MANILA, Philippines - When it is October in Manila, it is October too in Bavaria, and though a few hours apart, both places flow with beer. On the third weekend of the month the Hotel Sofitel celebrated its Oktoberfest with a sumptuous Bavarian spread of sausages, sauerkraut, pig knuckles and potato gratins, among other inspired dishes, washed down by liters of San Miguel draft beer.
Oktoberfest itself has its roots in the early 19th century in Munich, as a fair to mark a good harvest and a celebration ahead of a long cold winter. This is not to be confused with the Walpurgis night, the witches’ reunion on the last day of April, which we first read about in Goethe’s Faust. But while Oktoberfest is supremely bacchanalian, with its exaggeration of food and drink, Walpurgis is occult though no less Dionysian, both events celebrated with almost frightening abandon. Oktoberfest, unlike Walpurgis, is good cheer and good vibe, a pre-Halloween get together. The witches’ congress is sinister and literary, the stuff of May Day eve.
So when Oktoberfest is transplanted from the field of Therese in Munchen to bayside Manila, all aspects of the pagan must be set aside, especially in the high tech and hospitable hotel hosting it, complete with mountain maids in costume, bands playing cow bells and accordion, a regular hoedown of polkas, schottisches and waltzes. There were souvenir mugs being handed out at the entrance, courtesy of the German Club Manila, and handsome glossy magazines as giveaways. The air outside the tent was salty and a bit humid.
The sausages of course were too many to count much less mention by name, excellente before you could say ham or pork or adelina, to be placed on a bed of sauerkraut for proper presentation, some mustard on the side. So it comes as no surprise that their names and other entrees on the menu could be mistaken for the German counterparts of Santa’s reindeer, Hendi and Wursti and Brezen and Knodel, Schweinebraten and Schweinshaxe and Steckerlfisch and Strudel. To say the company was convivial doesn’t even begin to describe it, and reminded of Treffpunkt Jedermann, chill place of the middle class during the original EDSA revolt. (Though at the time it wasn’t called chill.)
But the good vibe and cheer are priceless, especially beside a sea of bottomless beer. No chance at all of choking on the viands, because there’s golden brew to the rescue, and a host of athletic footballers on hand to perform any maneuver to clear the air passages just in case. There were World Cup and European cup champions present on an October night in Manila, authentic Germans raising their glasses and mugs as if Thomas Mueller had scored another hat trick; come to think of it, this Oktoberfest felt like a long delayed party for Germany’s World Cup victory in Brazil last summer. This is for Michael Ballack and Henrike Dielen and Rainier Fassbinder, in whose imaginary jeepney we rode years ago and a woman vaguely familiar sat opposite, a bracelet around her ankle.
The sound of the accordion is distinctly Bavarian, though Snoopy played the instrument too. The cow bells, however, reminded of Calgary, whose climate can rival the stiffest winters in Goethe’s mountains. Where were Georg Trakl’s verses when the hoedown started, and the mountain maids wove their train of dances around the hall of the bacchanal, if you only said the word Walpurgis they might somehow undress in your restless mind.
But for the beer, the beer, the beer, we might have invented a phrase other than good night. It was La Naval de Manila, Bavaria at bayside, the softness of the hotel by your side like a sea, while out in the streets the children’s eyes were begging for gratins. A cluster of words for your pfennig, and your silence bought for a schilling.