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For the past 17 years, The Filipino Express has provided the Filipino American community the best news, arts and entertainment coverage from around the United States and the Philippines.
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NEW YORK --- Some people see the world in black-and-white terms; others see it in terms of colors. For most of us, color is the first thing we see when we open our eyes in the morning, and the last thing we see each night before we go to sleep.
Throughout life, we continue to use color as a cue for interpreting what we see. For example, we associate green with the color of money; gray with a cold and dark winter; and red with a stop or danger sign.
I use colored folders and color markers in my work. I find it easier to organize my work with colored folders that represent levels of priority and colored markers that highlight important portions of a document that I read.
Even homeland security has a color-coded system designed to warn the public of terrorist attacks. There are five threat conditions, each identified by a description and corresponding color: low is to green; guarded, blue; elevated is to yellow; high is to orange; and finally, severe is to red.
Based on these codes, we can see how colors sway our thinking, change our actions, and cause reactions. According to psychologists, color is a form of energy that is active at not only physical levels, but also at mental, emotional, and spiritual levels.
They say that physically, the red color tends to make the body tense and increases blood pressure, while the blue color promotes relaxation and lowers blood pressure. Mentally, a red room seems smaller than a blue room; emotionally, red tends to excite us, while blue tends to make us feel calmer.
Whether psychologists are right or not in their interpretation, I consider the results of their research as informative. They are the experts, I am not. And usually, they are right.
We hear of people having a colorful or checkered life. Or as some others describe their existence: ordinary or drab and insignificant. Does ordinary as well as drab and insignificant mean black-and-white?
How does one interpret a colorful life? Although I think of a checkered image like the flag I see in car races in terms of black-and-white, I am wondering if it were possible to interpret it also in terms of a spectrum of colors. If this was possible, what difference would it make then if one had a colorful or checkered life?
Colors have affected us throughout life. Imagine, however, if we expunged colors and everything was in black-and-white. How would we react to such change?
I know of some people who wouldn't be able to live with it. Not even a day. Such drastic change would throw them off.
Perhaps only the song "Color My World" popularized by the band Chicago would make them realize what colors actually mean.
So if you think red excites you, better watch out. It would broil you or
make your blood vessels boil. Even homeland security thinks that code red
is so severe that the color alerts you of the threat it represents. On the
other hand, if you think blue relaxes you, go for it – it's better for your
sense of humor and your health. Besides, it makes you feel guarded.
While green bucks can buy you more than you need, it will lead you to greed. You need something to perk you up? Use bright colors. To me, color is like an art; it is not what you see but what you make others see. Ah, colors indeed.
Send comments to rickyxpres@aol.com
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On the Planet Zing, the Zimbragatzees face an ecological disaster – their distinctive noses are disappearing because of heavy pollution! With words by Rene O. Villanueva and pictures by Jason Moss, the children’s book in two languages, “The Zimbragatzees of the Planet Zing” (Lampara Publishing House, 2002) is a fun read. After reading the English text, my son asked me to read it in Filipino. He enjoys listening to his mother’s tongue —I suppose because the words sound funny and he happily recognized the word “ilong.”
After reading the Filipino/Tagalog text, however, I realized that some things just didn’t translate to English. The Tagalog text seemed funnier, but perhaps, as I’ve observed with many Filipino children’s books, it is really the humor that doesn’t quite translate to an American child (not even a Fil-Am child.) Take for instance the books “Og Uhog (Snotty-nosed Og)” by Christine Bellen and “I Want My Yaya (Nasaan ang Yaya Ko?)” by Annette Flores Garcia. There are definitely some cultural nuances (uhog, yaya) that have to be explained for any young reader to fully enjoy books such as these.
This week, America celebrated children’s book author Dr. Seuss’ birthday (March 2) with Read Across America, a program that promotes reading everyday. My son attended a Dr. Seuss party at the local library, where we played games and read the classic Dr. Seuss books like “The Cat in the Hat” and “There’s a Wocket in my Pocket.” The next morning, at my son’s pre-school, I was the guest reader and we read “Green Eggs and Ham.” My son, who is 3 _ read the parts of Sam I Am and tried his cutest-best to get me to like Green Eggs and Ham. After I left, the kids actually had green eggs (scrambled eggs with green food color) and ham for a snack.
One day I dream of initiating a similar program in the Philippines. I know that for the majority of Filipinos, living in poverty, reading to children is not a priority. How can one think of reading on an empty stomach? And how many parents enjoy reading or even know how to read themselves? In an article for the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, Neni Sta. Romana-Cruz, former chair of the Philippine Board for Books for Young People, writes “While the children’s book industry thrives (with more publishing houses publishing children’s literature), but only in a manner of speaking, book sales leave much to be desired. The country with the high literacy rate that it likes to flaunt has no reading habit to speak of. In the absence of public libraries and the unsatisfactory condition of most school libraries, if they exist at all, where books are showcased and safely stored away to protect them from wear and tear wrought by young readers, how and where will the children discover the joy of reading?” She remains hopeful though that teachers and schools have begun to recognize the ill effects of the lack of literacy in the young – and that slowly reading is being given a renewed emphasis.
My children are lucky. We have a steady supply of Philippine children’s books from the Philippines, since my family and friends back home encourage me to keep my kids in touch with their Filipino culture. How cool is it that there are actually kids books published in the Philippines now! When I was young, there were hardly any books for kids for and about Filipinos – all I had were Golden books and all those fairy tales from the Western world, with fair-skinned, light-haired children in its pages and animals I had never seen like chipmunks and reindeer. And yet, I developed a love for reading. I borrowed books from the school library, looked for books at home (my aunt was an English major and had many of the classics), and swapped with friends. As I got older, it was frustrating that we had no public libraries, so I sought out college libraries – some of which were accessible only to those who went to that school and there was also the Thomas Jefferson Library which smelled like America and required a special ID.
Here in the US, the local public library is free and accessible and I encourage you all to take advantage of the books, magazines, dvds and programs they offer (hey, you pay taxes for them!). Take your kids to the library, encourage them to read, and if you can afford it, seek out books by Filipino authors – the next time, a relative comes to visit you, ask them for a Pinoy book as pasalubong. (You can e-mail your comments to: manilagirl01@hotmail.com, www.missingmangoes.com)
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