|  |
| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 4 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
REVIEW OF "HOW SWEET THE MANGO, NO? The Journey of a Hispanic Amerasian Nov 04, 2009
By Matthias Mendezona
By Virgilio Reyes, Jr., 11 October 2009, Pretoria, South Africa
Mathias Mendezona's "fictional autobiography" is, bittersweet like a half-ripened mango, a fascinating personal account of a Hispanic Amerasian interwoven with the recent history of the Philippines.
Although the references are to real events and people, Mr. Mendezona employs an alter ego, Bube Gibelondo, to narrate his story, which spans six decades. Like Mathias(who also has the nickname Bube--pronounced Booby), Bube grew up near Dipolog in Southern Mindanao, with the same Basque, Malay and American roots, belongs to the mestizo elite of this region, studied in private schools, worked as a young professional and as a manager of his family's business during the troubled times of martial law under Ferdinand Marcos, supported and helped bring about the election of Corazon Aquino, experienced the Muslim rebellion directly, resulting in his clan's dispossession of their hacienda from the agrarian reform measures, and finally migrated to the United States with his family.
Both Bube's lived in (as the Chinese say) "interesting times." His own lineage is a reflection of the Philippines' checkered past. The Basque/Spanish roots harken back to Spaniards who once ruled the Islas Filipinas for three hundred and thirty years. His American grandfather migrated to these shores when the Americans took over (except for a Japanese interlude during the Second World War) for nearly fifty years. Uniting both sides are the Malay origins which locate the family in this Southeast Asian archipelago.
Bube has had the good fortune of living in all three island groups in the Philippines--Mindanao (where his family pioneered in what was once known as "the Promised land"); Visayas(in Cebu, which was the Philippines' first chosen capital under the Spanish); and Luzon(Manila, where he did university at the renowned Jesuit institution , the Ateneo de Manila). He is thus in a position to explore the rich and many-layered levels of this complex society. It shows how, despite its huge population (now estimated at 90 million in an area of 300,000 square kilometers), everything is interconnected and, as least for the educated and the elite are concerned, "everyone knows everybody else."
Bube connects not only to his Christian ilustrado relatives but also the Subanons, an indigenous people who still live a hunter-gatherer life in the mountains, as well as to the Muslims who form an integral part of Mindanao's culture. It is not an accident that he is also multilingual, speaking Pilipino, English, Spanish, Cebuano and the local patois called Chavacano. This serves him in good stead in such harrowing circumstances as attempting to recover the body of a beloved uncle in a plane crash in the deep waters of an area affected by the Muslim rebellion.
So closely interwoven are the stories of the process of growth and maturity, professional development, family and national history that one must navigate Bube's splendid tale, in the tradition of the chronicles of the Spanish explorers who settled these islands for Europe. It is the irony of Philippine history that, after the Filipinos had emancipated themselves from the Spanish in 1898, that he is writing this story in American English, with the smattering of the occasional Filipino word.
Bube is thus torn between many worlds and choices--whether to side with the crowds in the street, justifiably protesting against Marcos's misrule, or to settle into a comfortable job to raise his growing family, to strike it out on his own or to carry forward the family tradition by working on the family's plantation, to continue to serve his country or to migrate to the United States as many did during martial law.
The same Jesuit education resulted in the engagement in the Leftist movement, as well as the eventual premature death, of some of the brightest lights of the Ateneo de Manila--the poet Emman Lacaba, the student leader Edgar Jopson (whose son would coincidentally marry Mendezona's daughter) and scholar Nick Solana. There but for the grace of God...
For a while, Bube seems to have chosen the "middle way," working as a diligent son and as an ambitious "salary man." Despite slights experienced by him (none of his family attended his wedding for what now seems a silly superstition to an otherwise perfect girl from another elite family), his final choices seem to be an affirmation of his ties with his family and country. He is there to help his brother who was the last to make a stand against the NPA on the family property. He stands up to be counted among those who defied Marcos and helped ensure an Aquino victory. Sadly enough, the new government does not result in the golden age that Mendezona and countless others like him hoped for. In fact, from at least one point of view, he finds himself among the dispossessed and he writes on the standpoint of the landlords whose property have undergone what he regards as an unjust and ineffective land reform.
Having paid their dues and deciding from the viewpoint of creating a future for their four daughters, Bube and Mikey Gibelondo (read, Mendezona) finally decide to migrate to the United States. But the tug of the Motherland is still there--the sweet taste of mango still prevails.
.
"How Sweet the Mango, No?" is a must read for Filipinos and Amerasians who wish to understand the dilemmas faced by those with multicultural backgrounds and whose histories profoundly affect the choices that they make.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Bube - one heck of a story teller! Feb 06, 2010
By Rosario Prats
I heard about the book from my cousin Charlie. Upon his recommendation, I ordered it online from Amazon. It was compelling reading right from the start...and I just could not put it down either. Intrique, humour, love, sadness, honour, courage, loyalty, patriotism...and more are depicted in this marvelous story. I sincerely hope that Bube will continue to write as he is one heck of a story teller!
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Good job Bube! Jun 25, 2009
By M. I. Munoz
I have just finished the book and enjoyed it ... couldn't put it down.
As someone who once lived in the Philippines I was pleasantly reminded of my birth country and felt quite "nostalgic". My parents were born there of Spanish parents and my mom was familiar with Bubes extended family (Aboitiz) as she had grown up in Cebu.
I enjoyed his adventures growing up with a very special grandfather and his adventures as a young lad, I felt joy hearing about his wife Mikey (we were once very close friends until I left Manila), and was saddened to hear about his struggles with the changing face of the country- living during the difficult late Marcos era (martial law). His losses- grandfathers land; friends and his new beginning.
Again Bube--- good job!
How Sweet the Mango, No? Nov 29, 2010
By ACorrales
This book is very well-written. There was never a lull. It was riveting. I wanted to know what happened next: to his family, the vast property they owned and more importantly, how they survived the hand of fate. I have known Bube and some of his siblings during my college days. I have visited some of the places depicted in this book, including his family's home. Not only does he give us a first-hand slice of history during the Marcos era and thereafter but he also gives us a glimpse of a life filled with adventure in some small corner of the world. His story could be someone else's as well, including his triumphs and his struggles and eventually his journey to a brand new life. God always provides. Every bit of his adventure was in preparation for the bigger things in life. Clearly, he was being shown the way. I highly recommend this to anyone who has ever lived in the Philippines, either by birth, by marriage or by happenstance.
|
| | |
|
|
