefertari today. It was a short hop, 45 minutes by plane from Aswan, and the monument is the only reason to go to Abu Simbel.

It is worth flying around the world to see.
I can’t decide if the monuments are a testament to military power, love, engineering, or vanity. It’s probably all of them.

Ramses II, for whom the condoms are named after, had over a hundred children and loved his favorite wife so much that he built a temple alongside his for her. He also loved her so much that when she died early he married two of the daughters he had by her.

That’s something to wonder about.

He also built this incredibly imposing edifice as symbol of his power on a bend in the Nile so the conquered Nubians can see just how tough a guy he is. The walls inside contain many scenes, beautifully preserved in some of their original colors, of many of his military conquests.

Our guide Rhonda said it was as much boasting as reality.

I wonder how he felt when modern day Nassar, by ordering construction of the Aswan Dam, was prepared to let his legacy flood. It was the efforts of the international community in 1960 that meticulously broke it down and reassembled it on higher ground.

That was almost as an incredible feat as the original construction but in 1960 they least had things like electricity and cranes and the wheel.


November 10, 2007

Our tour guide David, is a Canadian from Montreal with a mother in Florida. This is his fifth tour to Egypt and at 22 men, his biggest group so far. This is also my first organized tour. Putting 22 strangers together, all queer adult males, for nine days in a strange place and in close quarters, somewhat dependent on each other, gave me pause to think when I first booked the this trip.

But after only a few days, and because of David, I began to notice how well we all got along. I asked David what he thought. He thought we got along very well.

“No one is getting on the bus and saying things like, ick, I have to sit next to that person,” he added.

Traveling with these men did give a unique perspective on everything, a gay one of course. There were few stock observations or comments with this group. I can see why straight people enjoy gay cruises so much. Queer eye for the Pharoahs, so to speak.

One of the defining characteristics of the trip was our guide Rhonda frequently calling us together in crowded places with the words: “This way Pharoahs.” It sounded too much like, well, you know.


November 11, 2007

One my way home today, looking at a 12 hour flight to New York and another six to California.

Yesterday we explored Islamic Cairo: the mosque at the Citadel and some of the old quarter. This turned out to be one of the interesting surprises of the trip. It gave me an introduction to the schisms within Muslims today, that between the Shi-ia and Sunnis. Even though I didn’t visit it, the literal and physical head of this schism, the head of Al-Hussein is buried in a mosque in Cairo. 500 years after his death, in 1153 AD, his head was buried in the Cairo mosque Sayyidna. He was the husband of Mohammed’s daughter and his followers are Shi-ia. Those who did not believe in this line of succession are Sunni’s.

Like everything else in the Middle East, it goes back that far and the schism continues today. How did this little history escape Bush’s attention?

A Note to My Fellow Travelers:

I want to express the pleasant and unexpected pleasure I derived from traveling with this group. It added immensely to the enjoyment of the trip. Not only do I feel that we got along very well but we seemed to have developed a special camaraderie. I didn’t feel any self-consciousness. One could turn to the person next to them and joke or chat like we were old friends.

Thank you for enhancing my Egyptian experience. I will always be grateful and hope to see you in the future.

READY TO GO

I've been inspired to post something on my page because of today's developments. It's been awhile since I've posted but when fate stops one dead in their tracks what else can I do?

Dress up and move on!

For a couple of Halloween parties this season, and in honor of my up-coming trip to Egypt, I bought this outfit. This year there was no guessing, no angst over what to wear, a simple decision made even simpler by Hollywood Outfitters.

However, the tour guide already told me not to bring it along.

What stopped me today was my soils engineer taking and holding on to my three sets of plans. What I thought was going to be a $500 plan stamping festival instead was a drop-off and see you soon. It made me very nervous dropping them off, orphaning them so to speak.

Those of you who know me know these plans represent one of the biggest challenges of my life. So much of who I am is tied up in them. "Casa de la Montana Alegre" is the name of this house, double entendres everywhere. Boyfriends have been easier to get through than this project.

