Short Story Analysis (Paper Menagerie)

 It appears the author is making observations about society in the Philippines. He uses English but expresses himself in such a way that only a Filipino audience could completely relate to what he is saying. He uses references and speech patterns that are more common among Filipinos. He turns some nouns and adjectives into verbs such as “beautifuling” and “tomorrowed”. He also inserts some Filipino words into the English as well. It seems the author is talking to and about a group of society members and how they view things. It seems that this group, perhaps of a younger generation have discovered their “look” and are demonstrating how they wish to dress and behave and that this “look” is like a new wave moving across the country.

The poem entitled "Jolography" by Paolo Manalo obviously depicts variety of scenarios showcasing Filipino realities. The content of the poem narrates such activities being done by mostly teenagers and the environment where they belong. More importantly, this poem describes teenagers who sees themselves as more superior than their fellows when in fact they're not. This is evident in the first line of the poem where he says “how dead you child are”. This seems to imply the child or members of a younger generation are naïve or inexperienced. This generation dresses a certain way as he calls it “beautifuling”. This same look is being done in Cubao. The movement is also crossing the Ibabaw Mountains as well as Baclaran. Perhaps it is not well received there as the poet says “Please pass. Kindly ride on”.

 “She might as well be from the moon”. You might be thinking, is there really someone who came from the moon? Questionably, this phrase is quite vague and comprised of undiscovered thoughts needing in depth realization of its meaning.  Certainly, it’s not logical that someone would come from the moon. So why then, would we use such an expression? Even though we see the moon, it is very far away. In a way, the moon is a world unto itself. The moon may live in the same celestial neighborhood as the Earth but due to the distance between the two, the moon really isn’t aware of the affairs of the Earth. It doesn’t really know what the Earth is up to or what is happening on Earth. A similar analogy would be someone in Manila not knowing what is happening in New York and vice versa. One can imagine if someone arrived on the Manila scene from New York, he or she would stick out as being very different. He wouldn’t have any idea of what is happening in Manila, would not know the langua...

There's a boy whose Mom is Chinese and his Dad is a white American guy. Mom doesn't speak English. She was a "mail order bride" his Dad picked out of a catalogue. She makes origami animals for the boy. His favorite is a tiger. One day his friend comes over with his star wars figure. He asks to see the kid's toys so he shows him the origami animals. The protagonist "Jack" accidentally breaks the starwars you of the other kid. The other kid crumpled up the origami toy in retaliation calling it "cheap Chinese garbage". Another racist moment occurs when some neighbor ladies are talking about his mother. The boy Jack begins to resent his mother and his own identity being a mixed race child. He demands his mother speak English and draws away from her. He puts his origami animals in a box and puts them away. His mother died when he is in university. He pulls out the origami and finds a note his mother wrote to him on the tiger. The note tells about he...