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Something about German trains

At first it is intimidating, for a foreigner who isn’t very familiar with a big city’s urban railway system. Much more if a Third World visitor takes on the complex Berlin system with its U-Bahn and S-bahn overlying the tram and bus, and the industrial-strength Deutsche Bahn comprising the much bigger train network that crisscrosses all of Germany and beyond.

But once you get hold of a map and a day-ticket, then all your fears evaporate. After some fiddling with euro coins and perhaps a quick help from someone who understands Deutsche sprache better than you, getting that ticket machine to belch out your precious day-ticket also becomes an easy piece a’cake.

 

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Languages and dialects

Note: This piece was first published as my column piece in the Nov. 15, 2002 issue of Northern Dispatch Weekly. It is being reposted here with very minor edits.

THIS IS A FOLLOW-UP on the piece I wrote last week in this column, about Ilocano and other local languages. I would have liked to use “Northern Philippine languages,” not as an off-the-cuff phrase but an exact taxonomic category established through linguistic studies.

IRAIA thoughts
IRAIA thoughts

Some might be surprised of this talk about “Philippine languages,” on the belief that there is only one Philippine language (which many consider to be Pilipino), or just a few languages that may include Ilocano and Cebuano, while all the others are “dialects.”

There is in fact among us a very persistent notion. That is, if a certain variety of speech is not widely accepted and used, then it is a “dialect,” while another speech variety that has become a national or regional standard is called a “language.” One doesn’t have to travel far to hear apologetic comments such as, “Pasensya dagiti saan a makaawat, mas nairwamak gamin nga agsao iti dialect mi nga Ilokano (or Kankanaey-Bontoc, or Kalinga, etc.).” Continue reading “Languages and dialects”

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At the bottom of a ravine

I will put the choices very simply for you.

You’re riding a bus from Baguio to Sagada. You notice that the driver is a brash young boy, most probably inexperienced, perhaps even a college brat out for kicks. The bus already had a few heart-stopping near-accidents just out of Sayangan, then in Buguias, then again in Sinto and after Mt. Data–all because of the amateurish driver’s carelessness.

IRAIA thoughts
IRAIA thoughts

Then, as the bus negotiates the steep trail to Sabangan, it happens. The driver goes into a hairpin turn, barely manages it, finds out the brakes are no longer working, careens inches away from a ravine, and is finally stopped–only through sheer luck–by a short upslope road grade.

The driver insists that the bus can still make it to Sagada, or at least to the Dantay junction. But most passengers want to get down, catch their breaths, hopefully flag down the next bus, perhaps even walk to the next junction where they can hire a jeepney instead. Continue reading “At the bottom of a ravine”