Category Archives: News

Upcoming projects

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Art
If you follow me on Twitter (Twitter.com/Baybayin), you may have noticed that my latest work has been more digital compared to last year. That’s because I spend a lot of time on my iPhone. 1.5 hours everyday on the train, might as well do something constructive. Over the last 5 months, there have been a few apps that compliment my brush style pretty well. Detailed reviews of these apps and how I use them to come later. in the meantime, you can check out this video of Baybayin on the iPhone.

Interviews
As part of my this website, I’m featuring interviews with different Baybayin personalities. I ‘ve covered most of the known people online but, I’m facing issues finding people to interview in the Philippines. I do have an outstanding invitation for the curators of Bahay Nakpil. Does anyone have any leads?

Book
Over the last 2 years, I’ve been working on putting some sort of Baybayin book together. About 8 months ago, I finally decided on a direction. I initially wanted the book focused on history, modern modifications and art but changed my mind because I didn’t want to simply repeat what Hector Santos and Paul Morrow have already researched. The focus will now be my Baybayin art. For proper context, there will be sections on history and modern usage.

Events
I want to take part of every Filipino Festival this season but the reality is that I cannot afford to pay for the booth space for most of these events. Even if I split the costs, with my festival partner (Malaya Designs), it will still not be feasible. The problem is that this isn’t a business for me.  Although I have some art prints for sale and little knickknacks, I’m lucky if I break even. I believe that Baybayin should be part of EVERY Filipino cultural event just as much as the Philippine Sun and Star shirt and condo vendors. That said, I fully understand the capitalism andwill be working on a project that will give me presence at these events without me going broke. It may not happened this festival season, maybe next year.

Coming soon….
My day job is an Web Analyst and one of my job functions is user integration and documentation. Looking at the current Baybayin educational landscape, there’s a lot of great info out there thanks to Hector and Paul but it can be overwhelming to the newbie. It takes effort to read everything and filter out the crap. With the good info, there’s also inconsistent and some nonfactual material out there. The challenge is gathering all these moving parts and putting it in a clear and concise package. One of the best ways to leqar the script is via workshops. Unfortunately, workshops are limited to physical locations. Online workshops are limited by time constraints.

This summer, I’ll be launching a Baybayin course to hopefully address those issues.

Asian Heritage Street Celebration wrap-up

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The 5th Annual Asian Heritage Street Celebration was yesterday in downtown San Francisco. I had a booth along with Malaya Designs. It was our 1st non-Filipino event. I’d have to say that the reaction was comparable to Pistahan at Yerba Buena last year. As always, we did free name translations on stickers for everyone. Although people didn’t really buy much, it was great to meet people who “know me” online. I also spotted my work on an ankle. Oh yeah, thanks to Christine from Suku Art for the impromptu CBS interview.

Hey! That's my handwriting

Baybayin conversations

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I had my 1st of a series of Baybayin conversations at JJClothing in Milpitas, CA. I did about 60 translations (free of course).  It was fun meeting people and teaching the basics of the script. I estimate about 80% of the visitors didn’t know about it and 20% knew it as Alibata. I think about 1 out of 10 people I did translations for where truly interested in the script. I printed about 150 worksheets and only about a dozen were picked up. I’ll be back there next month. Subscribe to the blog to keep updated or at Twitter.com/Baybayin.

Richard Gali of BarkadaInc.com

EVENT: Baybayin conversations (San Francisco Bay area) 5/3/09

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I’ll be hanging out at the premier Filipino clothing store “JJ Clothing” at Great Mall, Milpitas, CA providing FREE name translations and talking Baybayin. Drop by and learn the basics of our pre-Filipino writing system. Free worksheets and other goodies.

Facebook event

JJ CLothing – Great Mall
408-586-8702
447 Great Mall dr.
Milpitas, CA 95035

The store is right across Jollibee and next to Starbucks.

View Larger Map

JJClothing.com

Baybayin translator v.1 now available

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The online traditional Baybayin translator v.1version is now live for everyone. It’s easy to use, just enter your words and hit the TRANSLATE button. For best results, use the Firefox (free) browser. Remember this is only v.1 and there might be some bugs. (more info about the translator)

Supporting Baybayin tutorials

Contact me with any feedback or questions about this program. Salamat!


Baybayin interview

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Baybayin

Christine Balza of Suku-Art and I got featured in the Times-Herald.

Even those in the Philippines don’t really know much about it, said Christian Cabuay, a Walnut Creek resident who runs the Web site http://www.baybayin.com. He attended high school in the United States and college in the Philippines.

But thanks to the Internet, both Cabuay and Balza, who runs the Web site http://www.suku-art.com, said they are seeing an explosion of interest in Baybayin.

The interest is particularly sharp among Filipino-Americans like Balza and Cabuay, they said.

“We’re out here trying to find identity,” Cabuay said as immigrants and children of immigrants try to reconcile their old heritage with an American one.

The popularity is especially felt among the tattooing community, said Cabuay, who sports a few Baybayin tattoos and offers tattoo designs at http://www.PinoyTattoos.com.