The Origin of the Filipino Race

I was looking at my old files today. I found the following worthy of reposting. Enjoy! Cheers to All!

Si Malakas at Maganda-The first Pinoy couple

This is my own English translation of the origin of the Filipino race. It is a story based on children's folklore written in the local dialect of the Philippines.

In 1972, after I received my US citizenship, I was invited by our Local Lions Club as a guest speaker during one of their monthly meetings. They requested that I talk about the Japanese-American War in the Philippines. This subject is one chapter in my autobiography, so I was confident about the content of my talk. However, I had no experience in public speaking, but had taken a speech class in college. Our speech teacher once said that before your speech, you have to put your audience at ease, so always tell a joke that is related to the subject of your talk. The following is the joke I told the group: The Origin of the Filipino Race.

Evidently, when God created mankind, he molded the human form using clays and an oven. The first time, he was doing this, God was so excited that he took what he was baking too soon. The human clay was under cooked or underdone. So it was pale and white. That was the origin of the White Race. God was not happy, so he started to bake another human form. This time he got a telephone call from Satan. God was upset he forgot about what he was doing and the baking was over done, the human form was overcooked, and turned black. This was the origin of the Black Race. God then told himself, “This time it will be perfect. I will watch it very carefully and will not be distracted by any calls.” His baking was perfect. The human form was golden brown, and perfectly cooked. This was the origin of the Filipino race.

Note: The original form of the above story was from children’s folklore in the local dialect (Ilonggo or Hiligaynon) in the Philippines. The above article is my own English translation of the folklore. I hope it brightens your day! Needless to say, my talk was a success!

Miss Saigon- 25th Anniversary Gala of the Finale

It is time for some great Broadway music..


To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Miss Saigon, a sell-out Gala performance took place at the Prince Edward Theatre, London. Featuring the cast of the new production, and the original company, including Jonathan Pryce, Lea Salonga and Simon Bowman. This truly was an event like no other!

Since Miss Saigon's sensational record-breaking run at London's Theatre Royal Drury Lane 25 years ago it has played in 300 cities in 15 different languages, winning awards around the world.

This epic musical love story tells the tragic tale of young bar girl Kim, orphaned by war, who falls in love with an American GI called Chris - but their lives are torn apart by the fall of Saigon.



In 1992 Macrine and I paid scalped prices for the two tickets to Miss Saigon in London. Tears rolling from our eyes moved by the story and music of the modern Madame Butterfly musical will never be erased in our memory. The leading lady was not Lea Salonga, but another Filipina singer. The leading man, Junix Inocian, who inherited Jonathan Pyrce role, is also a Filipino and did a good job singing the "American Dream" song. Seeing Miss Saigon in London was one of the highlights in our vacation that year.

My Writing Activities are Shifting into the Right Direction

My writing activities has shifted into the positive direction after Hubpages acquired Squidoo about 7 weeks ago. As of today, I have updated my 23 lenses to Hubpages. I have also written 8 new hubs making my total of 31 hubs.

Of the 31 hubs, 10 hubs scored from 80 to 84 and the rest hubs scores varied from 60 to 79 with an average score of 72. I do not really pay attention to this scores, but it would be nice to have a hub scores 90 and above.

On the other hand my hubber ( writer) scores varies between 78 to 84. I have no idea why my hubber score changes without any reasons. I really do not pay serious attention to my hubber score, as long as I am earning at least 0.05 to 10 cents per day. To view my hubs visit www.hubpages.com/chateaudumer

For those of you who have not heard of Hubpages and Squidoo, here's a short information from wikipedia.org

HubPages is a user generated content, revenue-sharing website. On December 7, 2013, the website published data that showed that the website consisted of 910,106 "Hubs" (magazine-style articles on a specific topic), 73,969 published users, and 2,498,967 forum posts. With the acquisition of Squidoo, the number of hubbers (writers) went up close to 84,300 and hubs ( articles) are now nearly 1 million. It is an honor if your hub is chosen as Editor's Choice or Hub of the Day,

The Hubpages writing site was launched on August 6, 2006, and funded by a $2 million investment from Hummer Winblad. The three founders, Paul Edmonson, Paul Deeds, and Jay Reitz, are former employees of Microsoft and were part of the start up MongoMusic.

According to Quantcast, HubPages has become one of the 50 most-visited U.S. sites on the Internet. In a November 2013 Quantcast monthly report, the website received around 16.1 million unique U.S. visits and over 30.9 million unique global visits, with more users accessing the site from computer browsers than with mobile devices.

Squidoo pn the other hand was a community Web site platform that allowed users to create pages, called "lenses," which could then be used to sell products for profit or charitable donation. The site reportedly consisted of 1.5 million "hand-built lenses" as of October 2010. On August 15, 2014, Seth Godin announced that HubPages had acquired Squidoo.

The Latest Political News from the Philippines

The latest interesting political news from the Philippines, just in case you have not read It 
marinduque rising: Palace plot to 'neutralize' Cardinal Vidal: Palace plot to ‘neutralize’ Cardinal Vidal fails Manila Times, October 5, 2014  by  FRANCISCO S. TATAD After one long month of tr...

Heaven and Earth Movie

It is time to enjoy a good movie. I have seen this movie twice and yesterday. I saw it again but still enjoy it very much.



Heaven & Earth is a 1993 Vietnam war film directed and written by Oliver Stone, and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Haing S. Ngor, Joan Chen, and Hiep Thi Le. It is the third and final film in Stone's Vietnam War trilogy, which also includes Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989).

The film was based on the books When Heaven and Earth Changed Places and Child of War, Woman of Peace, which Le Ly Hayslip wrote about her experiences during and after the Vietnam War.

Joke of the Day-The Photographer

photo from Rachmad666 deviantart.com
Let us start the month of October with a joke. This is titled The Photographer as posted in Sandee Comedy Plus blog

"His request approved, the Bulletin Newspaper photographer quickly used his mobile phone to call the Townsville airport to charter a flight.

He was told a twin-engine plane would be waiting for him at the airport.

Arriving at the airfield, he spotted a plane warming up outside a hanger.

He jumped in with his bag, slammed the door shut, and shouted, 'Let's go'.

The pilot taxied out, swung the plane into the wind and took off.

Once in the air, the photographer instructed the pilot, 'Fly over Mount Stuart and make low passes so I can take pictures of the fires on the hillsides.'

'Why?' asked the pilot.

'Because I'm a photographer for the Bulletin' he responded,' and I need to get some close up shots.'

The pilot was strangely silent for a moment, finally he stammered, 'So, what you're telling me is... You're NOT my flight instructor?'

Hat tip: Willy of Hillbilly Willy