I thought I had it all worked out; the Zoning Administrator Thursday, the Plan Check Engineer next Tuesday to get the permit, leave Wednesday.

I always say to staff that one works better when they are rested, fed, and vacationed. As the details of this project drone on and on and on, what has kept me going is knowing that I have this great little break coming.

I also believe that the anticipation is as much fun as the trip itself and at the moment that couldn't ring truer.

This trip seems even more special because I believe it's the first organized group I've ever traveled with, at least with people I don't know. We're all strangers, 23 gay men, from everywhere, and we've been sharing bios and pictures of each other before hand.

I smell a reality tv show somewhere.

48 Hours in Nicaragua

I’m sitting on the steps of the small plaza in front of the Iglesia de la Merced in Granada, Nicaragua, feeling like I’m in an obscure movie at a gay film festival. I don’t know if this movie is going to be boring, interesting, funny, tragic, or a combination of any of these. Whenever I see a film at one of these festivals, no matter how boring, I always stick it out to see how it ends.

I’m waiting for Danilo to get off work so that we can maybe get a bite to eat, jump in the hotel pool, fool around; who knows where the afternoon and evening will lead.

I know where I would like it to lead. It’s my last night of a 10 day vacation and I’d like it to lead to where it went to last night—my hotel room.

Danilo works around the corner so I’m waiting here to not make it obvious to his employer and neighbors that there is this American Queer waiting for him. Granada is a small town, maybe a hundred thousand, and while not prosecuted, homosexual activity is illegal--and that is exactly what I want to do.

Danilo says he is not gay. He has a two-year old daughter, Nicole, named after Tom Cruise’s ex (start counting the clues). She lives with her mother and grandmother and goes to school while he helps support them. Danilo is 27 and she’s 19. Yesterday he did not have pictures of them in his wallet.

I’m studying the façade of the church. The guidebook says it was completed in 1539 but reconstructed several times. The inscription on the tower says it was reconstructed almost 200 years ago. The architecture and condition of the tower, however, doesn’t appear similar to the Spanish Colonial baroqueness of the rest of the church. And the tower is relatively clean compared to the grime, mildew, and moss of the rest of the church.

As I waited I remind myself that tropical humidity is a natural moisturizer and good for the skin. The grime and mildew may look good on the church but I can do without that part. I want to look fresh, I’m going on a date.

I get tired of melting so I leave the plaza and go to check on Danilo. I walk to the end of the street where he can see me and calls me over. His employer has not returned so we hang out on the street talking.

I’m confused now on how to proceed with this story. If I do dialogue in Spanish few people will understand and I’ll have to think all this through in two languages. The entire 48 hours I spent in Granada was done in Spanish but I think I’ll dispense with the whole issue and instead describe how I ended up on the plaza in one of the oldest cities in the western hemisphere.


The story begins with a wedding. When my nephew and bride-to-be announced they were going to be married in Costa Rica I knew I had some planning to do: flights, hotels, etc. Studying maps and the internet I discovered how close Nicaragua was to the wedding location and how gay Costa Rica is. Since I’m in the area, why not explore?

San Jose, the capitol of Costa Rica, was only a 45 minute prop flight from the wedding site and had many gay options, including a gay hotel that had branches both in the capitol and in Granada. I decided to fly into Costa Rica and out of Nicaragua, stay with this mini gay hotel chain, and later work out transportation.

Sensing my inner gay-self rise to the surface, I instead booked a male-only, clothing optional, guest house, and the other hotel for Granada.

The wedding was in Playa Grande, Costa Rica, an area encompassing the Parque Nacional Marino Las Baulas, an national park full of birds, lizards, crabs, crocodiles, monkeys, and according to Lonely Planet, one of the most important nesting sites for the world’s largest turtle, the leatherback, or baula, weighing in at 300kg.

