Thursday 26 January 2012

ABNKKBSNPLAko?!

It sucks when you don't realise how important something is... and sure, this vague entrance towards this post may make it seem like some sort of sappy whining and moaning about a boy but it's not. It's more like something that makes you unique and self-defining and the fear of that something as it slowly slips away from your grasp.

So I thought it would be good to try to get into some literature from my language. I didn't want to start with some deep filipino-translation of any Jose Rizal works quite so soon because that seems to equivalent giving a 5 year old Jane Eyre instead of a nice picture book (though i didn't want to start with picture books either) so I thought I would begin with some modern-humour kind of things.

Bob Ong is awesome.

I haven't read much of his work but from most of what I've read so far he is awesome. So here's a brief translation from 'ABNKKBSNPLAko?!' (take note that I'm not a professional translator and I'm just sharing a part that amuses me)

For:
Teachers
Students
Ones who used to be students
Ones who don't want to be students
Drop outs
Kick outs
Transferees
Cross-enrolled
And honour students


...

But being able to read is not a joke, it's a rite of passage. If you can read you are baptised to what they call 'literate'. You can read the lies from the newspapers, subtitles from foreign films and vandalism on the seats of busses like 'The person reading this is an idiot'

Followers