Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.
Text copyright © 2003 Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd
Photographs copyright © 2003 George Tapan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4629-1389-3 (ebook)
LCC No. 2002107890
Printed in Malaysia
Previously publishing in 2010 as ISBN 978-0-7946-0632-9
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TUTTLE PUBLISHING® is a registered trademark of Tuttle Publishing, a division of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.
The Tuttle Story: “Books to Span the East and West”
Many people are surprised to learn that the world’s largest publisher of books on Asia had its humble beginnings in the tiny American state of Vermont. The company’s founder, Charles E. Tuttle, belonged to a New England family steeped in publishing.
Immediately after WW II, serving in Tokyo under General Douglas MacArthur and was tasked with reviving the Japanese publishing industry. He later founded the Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Company, which thrives today as one of the world’s leading independent publishers.
Though a westerner, Tuttle was hugely instrumental in bringing a knowledge of Japan and Asia to a world hungry for information about the East. By the time of his death in 1993, Tuttle had published over 6,000 books on Asian culture, history and art—a legacy honored by the Japanese emperor with the “Order of the Sacred Treasure,” the highest tribute Japan can bestow upon a non-Japanese.
With a backlist of 1,500 titles, Tuttle Publishing is more active today than at any time in its past—inspired by Charles Tuttle’s core mission to publish fine books to span the East and West and provide a greater understanding of each.
Palmweave fans are dyed in various colors and strung up for sale at a town market in the Bicol peninsula.
The face of the Filipina can be as haunting as the most memorable tropical design limned by nature’s soft shadows.
Contents
Islands of Promise, Islands of Hope
A People with a Passion for Living
The Archipelago of a Thousand Surprises
A Penchant for Literature, Beauty and Art
ISLANDS OF PROMISE,
ISLANDS OF HOPE
A Boracay outrigger sports a painted sail.
“We have been under tutelage for four hundred years; almost from the beginning of our recorded history. Now we are free. We have been free for sometime. And we have come to realize that to be free is more than merely to be rid of external constraint. It is, above all, to be self-possessed, as a person is self-possessed. And that is what we are up to. We are trying to acquire a personality. We are trying to possess ourselves."
— Horacio de la Costa, S.J., Selected Essays on the Filipino and His Problems Today
Cloud-capped Mayon Volcano looms in the far background as country lasses negotiate a rice paddy.
Cebu City’s Centennial Monument, the work of sculptor Eduardo Castrillo, depicts the historic confrontation between the natives and the Christianizing Spanish in 1521.
A much-quoted capsule history of the Philippines describes the country as having spent “three centuries in a convent and fifty years in Hollywood”. This is not so much a putdown as a clever explanation of why the Philippines still struggles to find its bearings following three centuries of Spanish rule and half a century of American domination — not to mention several tumultuous decades of independence!
No ornate temple friezes proffer Asian motifs in the Philippines. In their place, the ubiquitous Catholic church stands as a reminder that the archipelago may well be oddly placed. Indeed, the Philippines — the plural country that needs an article to precede its collective identity — has gained the tag of being the odd-man-out in Southeast Asia. No spicy curry dishes, no indecipherable calligraphy, and no symbols of Asian inscrutability. But these islands lay claim to countless pockets of paradise
