Png

Whoops, I saved it as a JPEG when I should've saved it as a PNG.

Looking from outside, the whole Earth may still be like Papua New Guinea, or PNG for short. My fatherland the Philippines obliquely retains its primitive innocence. It is really too bad that literature in indigenous languages there is still scarce. A trip to a bookstore in the Philippines reveals many books in English, but a mere small section in Tagalog. People speak an indigenous language ordinarily, every day, but when they read or write, it is often English. But texting on cellphones and smartphones and in Social Media may often be abbreviated Taglish code-switching. Many Filipinos prefer television, cinema, or videos in an indigenous language, rather than read English, which to them is still foreign cold. Maybe, Roman letters are too rigid for their Asian eyes, unlike the ancient Baybayin script, which nowadays people relegate to tattoos and patriotic T-shirts. Filipino culture is highly aural-oral, today. Today, Japanese anime, Korean dramas, American shows, and so on are dubbed in Tagalog in the Philippines, more so than when I lived there decades ago.

After my cover blew up I was PNGed.

It is a great honour and privilege for me to address the participants of this conference – a landmark event taking place in PNG this month.