Nesting season is between October and March so they wouldn’t be coming to the June wedding. That would be fortuitous because the wedding was on the beach, presumbably on top of their nesting grounds.

The combination of this raw natural beauty with the formality of a wedding created a striking and spectacular experience. Picture this: a white tent on an undeveloped tropical beach with a roaring surf in front and clouded mountains in the distance. From 2500 miles away come a group of two families and their friends, dressed up, and deposited on an unknown and wild beach, to celebrate the formal union of two people.

The wedding was scheduled at sunset but in the late afternoon a heavy tropical rain came down. No one was sure how long it would last but it eventually cleared up but left dark overcast skies. And to further add to the contrast, during the ceremony the setting sun broke through the clouds.

One more contrast I need to note. The wedding dinner was held at a small 12 room hotel near the wedding site that was also in the nature preserve. In fact the Park Ranger’s office was at the hotel’s dockside. It was a 15 minute boat ride to town on an estuary with crocodiles or a 35 minute ride over rough roads. But here at the jungle’s edge, Todd and Walter, a gay couple from Pennsylvania, four years ago opened up their hotel and restaurant. At the end of the evening, the bride, groom, and myself sat at the bar and toasted their 15 year anniversary the next day.


After a few more days in Playa Grande I broke off with the family and checked into the all male clothing optional guest house in the capitol. It was also in a beautiful setting but quite removed from all the gay activity in the city. Nonetheless it was staffed with young men in their early twenties. A few guests came in and out but I was largely alone with staff and got to know some of their stories.

And that’s all of them I got to know.

I left the hotel only once to take a city tour so I never made it to any of the gay venues. Maybe because of this, or was it the porn that was piped into the room’s televisions, or because of the young (and clothed) staff I left the capitol feeling a little, well, do I have to spell it out. My family is going to read this.

Landing in Granada the “gay” hotel picked me up and I checked into a room that I couldn’t live with. After scopeing out the rest of the hotel, and making sure of this realization, I decided to walk around town and see what else there was. I spent a few hours looking around as Granada’s third world Spanish colonial charm began to grow on me. I found a very nice hotel with a room that had a balcony over looking the main plaza. I took it and went back to retrieve my luggage.

On the walk back I spotted Danilo sitting in front of his post. Or he spotted me first. My gait slowed and I noticed he was still looking. I looked back but continued. If it weren’t for the country I was in I know what was happening. Nicaragua has a dangerous reputation and the guide book said nothing about gay venues except that it’s illegal. This must be one of those situations where hotels and other businesses use the gay card to lure our money. I walked on.

With luggage in hand I walked past him again and asked if it was safe to be walking around at dusk with my luggage obviously looking like a tourist. He said it was fine but don’t do it in Managua. We chatted for awhile and I learned that he takes care of properties owned by foreigners. He offered to show me some and arranged to meet at 8:30 in the plaza.

As I waited in my room I wasn’t concerned about safety. Right, I was going to go into some strange house with a stranger in a strange country. But we were meeting in the town’s main square, so what about a meal and a drink instead, as in let’s keep it in public places.

As we wandered to a restaurant I wasn’t sure about the streets we were walking. The restaurant said they ran out of food so we walked back and he started to show me some of the places he took care of. Danilo talked about their prices and how properties have appreciated. Like any American from over-heated real estate markets, I have to see how it compares, and lookout for ambushes.

I could give a whole other discourse on property with what I observed in Granada, Playa Grande and San Jose. The talk and signs were everywhere. Needless to say, the rules are the same. In Nicaragua, however, the recent re-election of Daniel Ortega of Sandinista history, has had a chilling effect. But I suppose that is another rule, markets like stability, even if there are charming old colonial homes that can be restored and resold handsomely.

And this is what Danilo showed me, homes in various stages of restoration or speculation, even while I looked around every corner for an ambush.

