About “Ming Ming” by Steven Patrick C. Fernandez, Performed by IPAG

                 From the script, to the actors and the stage design, one can just say that the play “Ming Ming” was indeed an excellent work of art.

                At the start of the show, I saw two weird actors at a corner laughing at nothing and meowing like cats. I can’t believe they stood and acted like that for at least 30 minutes as they waited for the audience to arrive. At the moment the show started, I saw some kind of a lump in the middle of the stage which was covered with cloth while people acting as spirits were somewhat dancing around it. The cloth was later lifted to reveal a young lady which was Ming Ming, who in the story was imprisoned because of something still not clear to me at that time. She began to talk and ask questions even though the people around her didn't seem to hear her, as if she was just a spirit. As the story and the dialogues progress, the functions of the characters began to unveil and it became clearer to me. The characters were R, her mother, I, her grandmother, and P, her rebel uncle. The mother seemed to sometimes talk about her love life when she was young, and how she hated to be forced to marry someone whom she didn't know because of the “buya” tradition. It was a bit clear to me that her experiences and attitude towards her love life was a bit inherited to her grandmother because her grandmother was also talking about her own love life in the same way as the mother. I later found out that Ming Ming’s grandmother was secretly in love with her rebel uncle, but was forced to marry the older brother to end a “rido” between the families.

                Just when I thought that I could understand the play well, things just got difficult to understand. I was having a hard time constructing a family tree to better understand their relationships. It was also a little difficult to make a timeline out of the intertwining events that the characters spoke of. It blew my mind when it was revealed that Ming Ming was the daughter of another man and her mother, not from his legitimate father. I then realized that Ming Ming was imprisoned to hide the shame of this unfortunate event. The ending was tragic. Ming Ming couldn't bear the burden of these hardships and decided to commit suicide.

                The very difficult to understand web of events was a testament of how deep the story and idea was and the authors brilliance in creating this masterpiece. I recommend people to see it if they decide to show it again to experience this very creative and emotional play.

Insights and Reactions to the Story Entitled “The Sweet Unforgettable Day”

“The Sweet Unforgettable Day” was a story about a person who lost her mother a year prior to the story. The beginning of the story talks about the speaker visiting her father’s house in Korea to help prepare for the wedding of her father’s long-time houseboy to the family cook. Since the wedding would be held in the father’s house, they were busy decorating the interior. The speaker was the first to was the first to wake up in the morning of the big day. As soon as she set foot on the hallway, she smelled her mother’s perfume. She first tried to ignore it but later the scent was too thick and powerful. She then proceeded to call her father and other family members to smell the very familiar scent. This event reminded them of their mother, and that their mother being there made that day sweet and unforgettable.

It was indeed an unforgettable day for them, smelling their mother’s perfume which they didn't smell for a year after their mother’s death. Since this was a very important day and the author said that they were going all out for it, most of the family would probably been there to assist and to join the celebration. Maybe the mother took this opportunity that they were all together to let them feel her presence. Maybe she wanted to quench their desire to be reunited and to be complete on this special day.

It is never easy to accept the reality that you will never see your loved one again for the rest of your life. Because of this, some people wanted their departed loved ones show their presence once more, but some don’t. But if I ever lose a very close loved one and then feel their presence once more after a long time (not in a terrifying manner), I would maybe have the same reaction as with the people in story – crying and at the same time being happy. We are being reminded that our separation is just temporary, and we will see them again in the afterlife.