Filipino books made available in Netherlands
06/30/2011
THE NETHERLANDS – In countries like the Netherlands where English is not the main language, acquiring Filipino books from the local book stores can be difficult.
The Philippine Trade and Investment Conference (PTIC) in Rotterdam is trying to make it easier by making available selected Filipino books, authored by both Filipino and Dutch writers, in Selexyz, the biggest bookstore in the Netherlands.
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During the book fair and film showing entitled "Tales of the Filipino" held at Selexyz Rotterdam, commercial attache Alma Argayoso invited the participants to discover the Philippines not only through tourist books but also through its culture and history, vividly written in the many pages of the books exhibited that day.
For Filipinos who were not able to attend the book fair or buy the books on site, PTIC is making them available through special orders at the Selexyz. The selection contains different books on history, travel, cooking, architecture, children’s stories, cuisine, language and culture.
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“We also want to make Philippine books more mainstream by making it available in one of the biggest bookstores in the Netherlands. We want to encourage increased demand for Philippine books thereby helping Philippine publishers export more of their books in the Netherlands,” said Argayoso.
Through the exhibition, Yvonne Belen, a former teacher who now lives in the Netherlands wants to show not only the Dutch but especially fellow Filipinos the richness of her ancestor’s culture in the Mountain Province.
The book "Flavors from my Bontoc Igorot Roots" is Belen’s personal account of the cuisine and the unique culture that the Igorots have preserved throughout the years.
Meanwhile, books about expatriate living were also included in the selection. One of these is "A Tast of Home, Pinoy Expats and Food Memories," a collection of stories about cooking and living in the Netherlands written by Filipina expatriates in the Netherlands.
“Filipinos have a love affair with food, which we carry in our hearts and our taste buds when we move away from our homeland. It is a link to what one has left behind, a memory of the good old days, an energy source to build a new life, a door to explore a new world, or a reminder of who one is and what it means to be Filipino,” said Annie Adlawan, a Cebuana businesswoman married to a Dutchman, who wrote the piece Eat with a Passion, Cook with Heart.
The Philippine Through European Lenses by anthropologist Professor Otto van den Muijzenberg is one of the two books written by Dutch authors. It contains earliest accounts, including photographs, of the relations between the Netherlands and the Philippines.
The research took years, done both in the Philippines and the Netherlands with the help of the family of Meerkamp van Emden, a Dutch businessman who went to the Philippines to start a tobacco company and later on became an honorary consul to the country.
“My goal was to bring the 19th century photos to the Philippines because there, they belong. Making the book is way of making accessible to the Filipinos what their country and their people were like more than a century ago.”
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The complete collection of books are available through PTIC and can be ordered from a special order form at Selexyz Rotterdam. - report from Dheza Marie Aguilar, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau
The Philippine Trade and Investment Conference (PTIC) in Rotterdam is trying to make it easier by making available selected Filipino books, authored by both Filipino and Dutch writers, in Selexyz, the biggest bookstore in the Netherlands.
For Filipinos who were not able to attend the book fair or buy the books on site, PTIC is making them available through special orders at the Selexyz. The selection contains different books on history, travel, cooking, architecture, children’s stories, cuisine, language and culture.
Through the exhibition, Yvonne Belen, a former teacher who now lives in the Netherlands wants to show not only the Dutch but especially fellow Filipinos the richness of her ancestor’s culture in the Mountain Province.
The book "Flavors from my Bontoc Igorot Roots" is Belen’s personal account of the cuisine and the unique culture that the Igorots have preserved throughout the years.
Meanwhile, books about expatriate living were also included in the selection. One of these is "A Tast of Home, Pinoy Expats and Food Memories," a collection of stories about cooking and living in the Netherlands written by Filipina expatriates in the Netherlands.
“Filipinos have a love affair with food, which we carry in our hearts and our taste buds when we move away from our homeland. It is a link to what one has left behind, a memory of the good old days, an energy source to build a new life, a door to explore a new world, or a reminder of who one is and what it means to be Filipino,” said Annie Adlawan, a Cebuana businesswoman married to a Dutchman, who wrote the piece Eat with a Passion, Cook with Heart.
The Philippine Through European Lenses by anthropologist Professor Otto van den Muijzenberg is one of the two books written by Dutch authors. It contains earliest accounts, including photographs, of the relations between the Netherlands and the Philippines.
The research took years, done both in the Philippines and the Netherlands with the help of the family of Meerkamp van Emden, a Dutch businessman who went to the Philippines to start a tobacco company and later on became an honorary consul to the country.
“My goal was to bring the 19th century photos to the Philippines because there, they belong. Making the book is way of making accessible to the Filipinos what their country and their people were like more than a century ago.”
The complete collection of books are available through PTIC and can be ordered from a special order form at Selexyz Rotterdam. - report from Dheza Marie Aguilar, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau
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