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Monday, January 16, 2006
Tourists rave, about dances, but not delays
By Mia E. Abellana & Jeanette P. Malinao
Sun.Star Staff Reporters
“Beautiful. Very beautiful.”
This was how tourists described yesterday’s Sinulog grand parade.
Foreigners braved the heat and the barely passable roads to have their photos taken with the dancers.
Despite lulls at the carousel route, tourists fought boredom by asking the most scantily clad dancers to pose for several pictures. Some of them even asked to hold the props.
The dancers happily obliged.
For two Iranian students, the Sinulog Festival is unlike anything they had ever seen. Taherh Akbaryan, who is studying pharmacology at the University of the Visayas, was with her husband and seven-year-old daughter.
Akbaryan’s husband, Tamshed Kanalizadhi, is also studying optometry at the Cebu Doctors’ University.
“We want to take many pictures because we will show this to the people in our country,” Akbaryan said.
Their daughter Ailar, was freely dancing to the beat, but was scared when she saw two men dressed in loincloths with black paint on their bodies.
“We will be here to see this again next year,” Kanalizadhi said, as he egged his daughter to pose with the two men.
“It’s the most beautiful city in the country. It’s my first time here, but not the last,” said Aydin Öndül, who lives in Istanbul, Turkey.
Asked where he was from, Öndül asked this reporter if she was familiar with actress Ruffa Gutierrez.
“We live in the same city,” he said.
Öndül said he has been to other cities in the country, but was most impressed with Cebu.
His friends online influenced him to visit Cebu.
Impressed with what he has seen, Öndül said he even wanted to buy a house here.
Korean and Japanese tourists were also very visible in the streets.
Some of them danced to the beat and donned Sinulog T-shirts.
Others were fascinated with the henna and stick-on tattoos, face paint and masks.
Not pleased
But not all tourists were pleased all throughout.
Liam, a 25-year-old from Germany, told Sun.Star Cebu he was “sorry” he was persuaded two days ago to cancel a ferry trip for Kalibo for a similar festivity.
“They all said this is bigger but I guess bigger doesn’t mean better,” he said. “This is very far from the people, we’re just looking. It is very sad because we’re not coming back. We were set to go to Iloilo for the Dinagyang, I hope it’s better.”
Like Liam, who wondered whether his friends were having more fun in Kalibo, it was also a first time for Yukiko Ono, a 27-year-old Japanese.
Both were seated in front of the Sto. Rosario Church.
They said they were at the area around 8 a.m. Sun.Star made the interview almost noon, and they have so far seen only two contingents: the one from Cebu City and the other from the Cebu Provincial Government.
“Is this always this dragging?” asked Ono.
When told that it was probably better at the grandstand where performances were nonstop, Liam replied, “Why should we go inside a complex when many shows are held inside a complex? This is supposed to be parade, so it has to be on the streets and this one doesn’t work.”
After almost four hours of waiting, the parade finally moved for the next dancers to get near the church, only for them to sit down and have lunch.
Some spectators moaned. Another said, apparently bewildered: “I understand that they have to eat, but what’s happening here?”
Undisciplined
Ruby Villarin of Cebu City also aired the same frustration. She also lamented about the way some Filipinos show to be “undisciplined,” something that we should avoid especially with many visitors around, she said.
Spankie Deen, 18, of Ormoc City, considered the more than three-hour drag a “disaster.”
“It’s too boring, and they (organizers) are making it harder for the contingents. It lessens the excitement of the people. I feel like I would rather go home now and watch it on TV,” Deen said.
Spectators heard that the organizers told the performers to drag, because there were fewer contingents than in previous years and they wanted the parade to finish at nighttime, in time for the scheduled fireworks display.
If that was the case, said one dancer who requested not to be named, the Sinulog organizers should just have set a later schedule for the parade, such as after lunch.
Early in the day, a local official also expressed concern on vehicles used for the float that might overheat because of the drag, or they might run out of gas. (MEA/JPM)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (January 16, 2006 issue)
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