05.15.08 kulturnatib

Tulips

Everybody knows about tulips and Holland. But not about tulips and Ottawa. I certainly didn't. Not until last year. But I heard something about it only in passing. I arrived for a vacation a month too late for the annual Canadian Tulips Festival, held every May in Ottawa and Gatineau.

This time, however, I arrived when the tulips would have already been planted in autumn, in time for their spring bloom, which is right about now.

The story of this festival dates back more than half a century ago. When the Nazis ignored the pleaded neutrality of the Dutch and invaded just the same during World War 2, the Canadians sheltered Princess Juliana and her daughters.

During this forced exile a daughter to Princess Juliana was born at the Ottawa Civic Hospital, the maternity ward of which had to be temporarily declared Dutch territory so as not to have any citizenship problems for the just born royal. At the war's end, in a gesture of gratitude, the Royals gifted the city with 100,000 bulbs of tulips.

Being the beauties that they are, the tulips soon earned an enthusiastic following in the city among whom was the photographer, Malak Karsh, who in 1953 suggested the festival. Years later, this festival has grown to be what the organizers claim as the biggest festival of its kind in the world.

The point in this history that I am interested in started only last year. As festival organizers are always looking for something to make their festival more attractive they hit upon the idea that should have been thought of right from the start. After all what was the welcome extended by the Canadians to members of the Dutch Royalty if not a gesture of international friendship?

So, they added an international component through a pavilion, the International Pavilion, involving the diplomatic and immigrant community. This was deemed successful enough in its inaugural year to merit a repeat performance.

Naively I thought that somehow the Philippine participation would be related to tulips, as I thought the same with the other participating countries. Or, perhaps something about flowers. After all this is a tulips festival.

I remember a few years back while working on a local television program, on a segment about the flower industry in the mountain barangays of Cebu City, I was told by one flower grower that there were current attempts to grow tulips locally. He pointed to a somewhat hush-hush greenhouse tucked in one of the neighboring hills where this experiment was being carried out.

It was an intriguing lead but there was no time to reschedule the airing of that segment and not enough verifiable facts to even warrant a rescheduling.

Why I expected this story to make its way to Ottawa when Philippine embassies and missions everywhere are known for their just-so service and just-that levels of initiative baffles even myself.

Still it was with enthusiasm, fueled by a beautiful spring day, that I walked the two kilometer distance to the pavilion where for that day the spotlight was on the Philippine participation.

I should have known better. I should have expected the usual. What else would we immediately think of when showing off to foreigners? Mount a fiesta. At least that was what I think the Philippine booth was trying to do judging from the banderitas or plastic buntings that were hung about. Yet, what would have conclusively clinched the fiesta theme conclusion I missed except for some tell tale remains: scraps of food. That's what makes a fiesta, right?

Still, I was just in time for the song and dance. For sure another Filipino mainstay. Then again, it was the usual, including how you can always tell without fail that it is a Filipino that has come up on stage and taken up the microphone. They always, always knock on the microphone twice and say hello, hello!

I have no problems with the fiesta presented as the window to the Philippines. It is that it has to be accompanied by renditions of old folk songs that annoy me. There is nothing wrong with old folk songs. I like them as much as my dear departed father. But why is it made to sound that there are no other songs other than those? Can't somebody sing something by the Eraserheads? Or, Junior Kilat?

To be fair, my father would not sing Eraserheads. Neither, I think, would those good folks who made up most of the chorale who look about the same age as my dad when he passed on.

But there was this fairly young Pinoy, with had a more practiced voice though not necessarily better for singing Eraserheads. Then again, he sings 'Dahil Sa 'Yo,' botching it so thoroughly that it would have Imelda rolling in her grave even if she is not there just yet.

If the chorale cum dance troupe didn't do too well on stage, they did better at the booth in a kind of harana where they did a repeat of what could only be a limited repertoire. Even Imelda would agree.

The young Pinoy redeemed himself well enough in the end. As I think the entire Philippine effort did for whom, as with most of us, there is always next time to try better. So, until next spring. Inshallah.