As part of the weekly exercises of my graduate students in Anthropology 225: Philippine Society and Culture, I wanted my students to explore places and write ethnography using the method of participation-observation.
I am posting in my blog with the writer's consent selected ethnography penned creatively by my students to contribute to the emerging sub-discipline of anthropology called 'Virtual Ethnography'.
Basically, virtually ethnography is also referred to as Webnography. We cannot deny the fact that with increasing use of technology and the Internet, there is now a demand for online spaces on various ethnographic accounts.
Ethnography by Edwin Lineses
Like churches and libraries, I feel that museums share with them their enigmatic wonders, creepy ambience, and consecrated hours. Yet unlike churches and libraries, museums offer me material cultures to taste a bite of reality of what it is to live in the place and time that have long passed by me.
It has been five years since I found myself here in De La Salle University-Dasmarinas yet for once I never stumbled on to the Museo De La Salle. Had it not been to Anthropology 225, I might have lost an opportunity to relieve the grandeur of the past and experience a culture unfolds before my very eyes. Alas for me inasmuch as I prejudged a museum that is close by me,
Days earlier, I have been trying to reach the staff in charge of the museum if I can pay a visit some time this week but I just could not get through her. I was not really asking for the director not the curator of the museum because of the constraint of time for this inquiry. All I ask that I be allowed to roam around the museum and experience a visit so as to describe a phenomenon worthy of ethnographic note, thereby making familiar unfamiliar, and unfamiliar a bit familiar.
But not until today, it finally dawned on me that I am with the past…I am living with the culture and the time, which could have been just on dusted shelves through the pages of history, in the leaves of unscathed books.
I was walking through adobe pasillo towards the Museo…my mind was wondering, thinking of how do I write about an experience that I have not gotten even a chance to live. I was in front of the Museo and I wondered if it was really open – the door was closed. It seemed that nobody was around but I have to go in. I had an appointment.
Right before entering the Museo, I marveled at the big door of puerta mayor made of balayong, roughly 15 feet of height and 10 feet wide, which is opened only for the entrance and exit of carriages and carrozas. But I only have to get through the postigo, the small door, just enough for the two persons bowing heads to enter at the same time. Upon knocking I was surprised to be met by two ready student assistants who far knew better what culture in 19th century was like.
Upon passing through the postigo we were straight right into foyer table right at the center of the Zaguan of the passageway. On both ends is where the caleza and the carroza for the patron saint were kept.
Up in the center is the main staircase to the house where the left is reserved only for the women and right only for the men. The interior details the caida, sala mayor, despacho, cuartos, oratorio, comedor, and cocina. All portray differentiation, status, and hierarchy even in the family and more so the visitors of the family.
The Museo depicts the Bahay na Bato, patterned after illustrado houses of two-storey building with stone, brick and mortar structure at the ground level, and usually a wood one at the second level. It is filled with fine furniture and objects to showcase the owner’s wealth, personal style, and status in society. These examples of material culture serve to document a range of natural and socio-historical motifs.
As claimed, the Museo is a lifestyle dedicated to the preservation of certain aspects and material culture of the 19th century Philippine illustrado lifestyle. It seeks to provide a living space illustrating a bit of Philippine culture.
The tile-roofed structure is walled with abode, which keeps the ground floor interiors cool. The fachada (façade) is typical of the era, with wide tall doors, iron grilles four ground floor windows; and details such as ventanilla lined with balusters de torno and mouldoras (mouldings).
Then I realized …its’ almost 2:25 pm, and I need to leave. I need to rush. I have a class. It was almost time and I will be late for my class.
I must have forgotten the current time because I lived in the time different from mine.
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