We found a Thai restaurant that served margaritas so Andy was very happy, and safely out in public. During dinner I noticed there was a gay flag in the restaurant doorway. The power went out and everything proceeded under candlelight. Capping off my first nine hours in Nicaragua, we went back to my hotel.



After a relaxed day by myself seeing some of the ancient architecture, visiting museums, and the lake Granada is situated on, Lago Nicaragua, I’m rested, showered, and talking to Danilo in front of one of the houses he takes care of. We talk, waiting for the owner to arrive, so he can leave and I can start my last evening of vacation.

We talked on the street for over an hour. He asked me what I wanted to do, I asked if he was hungry. I mentioned jumping in the pool. He mentioned calling up and getting together with a friend.

I’m wondering how it’s going to go. One would think that the sexual pressure is now off. But it’s not, at least for me. I try to resign myself to not thinking about this and just enjoy Granada, and the company, and whatever else the evening may bring.

Finally he was free to go and he went and called up his friend Holman. With the sunset a light rain began to fall as the three of us looked for a place to eat that also had margaritas. I was inclined toward the more touristy places but since I wasn’t particularly hungry settled for one of the local corner chicken joints.

The open-air room was hot and they asked if the fan could be turned on but the electricity was out. Holman was gregarious, unlike the serious Danilo, and we joked with him about this. As they ate I again had the feeling of being in a movie. Giving up on the margaritas I joined them in their national beer, Tona, and ordered some salted fried bananas called tostones (just like my mother use to make).

Holman and Danilo told me about a gay coronation held several times a year in Granada with a parade and ceremony at the lakeside discos. In the US a gay royal court is equivalent to a Kiwanis or Rotary club, only in drag. But in Nicaragua?

After dinner we went to a mini-mall: the courtyard of a large colonial building containing restaurants and bars with large screen TV’s playing sports events and old rock music that was patronized by foreigners and locals. It had its charms but I’m not the old rocker type. Okay, I knew all the music being played, but I’ve been there, done that, and not even the exotic locale and exotic natives make me nostalgic for my roots.

By now Danilo had stopped drinking so Holman and I started up even while I sensed this movie dragging. Finally I got hungry so we left the trekkers mall and looked for something more, contemporary, and found a roasted chicken place in a more decidedly upscale courtyard.

Holman ate again and said he didn’t get fat because he exercised, and proceeded to lift his shirt and show us his flabby stomach. Check please.

It was getting late as we left and started walking around the town again. I was tired of sitting and didn’t want to go to another bar. I just wanted to get laid again. But walking around Granada has its charms so we settled on one more outdoor café where another friend joined us. Holman and the new friend started playing music on their cell phones. Nicaragua may be the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, after Haiti, but somehow cellphone culture is firmly rooted.

Danilo and I noticed two young feminine looking men walk by. This place was getting queerer every minute.

The cafe closed at ten and the three of them asked if I wanted to check out the discos by the lake. I felt it was time to leave the theater and go home and pack. Quit while I’m ahead, walk off into the sunset, end a fabulous vacation in a beautiful square with three young men as company. We left and walked toward the plaza.


POSTSCRIPT: Ever since I’ve been back I’ve been wondering if much of the locals socializing with foreigners is gay for pay. I paid for everything but while Holman asked for a cell phone card and cab fare, Danilo never asked for anything. I believe Danilo is relatively naïve but Holman had been around the plaza a few times which says to me Danilo really is in the closet and Holman is for pay. Lonely Planet says to support local economies and I don’t see why this couldn’t be included in that philosophy.

Upon arrival in Nicaragua I was struck by the numerous billboards of Daniel Ortega announcing “Rise the Poor of the World.” The fighting in Nicaragua, of which the United States has historically been part of since William Walker in 1853 through Ronald Reagan in 1985, is hopefully over for good. Danilo says Ortega was elected with only a 35% majority because the right split the vote and the legislature can keep him in check. He lost two brothers in what he calls a civil war and others called a revolution. Upon leaving the airport for the States, the plane was filled with missionaries completing their service.