Another Philippine Hoops Writer!

It's good to know I'm not the only American writer with an odd fascination with Philippine basketball.

On my recent Manila trip, I met up with Rafe Bartholomew, like me, an American working on a Filipino basketball-themed book. Except rather than accidentally tumbling into the subject (and the country) like I did, he actually intentionally applied for a Fulbright Scholarship to go to the Philippines and research basketball.

He followed the season of the PBA team the Alaska Aces (nee Milkmen) chronicling their efforts to become league champions. And despite his gloomy expression in the photo above, it was good to see his book will have a happy ending (see my posting below--spoiler alert!)

Rafe has written about Philippine basketball for the NY Times and Slate, among other places, so it's good to see there's a market for the topic. While my basketball-themed stories of the Philippines are in the context of a travel adventure, his writing concentrates on the sport itself. So I was happy I didn't have to kill Rafe off to protect my market, as he's a good guy. Hopefully next year at this time, our books will be linked on Amazon, saying "if you like this one...then be sure to buy..."

The more things change...

I've had a couple questions about publishing a non-fiction book set in 1990-1991. Do the issues and storylines of my story still matter? Haven't the Philippines and the world situation completely changed since then? Who cares about what happened to some dude 17 years ago?

Although downtown Makati is almost unrecognizable from back in the day, with new skyscrapers, restaurants, and malls, other items in the daily news make you wonder if anything has changed at all.

In the weeks prior to my original arrival in the Philippines in 1990, Peace Corps volunteers were kidnapped, and Americans were killed, prompting extensive warnings against travelling to the country. Unfortunately, it just happened again.

And the story I wrote in a prior post about hundreds of people living in a massive Manila trash dump? Well, the dump has moved, but as an article in last December's Harpers Magazine described, the people just followed the trash.

Politics are still crazy, with the same Jokers involved. The the overthrow of the government after the EDSA protests of '86 were followed by the sequel of EDSA2 in 2001 . I experienced martial law a few times in 90-91, last year they just called it a "state of emergency." And Anti-American protests, continue to be part of Philippine news.

And so the question remains--how does a person travel and live abroad in a place like the Philippines during these troubled times? How does the reality on the ground contrast to the nightly drama featured on CNN? And how did a clueless American like myself bridge the gap between cultures and come out of all this turmoil not only surviving, but thriving in the experience. For that story, you'll have to read Dunked in Manila (just as soon as I stop screwing around on a blog and actually finish writing the book)