Will keep posting old articles until they are all archived here. Will post something new every now and then.
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ian
Writing in Tongues
By Michael Ian Lomongo, April 29, 2001
(Thoughts on Actors’ Actors Inc.’s production of Paul Stephen Lim’s “Mother Tongue†— with Bart Guingona, Nieves Campa, Miren Alvarez, Ed Feist, Richard Cunanan, Bobbie Greenwood, Kate Fernandez; directed by Chris Millado)
The day I watched AAI’s production of Stephen Paul Lim’s “Mother Tongue,” I had just finished reading Amy Tan’s “The Joy Luck Club.” I’ve long wanted to read the novel after seeing the movie years ago. Some of the people I’ve talked with, who have both read the novel and seen the movie, preferred the novel. As they say, much is lost in any translation (whether it be from one medium to another or from one language to another). For me though, much of the narrative’s visceral impact in the watching wasn’t there in the reading (probably because I was no longer encountering it for the first time).
Anyway, I mentioned “The Joy Luck Club,” because like it, “Mother Tongue” is about finding and defining one’s identity and home in the Land of Promise. The former is about immigrant Chinese mothers and their American-born daughters, and how they try to bridge the breach in understanding caused by two disparate cultures; the latter, about a Chinese mother who’s an immigrant to the Philippines and her writer-son who migrates to America, and how this son seeks her mother’s understanding in his freely causing (and embracing) the breach.
Likewise, I couldn’t help recalling “Quills,†which is also about a writer, the Marquis de Sade (played by Geoffrey Rush). Towards the end of the movie, the Abbé of the sanatorium cuts off the tongue of the Marquis as a punishment for breaching the prohibition of writing. “Mother Tongue†opens with the character of David Lee, the writer, cutting off his own tongue with a cleaver.
“Writing is my constant erection.†So the Marquis declares as the Abbé leaves after confiscating his quills and papers. Of course, there is nothing new about tying up writing with the penis (As they say, “The pen-is – mightier than the sword.â€), just as there is nothing new about tying up writing with the ability to speak, with having a tongue. (My good friend Paolo O’Hara always tells me that “size†doesn’t matter; that prowess – sexual or otherwise, i.e., the ability to “lick†it, and lick it good, so to say – boils down to the agility of the tongue… literally and metaphorically.) For millenia, men had always appropriated speech and writing and confined women to silence. Women had tongues too, but they had to keep their lips sealed. They could only be allowed to wag their tongues – as loyal and obedient canines wagged their tails. Women can merely gossip, while men had rational speech. (Even when writing was considered inferior to, as emasculated, speech, it was still speech.)
Thus, we find the Marquis “writing†through his tongue, first by relaying his words to the other wards of the sanatorium, and then, by literally writing with what was left of his tongue, using his blood and saliva as ink and the walls of the prison as paper. Even when “castrated,†he could not be stopped from spewing out his seminal ideas.
But can we make the same association with the writer of “Mother Tongueâ€? (Though it is said that the character of David Lee is the alter ego of Paul Stephen Lim, I mainly speak of the character when I say “The Writer.†Notice, too, how I use “speak†and “say†when I mean “write.â€) Is the Writer’s fantasy (cutting off his own tongue) a way of confronting his fear of castration? Or would that be an “over-â€reading? The Writer himself tells us that he couldn’t execute what he had set up to do in the play: the “castration of the tongue,†his tongue.
The fear of castration is the fear of emasculation, of becoming a woman, of becoming marginalized, of losing one’s (male) voice and tongue.
Of course, as the Writer probably intended it, the “castration of the tongue†would be the severance from his mother and her legacy of being an outcast, an alien – his declaration of independence. Castration, (for men) the very operation of marginalization, would be for this Writer (who’d be thought of as already alienated and marginalized – as a homosexual and as an Asian immigrant in America) the very movement of acclimatization. Through the “castration†of his tongue, he was hoping to tell his mother what he always wanted to, but couldn’t, say. Through this symbolic “castration,†the Writer hoped to be disengaged not only from his own physical tongue, but also from his mother tongue, his mother’s tongue, and everything that, for him, his mother embodied: alienation, marginalization.
But he couldn’t do it. After all, even though castration had been, for some wily eunuchs, the operation of gaining (subtle) power, the Writer couldn’t really tell for sure whether the castration of his tongue would be, for him, the loss that would be more of a gain. He feared that the castration of this tongue would silence not only his mother’s haunting voice but also his very own voice as a writer. After all, what could be more frightening for a writer than the ghost of a writer – one who has, so to say, no voice?
