California Dreamin'

If you could ask the eight-year-old version of me to describe what the United States is like, I would probably describe California.

When I was that age, growing up in the Philippines, my image of America was of sun-kissed beaches, surfers in the waves, vibrant cityscapes, a busy network of highways, avenues lined with palm trees, the “Hollywood” sign perched on the hill overlooking celebrity mansions, kids in bright coloured summer clothes skateboarding in the park, apple orchards, expansive vineyards, giant sequoia and redwood trees in the forest, boats floating on Lake Tahoe, and of course, amusement parks – Disneyland, Universal Studios, Knott’s Berry Farm, SeaWorld, and so much more.

This was a product of all the American movies and TV shows I watched as child. Of course, not all of them were set in California, but the ones that stayed etched in my mind were those happy movies involving kids and youngsters having some fun times at the park or by the beach somewhere in LA…living the California dream. Forget New York, Boston, Las Vegas, or Texas. Those cities were not very interesting for a kid like me.

My cousins and some schoolmates would usually spend their summer vacations visiting family in some county in California (there are a lot of Filipino immigrants in California; at present, Filipinos are the largest Asian ethnic group in the state) and then send us pictures and postcards from Disneyland or SeaWorld. As I stared at them wearing the iconic Mickey Mouse hats and posing against the backdrop of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle or grinning beside a dolphin or an orca after watching their pool show, I would imagine myself being there and enjoying those same moments.

When I was ten, one of my aunts moved to Sacramento with her entire family and I had since exchanged letters and pictures with my cousins. They would mail me photos of summer camps at Lake Tahoe, snorkeling at Long Beach, or hiking at Sequoia Park. I told myself that someday, I would travel to the United States.

It was not until I reached my university years that I got to travel to America. In my grade school and high school years, we could only afford to travel within the country, and twice, to nearby Hong Kong. A trip to America was beyond our budget then.

During my junior year at university, I joined a school theatre group that resurrected an old “zarzuela” (a Spanish lyric-drama stage performance that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, as well as dance numbers, and was adapted in the vernacular and became popular in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period). We modernized it to appeal to the younger generation. I was the show’s technical director.

Our group was invited by the North American chapter of the university’s alumni association to perform in a few East Coast cities of the United States (New York, Washington DC, and Detroit) and Canada (Toronto). The alumni association members were to partially sponsor our trip and host us for the duration of our stay.

It so happened that our musical director was the brother of Lea Salonga, who at that time, was at the height of her popularity after having played the lead role in the musical, Miss Saigon (both the West End and the Broadway versions). Lea, who was based in New York that time, was very supportive of her brother’s project and volunteered to perform and travel with us. She was going to be the show’s opening act. This, for sure, brought in more ticket sales, considering we were just a band of university kids performing a musical.

Since it was a partial sponsorship, we were expected to contribute. We were to shoulder half of the plane fare and take care of our personal expenses. We’d be provided free accommodations and per diem while there, but we were responsible for miscellaneous costs.

Our group worked hard to get local sponsors but we could not get enough to cover 50% of the tour’s cost. We would somehow need to shoulder a portion of the expenses from our own pockets. A third of the group dropped out because they either couldn’t afford it, or they were not willing to spend their own money.

We had to make adjustments to the casting because we lost a lot of people. Some performers had to do double-duty by either taking on two characters (usually a main character and a bit-player or part of the ensemble) and the crew/non-performers were down to three – the executive producer, the stage manager, and me, the technical director.

This meant we had to do all the other behind-the-scene tasks such as the coordination of technical requirements with local providers (c/o me), supervision of the set-up of lights and audio equipment (c/o me), supervision of the local crew (c/o me; and I’d usually meet them only hours before the show), and the preparation, transportation, and mounting of stage set, props, and costumes for each performance (c/o the stage manager with some help from the executive producer whose main task was to manage the logistics of the international trip and the road tour within America).

I really wanted to go, not just because I wanted to finally see the United States, but also because this opportunity would be a good experience and a training ground for a future media job. We were told that for us Communication majors (which was majority of the group), this theatre tour could be counted as our “practicum,” which meant we would receive academic credits.

Fortunately, from the combined contributions of my parents, my aunt and uncle, and a part of my savings, we were able to scrape off the required funds for me to go.

Our destination was, of course, not the California of my childhood dreams. But by this time, I was already a young adult and interested to see more places aside from this state. The good news was that after the official tour in the East Coast, my friend, who was the stage manager, planned on stopping over Los Angeles to spend a week with her aunt and cousins and she invited me to come along (my aunt's family had since moved from Sacramento to Vancouver, otherwise, I would have visited them). I would, after all, be able to see California!

Our East Coast trip was a mix of work and leisure. We spent a lot of time preparing for each performance, taking care of logistical and production arrangements, and doing a couple of courtesy calls in New York - one at the Philippine Consulate, and the other to the Jesuits at Fordham University (the university I attended in Manila is run by the Jesuits). But we were also treated to a few fun times – an after-show party at the Philippine Consulate, welcome dinners given by the Filipino community, city tours conducted by our sponsors, visits to a few tourist attractions in between performances, a couple of Broadway shows, and downtown outings with new friends. But all that is for another story. That was the work part – the official theatre tour.

My first non-official trip to America was the seven days that I spent in California with my friend’s relatives in Long Beach before going back to Manila. We (my friend, myself, and the executive producer of our group who tagged along) stayed at her aunt’s house. And because her aunt, uncle and cousins were either working or going to school, the routine was for them to drop us off wherever we were going that day and pick us up in the early evening or late at night.

There were a couple of days when we just hung around the neighbourhood and hung out with her aunt as she was doing errands – grocery-shopping, mailing parcels at the post office, picking up clothes from the dry cleaner’s – or we’d just eat at a restaurant or have dessert at a popular hangout. In all honesty, I actually looked forward to these because I wanted to experience a slice of the American daily life, just like what I used to see in the Hollywood movies.

Even household chores like vacuuming, loading the dishwasher, and doing my own laundry and ironing were exciting for me because in the Philippines, those were not part of my daily life. We were not rich, but we were comfortable enough to have helpers at home who did all those for us. I wasn’t sure if my friend’s aunt was thrilled that we were doing chores at her house, for we probably created more work for her rather than actually helped.

My first memories of California were being able to do most of the things that I had wanted to do as a kid, that is, whatever we could fit into the seven days that we were there!

(Please read the succeeding stories to find out what we did.)