Rosebud, the very mod dresser, and a kalesa ride i

As much as I would not like to comment on this controversy surrounding undercover agent Mary Ogay Ong alias "Rosebud," I could not help but notice how well she dresses everytime she appears on TV. I have no idea why she wears Chinese-inspired outfits all the time, except that she’s ethnic Chinese, but this is the corniest reason one could think of.

It turns out that Rosebud has been a fashionista since she was little. Her high school batch yearbook lists her nickname as "Beeya," and I remember that it was the fad then to put double E’s in your name. Years after, the additional "h" came in, which would have made Rosebud "Beeyah," probably. "Beeya," coincidentally, is also the nickname of my mom, but during my mom’s time, it was spelled the way it sounded, "Bia." Life was simpler then.

Back to the fashion story, Rosebud, I mean Beeya, was described in her yearbook as:

"a very, very mod dresser

who is very much up-to-date

she’s never out-of-fashion

among friends, she’s never out of place."

Maybe the last phrase strikes a lot of people, that’s why she’s hot news lately. But being a retailer on the side, I’m more interested in her clothes.

Rosebud was class business manager in her sophomore year and won first prize in the Chinese Elocution Contest on her first year. She graduated in 1973 from the Immaculate Conception Academy in Greenhills, where I graduated in 1978. That makes her between 45 to 46 years old. But what could be the reasons she wears these Chinese-inspired outfits every day? Your guess list is as good as mine.

* * *

When I turned 40 a few months ago, one of the things I did was to try to relive my youth. For one, I went through dozens of old photos. Last weekend, I decided that I would go to Chinatown and do something I really enjoyed when I was a kid (although I did it only once) – ride a kalesa. I took my son with me.

I went to see my very good friend Evangeline, whose family runs a business along Quintin Paredes Street. When it comes to Chinatown, Evangeline is the expert and I must admit that I am, on the other hand, out of touch with the geography of Chinatown. Needless to say, being a Chinese Filipino, I am quite embarrassed about it.

At the end of Quintin Paredes, you could see the Binondo Church, and that was where the kalesas were parked. No wonder there is such a thing as kuwentong kutsero. On a Saturday afternoon the kutseros just sit lazily on their seats waiting for passengers, their big tummies facing the sky.

Evangeline said that she was afraid to ride the kalesa because she didn’t know how to get down once she got up. I told her that that was due to our age. We were five times older than the average horse in Binondo.

Like most kids, my son was undoubtedly excited to see a horse, much less ride a kalesa, and he became more excited when he was allowed to sit on the kutsero’s seat. Like a good mother I agreed to join him, but I rode in another kalesa and asked two bodyguards to join him instead. After not having ridden a kalesa for 30 years, I wasn’t sure I could hold my son without falling off the carriage myself. I managed to convince Evangeline to ride with me.

My son totally forgot that he was supposed to be enjoying a leisurely ride and started imagining that he was in a chariot race straight from the movie Ben Hur. He kept on yelling at the horse, "We’re first! Faster! Faster! Mommy’s second and close behind!" right in the middle of the street, in-between jeeps and cars and among puzzled pedestrians.

I have to admit that the entire trip was fun and relaxing. We started from Binondo Church, then got to Juan Luna Street, exited to Escolta and Sta. Cruz Church, then Dasmariñas Street and then back to Quintin Paredes. I could imagine how relaxing life was when only horses were the means of travel on the road. No honking of horns and no pollution. The entire ride cost us P100 each, and who knows whether I was overcharged or not.

I wonder how it is to be a kalesa operator. Unlike jeepney and cab operators, they don’t have to worry about huge depreciation and repairs. They don’t need to shell a large amount of money for an expensive racehorse since they’re not in the business of racing. All they have to do is to take the passengers from one point to another. The horse I was riding was already eight years old. If a cab was eight years old, it would already be sputtering. The only repairs were the horseshoes that had to be changed every three days. Your daily operating expense would probably be to make sure that your horse is well-fed and well-scrubbed. Otherwise, a kalesa with a malnourished-looking horse is just the equivalent of a smoke-belching taxi.

My son couldn’t get over the kalesa ride. When we left Binondo, he immediately said that he wanted to ride the carousel at the mall. Once upon a time, I was asked by people where I take my kid on weekends, and for six straight months I had to say, "We ride the MRT." He had then memorized all the stations from Taft to North EDSA. Now I wonder if I will start telling people, "We ride the kalesa."