Instead, days before his naturalization as an American, he has glossitis, a swelling of the tongue. (Erection?) Erection, for men, is the manifestation of desire, and if the Writer’s naturalization as an American not only symbolized the castration of the mother tongue but also the consummation of his coveted acclimatization, acceptance, and belonging to a home, is it not appropriate that the swelling of desire manifests itself in the appropriate organ? Except that, since the desire is not without ambivalence, the swelling becomes an inflammation. Pleasure becomes interminably mixed with pain.
For by becoming an American, the Writer becomes, in Chinese, a “white face,†i.e., “a ghost.†No longer a part of (again, in Chinese) “our people.†No longer “a person.†An alien. A ghost. Castrated. Irremediably. Irremissibly. From his mother. From “home.†By embracing the home of those who, for his mother, killed his brother with their irresponsibility, he was betraying his own mother and his brother’s ghost. He was a traitor to home.
Again, it is probably not surprising that, on the day of his naturalization, the Writer could not – would not – consummate his desire for the student who was seducing him. Not when the consummation of an even greater desire (belonging to a home) is tied up with death and castration. (In Stephen Paul Lim’s “Figures of Clay,†which AAI also produced last year, we find the writer’s continuing sublimation of desire into writing. A way of evading the death of desire?)
Somehow, we understand the anguish of the Writer when he pleads, “Be happy for me, mother,†just as we understand the pain of the mother when she cries, “How can I be happy for you?â€
As the Writer recites the oath of allegiance to America, he is joined by several voices in the background. The voices are owned by other immigrants who come from various nations – all set to become naturalized Americans. At some point, the mother, the Writer, and all the other voices speak at the same time. (It would have been wonderful had the voices in unison, even for a brief period, slowly degenerated into the multitude of languages of their various nations.) A babble of voices. Babel. Glossolalia. Speaking in tongues.
Babel. Confusion. The curse of hearing.
Glossolalia. Understanding. The gift of tongues.
A hint, a trace of Artaud. And then, silence.
Ellipsis… “Dot… dot… dot…â€
All the words that always come up short of meaning… and which understanding could never seem to catch up with… The superfluity of words… the dearth of words…
Perhaps more than glibness, the gift of gab, or the gift of tongues, we need more the patience (And yes, a gift, too!) of straining our ears to hear the strains of silence. To listen to what is not said, to what could not be said… the mother of all tongues.
The beginning of wisdom… and understanding…
Postscript:
A disturbing note. In the play, David Lee, the Writer, admits that he does not consider himself to be a Filipino. Although born and reared in the Philippines, he grew up with the English and Chinese languages. It is probable that he was never able to go beyond the ability of speaking and understanding Filipino (Tagalog) in the level of daily commerce. This is quite understandable considering the condescending view that most Chinese have for the non-Chinese, especially Filipinos. To the extent that the Chinese hold these views and keep themselves from mingling with Filipinos, they also perpetuate the prejudice/s held by Filipinos for the Chinese and Filipinos of Chinese descent.
During one of our discussions in the Writers’ Bloc, Debbie Tan, a Filipino-Chinese playwright, brought up the topic of being Chinese/Filipino-Chinese in the Philippines, as she wanted to explore it in her thesis. It was remarked that, rightly or wrongly, the perception shared by both Filipino and Chinese is this: to be Filipino is to be poor.
Until now, I find it uncomfortable to speak English in daily conversation with fellow Filipinos (Like Efren “Bata†Reyes, I only speak in English when in school, or when drunk.), though I realize that it is somehow unavoidable because some of our countrymen, through or through no fault of their own, simply couldn’t converse in Filipino.
Though it is quite possible for one to be a Filipino without him/her being able to speak any of the Filipino languages, I think it would be grievously sad if one were to remain in this state of separation and ignorance, cut off not only from the native tongue, but also from the body politic. What is even sadder is how this ignorance is cultivated by Filipinos who think lowly of being a Filipino. English is supposed to be the language of success, of “globalization,” of victors, while Filipino is the language of the man in the street, the poor, the disenfranchised.
In a country where the ability to speak English is thought to be commensurate with one’s degree of success and education, why speak the language of the poor and uneducated? In fact, if to be Filipino is to be poor, why be Filipino at all?
Some thoughts to ponder.
Tags: Desire, Filipinos, Gender Issues, identities, Languages, Power, Writing
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Writing in Tongues, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.