Bangkota, the old Philippine word for coral reef, is the name and theme of the Philippine Pavilion at the 2020 World Expo. Ongoing till the end of March, our pavilion is a piece of home to almost 700,000 expatriate Filipinos living in the United Arab Emirates. A pity that many Filipinos working in the Expo cannot leave their posts to visit our pavilion, but others came in record numbers for the National Day capped by a rousing cultural presentation that brought many of our “kabayan” to tears.
World expositions go all the way back to the 1851 London Expo that brought an experience of the known world into one place. Early expos were shameless monuments to imperialism or colonialism but today the world is different. Filipino participation in expos has come a long way from being exhibited as specimens in “human zoos” in Madrid (1887) and St. Louis (1904) to having Philippine Pavilions in Osaka (1970), Aichi (2005), Zaragoza (2008), Shanghai (2010), and Dubai (2022, but listed as 2020). Then as now expos were places of wonder where visitors were treated to other peoples and cultures. Watching children collect stamps from the different pavilions in their expo passports made me realize that a day in a World Expo is the equivalent of five years of Araling Panlipunan.
Most pavilions highlighted trade, tourism, history, heritage, and culture. Some displayed economic development through infrastructure, while a minority ruined their pavilions by highlighting their political leaders. Our pavilion, designed by Royal Pineda and curated by Marian Pastor Roces, was different because it spoke to both Filipinos and foreigners alike. Art and video in the pavilion were like Aladdin’s flying carpet that brought visitors from the desert sands of the UAE back thousands of years to the root of a land and people we know today as the Philippines. It left visitors with a sense of that indescribable thing that defines us as Filipinos—language and culture.
This early, I am already looking forward to the 2025 Expo in Osaka because I walked through Expo ’70 Osaka when I was a boy and still remember in my mind’s eye entering the iconic Philippine Pavilion designed by National Artist Leandro Locsin. The exterior reminded me of the old Sulo restaurant in Makati but the interior was a jewel box of rich Philippine hardwood that set the backdrop for important paintings, sculptures, and photographs whose creators were later proclaimed National Artists. Each time I entered and exited the Dubai Expo, I drew pride from simply seeing our flag flying alongside 191 other flags representing the other counties participating in the Expo. That same flag often ignored and sometimes insulted back home means a lot to the expatriate or traveling Filipino.
Rizal visited the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris but he did not waste his allowance on a trip up the Eiffel Tower, then the tallest structure in the world until the Chrysler Building in New York was built in 1930. Of Rizal’s many impressions of the Paris Expo one often overlooked was his encounter with the people and cultures of Java. He described the Javanese town:
“… with its small houses, restaurants, theater, dances, music, etc. The people are of the same race as ours, and we almost understand each other: they speak Malayan and I, Tagalog. We were thinking of eating one day in the karihan, all of us Filipinos who are in Paris, with wives, young ladies and children. For the occasion we shall have sinigang and bagoong; now we don’t know how much it will cost us.”
Describing Javanese dance to his family he reported:
“They dance a kind of Subli, although it seems to me they are less graceful than our countrymen. They paint themselves yellow and are fantastically dressed. The music is played with bamboo instruments to the accompaniment of drums. All the men chew betel nuts and they wear a handkerchief tied to the neck; they are also small and look much like those in Tondo. They are not as robust nor as gay as our country folks. The houses are neither better constructed as ours, although they have more industries: they make hats, dye cloth, etc. When I entered the barrio for the first time (one pays 16 cuartos) I thought I was in Mamatid [Laguna] or in the Parian [outside Intramuros]. The sun was shining, there were plenty of nipa houses here and there. However, the chickens, pigs and dogs were missing.”
Then as now World Expos are places of wonder and discovery, a temporary space that brings peoples together in a fragmented world.