The Baguio We Know By Grace Celeste C. Subido

Summary The Baguio We Know

It's always nice to see people love the place they grew up in. My onlys struggle with the book was that some essays/articles I don't even know why they are in the book itself. Yung parang nabanggit lang nila isang beses ang Baguio tapos iba na ang kinukwento. For a book about Baguio, I was expecting more stories about Baguio.

Pero iilan lang naman. Karamihan naman ay talagang patungkol sa lugar na yun. Listening to their detailed stories is like them taking you on a trip around the gems that Baguio can offer. The Baguio We Know The anthology of essays provided a slice of life to the renowned Baguio City. I learned about Eveline Chainus Guirey, Daniel Burnham, Nick Joaquin, and strawberry jams. The selection evokes a feeling of longingness or a dash of nostalgia for those who have lived—and also for those who enjoyed their visit—in the serene city. Baguio is more than just a place. Oh, I miss going to Baguio. The Baguio We Know A nostalgic collection of personal essays and works that is somehow made an impression and left something behind in me. Some works are ornately written, it's quite hard to feel the writers' experience. But some just hit right square in the soul. The Baguio We Know 250 kilometers away from Manila, we find solitude in a frigid city tucked in the mountains, cloaked by a thick blanket of fog and under the imposing presence of pine trees. Baguio has always been the ideal, summer capital of the Philippines, a cold getaway in the middle of summer vacation in a tropical country.

Today, commercialization is slowly destroying what has been a sacred space for those who have made Baguio their home, and their own little secret. Nostalgia is abound for these people and with the memories that they have of the old days in Baguio continues to occupy their souls.

In this collection edited by Grace Subido, The Baguio We Know contains essays of Baguio’s residents, habitués, and lovers present a strong attachment to the once lofty city, a place where one takes in a different kind of rejuvenation of the soul. From roadside restaurants frequented by writers, to diminutive cafés which can hold thousands of stories exchanged by strangers, friends, and others to casual chess competitions in airy Burnham Park to whiling away slow afternoons in Session Road, there seems to be a place for every activity and a chance of everyone to do what they want.

Whether you return to Baguio every summer, or stay for good, the magic that one discovers when you immerse in the culture of this city is unfathomable, never to be severed, and to be treasured for years to come.

I may be over romanticizing Baguio in this sense but to me, it defines home in various ways. Home is the smell of taho in the morning wafting through the bus station. Home is watching storeowners unload the day’s cabbages onto a cart and into their market stall. Home is a rocking chair on the porch in Camp Allen. Home is walking through the fog when you were 14, as you make your way home at six in the evening with the red, pulsating light of K-Lite station guiding you. Home is getting a glimpse of the tall pine trees through your room’s windows as you wake up in the morning.

Baguio is home.
The Baguio We Know

Today, with the emergence of new, and concededly more titillating, tourist destinations, many will admit that Baguio has fallen from grace from its once lofty position as Summer Capital of the Philippines. However, perhaps more than anything, this collection of works reveals the Baguio that is so much more than the handmaiden to tourism that some may falsely believe is the answer to this city's ultimate salvation.

This collection of works provides a glimpse into that view from within of a place forged in consciousness that trandscends boundaries of time and space.

(From the Introduction) The Baguio We Know