Fierce!

[or the "Martin Masadao* + Used Clothing (+ etc) + Semiotics = The Ukay Ukay Handbook!" post]

Again, I was scavenging through Cimatu's blog** (partly out of habit, partly because I have nothing better to do) when I found this relevant article on one of Baguio's novelties. Much like Fiske's "Jeaning," the essay acknowledges (albeit, subtly) the dualistic character of the phenomena.

Here's Cimatu's:

The Semiotics of Ukay Ukay

A French anthropologist while doing the ukay-ukay at Bayanihan in 1998, told me she remembered reading a book about the dumping of used-clothes in Nigeria. She said the clothes came from French and my mind swam over a sea of Christian Dior and Coco Chanel haute couture in some Nigerian version of Bayanihan. It is worth digging up on how ukay-ukay eventually became wagwag and why Baguio became the center of it all. Ukay-ukay, which means "dig up - dig up" in Visaya, was the term for these garments, accessories, toys and other thingamajigs packed in huge cartons and unloaded in piers. "Ukay-ukay" first cropped in the port areas like Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro, San Fernando and Manila. They had been around since the Second World War but hardly anyone noticed them.Even in Baguio, used clothings shipped from the US were already being sold in the Baguio Market in the 1950s***. European countries got the Marshall Plan and what we got were the jeep and the ukay-ukay. These were the Big Brother's hand-me-downs.And since Baguio was established as the Summer Capital exactly a hundred years ago by the Americans, it was inevitable that ukay-ukay also find its way up there. But PX was all the rage then and ukay-ukay were thrift shop fodder.The epiphany came when ukay-ukay (which suggest digging into the piles of unsorted clothes) became wagwag. There are many theories about wagwag. One suggested that the ukay-ukay originated behind the rice section of the Baguio Market, hence the borrowing of wagwag variety of rice. The most probable one is the act of shaking the clothes ("wagwag"in Filipino and Ilocano) from the pile. So the evolution is from digging them up (ukay-ukay), you eventually shake off the dust in the hope of sizing them and wearing them.The period that ukay-ukay became wagwag in Baguio was in the 1980s when the source of garments shifted from US to Hongkong and Japan. The Philippine Japanese Association, which is very strong in Baguio, started the weekly sale of used clothes from Tokyo until the floodwaters broke. Used garments from Hongkong also started pouring in.If in the past the ukay-ukay (shortened into U2 by the sellers after a popular brand of clothing not the rock band) were unloaded in piers, now the wagwag traders or viajeros fly every other week to HK and accompany the boxes with them. Many of these viajeros were former HK domestics who knew their way around the former Crown Colony. Opening the boxes (done mostly on Saturdays) is like Pandora opening that damned box. You wouldn't know what you get. A box of used bedsheets and blankets is a losing cause while a box of children's clothes is a jackpot. At first, the shops lay out whatever they got. But as the shops proliferate (almost a thousand now compared to only 200 in 1997), in-trading has become the norm. Some shops now sell only toys, others only baseball caps and jackets. When a wagwag shop exclusively for left-handed (Remember Simpsons?) would be created, you know that the end is near.When the 1990 earthquake hit Baguio, the thing that drove the tourists back were the U2 and the ww.com (gayspeak for wagwag). Now it is the main crowd drawer. This will find its significance when we realize that Bayanihan (the Ground Zero for wagwag) was one of the first hotels in Baguio. From rest-and-recreation, the thrust of Baguio shifted to shop-till-you-drop.Why Baguio? Because if you have a U2 shop, for example, in hot CdeO and the box you got were all fur coats, what would you do? Wear them and sweat like a hog or deconstruct them into seat covers? At least in Baguio you can wear them and if you find them tacky, ship them to Lepanto where Fashion TV has yet to be shown in cable. U2 is the new drug and the network is as extensive. I bought a used scarf in Banaue. Does this forebode the over-commercialization of our tourism industry? Don't be silly. It's still the fight against the rich vs. poor, the North vs. the South. If Hongkong kept all its clothes like my mother does, it would sink on its sheer weight. They would only be glad to dump these on us. That is why there are still so many of us who fear the wagwag, seeing these are harbingers of AIDS and other imagined diseases.The garment trade is a social and ecological nightmare, just ask Kathie Lee and her sweatshop scandal. At least when you wear recycled clothes, you are assuaging the guilt of those who owned it first. You also help Planet Earth. Globalization is not always a sell-out. American books and magazines destined for landfills are sold here cheaply and the best thing you can do is to read them and learn. The key is to wear not-so-innocent wagwag yet keep your virtues pure. I remember treading along the foggy Baguio-Bontoc Road when out from the mist in Atok loomed an old woman wearing a long white coat with fur collars. She was carrying a bouquet of cala lily. The gown can only be wagwag. My friend, a photographer who forgot his camera, cried at such a surreal sight. I can only mutter, The White Lady of Cordillera also wears wagwag.


*Martin Masadao (et al) won the best production design for the 2007 Cinemalaya entry, Pisay.
** Am apologizing for the shameless stealing, Mr. Cimatu. May the Force be with You (and me as well).
*** Hilltop, back of Baguio Market, is the best place for a true-blue-(h)ukay-(h)ukay experience. If itchiness persist, consult your doctor.

P.S. Corrected - from Masadao's to Cimatu's. Again, apologies to Mr. Cimatu.

image taken from http://witerary.com/2006/signoff/signof44.jpg